Director, Human Resources

At Corbion, we exist to champion preservation in all its forms, preserving food and food production, health, and our planet.

Shape the People Agenda. Enable business performance. Protect our license to operate.

The Opportunity

The HR Director, North America is a pivotal leadership role at the intersection of business strategy, people, organization, and risk. As the senior People partner to the North America Leadership Team (NAM LT), you will help shape and deliver the regional People Agenda, translate business priorities into practical workforce and organization choices, and ensure leaders have the capabilities, talent, and culture required to perform and grow.

This is a true “both/and” role: a commercially minded, forward-looking business partner and a highly credible HR professional with command of the core disciplines that matter in the North American landscape. You will combine strategic influence with operational rigor across U.S. and Canadian employment practices, employee and labor relations, benefits, payroll governance, fiduciary responsibilities, policy, and compliance.

You will be expected to challenge constructively, coach with impact, make sound decisions in complex situations, and turn enterprise People priorities into outcomes that work for NAM. The role also drives greater consistency and harmonization of HR processes across the United States and Canada while respecting local legal, regulatory, labor, and business realities.

What You Will Do

- Shape and deliver the NAM People Agenda. Partner with the NAM LT to convert business strategy into integrated priorities for organization, workforce, leadership, talent, capabilities, culture, and engagement.

- Serve as a trusted and courageous business partner. Bring insight, independent judgment, and a strong people perspective to leadership decisions; coach senior leaders and challenge constructively when needed.

- Enable organizational performance and transformation. Lead organization design, workforce planning, succession, talent reviews, performance management, and change initiatives that improve effectiveness and deliver sustainable business results.

- Build leadership and talent strength. Identify critical roles and capability gaps, strengthen succession pipelines, accelerate development, and partner with Talent Acquisition and Learning & Development on high-quality solutions.

- Foster a high-performing and inclusive culture. Translate Corbion’s values into everyday leadership practices, strengthen accountability and engagement, and help create an environment where people and performance thrive together.

- Lead the core HR agenda with your team of HR professionals. Maintain effective employee lifecycle policies and practices and advise on complex employee relations, performance, investigations, disciplinary matters, conflict resolution, and organizational change. Offer opportunities to grow, develop and deliver for members within the HR team.

- Safeguard compliance and sound governance. Monitor federal, state, provincial, and local employment requirements across the U.S. and Canada; regularly review policies and practices, assess risk, and ensure appropriate controls, documentation, and escalation.

- Provide labor relations leadership. Shape union and collective bargaining strategy, support negotiations, maintain constructive labor relationships, and prepare the organization for emerging labor issues.

- Oversee benefits and payroll governance. Guide the strategy, design, implementation, and ongoing effectiveness of competitive benefits programs and ensure timely, accurate, and well-controlled payroll delivery.

- Exercise fiduciary oversight. Fulfil applicable plan fiduciary responsibilities prudently and in the interests of participants and beneficiaries, with appropriate oversight of plan administration, investment governance, expenses, and payroll-related controls.

- Drive consistency and continuous improvement. Harmonize HR processes across the U.S. and Canada where this adds value, use workforce data and external insights to improve decisions, and partner with global Total Rewards, HR Operations, Talent, and Learning teams to deliver an excellent employee and manager experience.

- Lead through partnership. Build trusted relationships across functions and levels, manage external advisers and vendors as needed, and lead and develop HR team members with clarity, care, and accountability.

What You Will Bring

- Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Psychology, or a related discipline; a master’s degree is advantageous.

- At least 10 years of progressive HR experience, including senior HR leadership or business partnering responsibility in a complex organization; SHRM-SCP or SPHR certification is preferred.

- Experience in managing a team of HR professionals, inspiring and empowering them

- Strong business acumen and a track record of influencing senior leaders, connecting people choices to business outcomes, and operating effectively in a global matrix.

- Deep, practical knowledge of U.S. and Canadian HR practices, including employment compliance, employee and labor relations, investigations, performance management, policy, benefits, payroll, and fiduciary governance.

- Experience supporting a mix of manufacturing, supply chain, commercial, and corporate functions is strongly preferred.

- Demonstrated ability to lead organization design, workforce planning, talent and succession, culture, engagement, and complex change.

- Excellent judgment, integrity, and discretion, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, manage risk, and handle highly confidential matters.

- Strong analytical and project leadership capabilities, including successful delivery of complex cross-functional initiatives on time and within budget.

- Executive presence and outstanding communication, coaching, influencing, negotiation, and conflict-resolution skills.

- A collaborative, pragmatic leadership style, high degree of autonomy, and genuine commitment to developing people and strengthening teams.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means the NAM LT sees HR as an essential business partner; the regional People Agenda is focused, actionable, and visibly connected to performance; leadership and talent pipelines are stronger; employees experience fair and consistent people practices; and Corbion’s compliance, labor, benefits, payroll, and fiduciary obligations are managed with discipline and confidence.

About Corbion

Corbion is a sustainable ingredients company dedicated to preserving what matters, including food and food production, health, and the planet. We specialize in lactic acid, lactic acid derivatives, food preservation solutions, functional blends, and algae ingredients, using our deep application and product knowledge to propel nature’s ingenuity through science. With more than a century of experience, we continue working side-by-side with our customers to make our cutting-edge technologies work for them. Leveraging our advanced capabilities in fermentation and preservation technology, we help customers differentiate their products in diverse markets ranging from food and animal nutrition to home & personal care, pharmaceuticals, electronics, medical devices, and bioplastics. In 2025, Corbion generated annual sales of € 1,267.4 million with a workforce of 2,408 FTEs. Corbion is listed on Euronext Amsterdam. For more information: www.corbion.com

Corbion is an equal opportunity employer and committed to a diverse workplace. All applicants will be considered equally without regard to race, color, ethnicity, veteran status, religion, national origin, marital status, political affiliation, age, sex, sexual orientation, handicapping condition, membership in an organization or any other non-merit factors.

Corbion provides reasonable accommodation to applicants.

EOE/M/F/Vet/Disabled

Corbion does not accept unsolicited resumes from individual recruiters or third party recruiting agencies in response to job postings. No fee will be paid to third parties who submit unsolicited candidates directly to our hiring managers. All candidates must be submitted by approved Corbion vendors who have been expressly requested to make a submission by our Talent Acquisition team for a specific job opening. No placement fees will be paid to any firm unless such a request has been made by the Corbion Talent Acquisition team and such candidate was submitted to the Corbion Talent Acquisition Team.