Global Payroll Manager

Global Payroll Manager

Location: Greater Philadelphia Area

Work Arrangement: Hybrid - 3 Days Onsite / 2 Days Remote

Compensation: $130,000–$140,000 Base + 15% Annual Bonus + Equity

Position Overview

212° is conducting a confidential search for an experienced Global Payroll Manager to join the Finance organization of an established, multinational company in the Greater Philadelphia area.

This individual will lead global payroll operations for an organization of approximately 500+ employees across multiple countries, overseeing both internal payroll operations and relationships with international payroll providers. The Global Payroll Manager will lead an experienced payroll team while ensuring accurate, compliant, and timely payroll processing across a complex, multi-state and multinational environment.

The ideal candidate combines deep payroll expertise with strong people leadership, financial acumen, systems knowledge, and a continuous-improvement mindset. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced payroll professional who takes pride in building efficient, well-controlled processes and developing strong teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and oversee global payroll operations across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and additional international locations.
• Manage, coach, and develop an established payroll team.
• Oversee U.S. multi-state payroll processing and ensure compliance with federal, state, and local tax requirements.
• Manage relationships with international payroll providers and other payroll-related vendors.
• Ensure accurate and timely year-end processing, including W-2s and applicable international tax reporting.
• Respond to payroll tax notices and work with appropriate agencies and providers to resolve discrepancies.
• Oversee payroll system administration, maintenance, integrations, and ongoing optimization.
• Partner cross-functionally with Finance, Accounting, HR, and technology teams to ensure accurate payroll processing and system integration.
• Manage payroll accounting activities, including general ledger interfaces, reconciliations, funding, and journal entries.
• Maintain payroll processes and controls in accordance with SOX requirements and support internal and external audits.
• Ensure accurate payroll treatment of bonuses, incentive compensation, equity awards, stock grants, and related employee/employer taxes.
• Identify opportunities to improve payroll processes, strengthen controls, increase automation, and enhance operational efficiency.
• Maintain the highest level of confidentiality when handling employee compensation and payroll information.

Qualifications

• 8–10+ years of progressive payroll experience, including meaningful international/global payroll responsibility.
• Previous experience managing and developing payroll professionals.
• Strong knowledge of U.S. multi-state payroll and federal, state, and local payroll tax requirements.
• Experience overseeing payroll across multiple countries and working with international payroll providers.
• Experience with ADP Workforce Now strongly preferred.
• Experience with Workday HCM or a comparable enterprise HCM environment.
• Strong understanding of payroll accounting, reconciliations, general ledger activity, and payroll funding.
• Experience supporting SOX controls and payroll-related audits.
• Experience processing or overseeing equity, stock, bonus, and incentive compensation.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, including Pivot Tables, lookups, formulas, and data analysis.
• Demonstrated success improving payroll processes, controls, integrations, and/or automation.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities and critical payroll deadlines.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and customer-service skills.
• High level of integrity, discretion, reliability, and attention to detail.

The experience level, payroll leadership, global exposure, systems, multi-state payroll and Excel requirements align directly with the prior formal qualifications.

Compensation & Work Environment

The anticipated base salary range is $130,000–$140,000, plus a 15% annual performance bonus and equity opportunity.

This position follows a hybrid schedule with three days per week onsite in the Greater Philadelphia area.

What Will Make Someone Successful

The successful candidate will be highly detail-oriented, trustworthy, reliable, organized, and accountable. They will take pride in the accuracy of their work, double-check the details, communicate effectively across departments, and bring a humble, collaborative approach to leadership.

This role is particularly well suited for someone who enjoys taking ownership of a complex payroll environment and continually looking for ways to make an already established operation more efficient, automated, accurate, and scalable.

This is a confidential search. Additional information regarding the organization will be shared with qualified candidates during the interview process.