Principal, Talent & Leadership Development

Who are we?

Smarsh empowers its customers to manage risk and unleash intelligence in their digital communications. Our growing community of over 6500 organizations in regulated industries counts on Smarsh every day to help them spot compliance, legal or reputational risks in 80+ communication channels before those risks become regulatory fines or headlines.  Relentless innovation has fueled our journey to consistent leadership recognition from analysts like Gartner and Forrester, and our sustained, aggressive growth has landed Smarsh in the annual Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing American companies since 2008.

We are looking for an experienced, hands-on talent leader to build a culture that raises the bar on talent: where leaders know what great looks like, how to spot it, and how to grow it.

This person will build talent and leadership programs largely from the ground up using industry-leading practices, lead how we attract, identify, develop and promote high-potential talent, and evaluate, select, and bring in AI-driven talent practices, including predictive talent forecasting, for better and faster talent decisions. This role is about knowing the AI talent-tech landscape deeply and choosing and deploying the right platforms, whether vendor or in-house, not building AI models or algorithms from scratch.

This is a senior individual-contributor role with no direct reports. Impact comes through influence rather than authority: partnering with HR business partners and business leaders, earning credibility with senior executives, and using evidence and expertise to drive adoption of talent practices across the organization.

This work is as much about organizational design and change management as it is about building programs: getting the structure, roles, and processes right, and then leading the change management needed for leaders across the organization to adopt and sustain new ways of working.

We are a U.S.-based company operating globally, with colleagues across 10 countries. Programs need to work well beyond the U.S., which means designing with cultural differences in mind from the start and planning for translation and localization of content, not treating them as an afterthought.

How will you contribute?

Build the talent and leadership foundation.

Assess current leadership capability and talent practices and build a multi-year talent roadmap tied to business priorities.

Diagnose organizational design issues that limit leadership and talent effectiveness and lead the change management work needed to roll out new structures, roles, and processes successfully.

Refine the leadership model so it defines what great leadership looks like, and uses it as the backbone for hiring, assessment, development, performance, and promotion.

Build core talent programs and processes, starting with the highest impact of needs.

Design programs and content for a global, multicultural workforce across our 10 countries, building cultural awareness and planning for translation and localization from the start rather than retrofitting it later.

Raise the bar on talent.

Build a culture where leaders consistently recognize, hire, and reward strong talent.

Equip leaders to assess talent well, through structured behavioral interviewing, clear success profiles, and calibrated talent discussions.

Introduce best practice, multi-method assessment (360 feedback, personality and cognitive measures, business simulations, and structured interviews) for hiring development and promotion decisions.

Partner with Talent Acquisition to attract and select the strongest candidates for critical roles.

Attract, identify, develop, and promote high potentials.

Set clear, evidence-based criteria for identifying high-potential talent across the organization.

Build accelerated development paths: stretch assignments, rotations, coaching, mentoring, and executive exposure.

Run talent reviews and succession planning for critical roles, with ready-now and ready-later candidates identified.

Track and improve promotion readiness, time-to-promotion, and retention for high-potential and critical talent.

Elevate leadership across the organization.

Design, build and personally facilitate leadership programs end to end, from first-time managers to senior leaders.

Build and facilitate programs that strengthen the executive team's effectiveness as a team and offer coaching support to senior leaders as needed.

Support new leaders onboarding and integration so leaders become effective quickly.

Partners on performance management and calibration so development and promotion reinforce each other.

Select, implement, and manage AI-driven talent practices.

Identify and introduce AI-driven talent practices that move the organization beyond basic tool use, drawing on deep fluency in the AI talent-tech landscape rather than building the underlying models.

Select and implement AI and people-analytics platforms, whether vendor or in-house, for predictive talent forecasting, to anticipate leadership pipeline gaps, readiness, and retention risk.

Bring AI-driven insights into talent reviews, succession, assessment, and development decisions.

Scout the market for proven AI talent solutions, run pilots, and select and manage the right vendors to scale what works.

Put the governance in place with Legal, Security and Privacy, so AI in talent decisions is responsible, transparent, and checked for bias.

Partners, measurement, and team

Work through HR business partners and business leaders, so talent practices are owned and used across the organization.

Bring deep knowledge of industry best practices and where the market is headed to inform build-vs-partner conversations with the broader cross-functional team, and help identify, evaluate, and manage the strongest vendors, assessment providers, and coaches to build with.

Report impact with clear measures: leadership capability, internal fill rate for leadership roles, promotion speed, high-potential retention, and engagement.

Manage the talent development budget day-to-day — prioritizing spend, tracking ROI, and directing contracted vendors, coaches, and project-based contributors — partnering with the budget owner on formal approval.

What will you bring?

10+ years in talent management, leadership development, or organizational development, including 5+ years leading enterprise-wide programs or initiatives (people-management experience not required).

Experience in organizational design and change management, with a record of leading large-scale change efforts that stick.

A record of building talent and leadership programs from the ground up.

Deep experience with best-practice assessment methods and leadership models, and using them in hiring, development, and promotion.

Experience designing high-potential and succession programs that accelerate internal promotion.

Experience designing and personally facilitating leadership programs and coaching senior leaders.

A track record of evaluating, selecting, and implementing AI-driven talent and people-analytics platforms, whether vendor or in-house (this role chooses and deploys AI tools; it does not require building AI/ML models from scratch), including predictive insights, with a clear view on responsible use.

Experience selecting and managing vendors, assessment providers, and talent platforms.

Strong consulting and influencing skills with senior leaders, and comfort both setting strategy and doing the work.

Experience building talent or leadership content for a global, multicultural workforce, including planning for translation and localization, and adapting content so it lands well across diverse cultural contexts.

Nice to have.

Advanced degree in I-O psychology, organizational development, HR, or related field.

Accreditation in leadership assessments (e.g., Hogan, DiSC) or coaching certification (ICF).

What do we offer?

Healthcare insurance: We provide medical, dental, and vision insurance, and a flexible spending account that allows you to set aside pre-tax dollars to pay for eligible out-of-pocket expenses.

Stock options.

Personal time off: A healthy work-life balance is critical to your success at the office. Smarsh offers a “take-what-you-need” time off policy as well as flexible work arrangements.

401K Match: Smarsh provides a 4% 401K match for which employees are fully vested on day one.

Sabbatical: The Smarsh sabbatical programme provides a time to recharge, study or simply do something you are passionate about away from the workplace. Employees are eligible after six years of service.

Recognition: We’re big on kudos for a job well done. Our employee-recognition programme enables co-workers to nominate their peers who best embody our core values for recognition.

Don't meet every requirement? Apply anyway! We value diverse candidates and encourage applications, even if you don't perfectly match the job description. Studies have shown that some strong candidates may self-select out of the interview process prematurely, at Smarsh we encourage an inclusive, high-performing environment.

About our culture

Smarsh hires lifelong learners with a passion for innovating with purpose, humility and humor. Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. We work closely with the most popular communications platforms and the world’s leading cloud infrastructure platforms. We use the latest in AI/ML technology to help our customers break new ground at scale. We are a global organization that values diversity, and we believe that providing opportunities for everyone to be their authentic self is key to our success. Smarsh leadership, culture, and commitment to developing our people have all garnered Comparably.com Best Places to Work Awards. Come join us and find out what the best work of your career looks like.