About GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly (GD) aims to reshape international giving – and millions of lives – by providing cash grants directly to the world’s poorest. The Brookings Institution estimates that $70B of cash transfers would be required to eliminate the poverty gap; the aid sector currently spends $135B each year, much of it on evidence-free interventions. GiveDirectly wants to change that, establishing cash transfers as a benchmark for foreign aid – as the index fund is a benchmark for the financial industry – and in the process accelerating the end of extreme poverty.

GD has raised over $1B since launching in 2011, delivered cash to more than 1.5 million people in 15 different countries. We’ve also supported large-scale, experimental research that indicates strong recipient impact of our programs. As a result, GD has been celebrated as one of the most innovative non-profit companies by Fast Company, while the growing cash transfer movement (and GD’s leading role within it) have been featured in the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, Foreign Affairs, and The Economist.

Our culture is candid, analytical, agile, and non-hierarchical. Our global team of ~150, and country operations teams of ~650, together come from 21 different countries speaking 69 different languages. From software engineers to seasoned humanitarian workers, former management consultants to public servants, researchers to field operations -- it’s an incredible group of people.

Our values are central and deliberately opinionated. We genuinely center the people we serve in our decision making, and strive to build an ambitious, dynamic and high performing environment. We strongly encourage you to read through our values carefully, if they reflect how you like to work and energize you, this could be a great fit.

We work hard to create an environment in which all our team members can thrive, succeed and grow. We support flexibility, take care of each other, have fun, and create professional growth opportunities.

About the role

GiveDirectly is seeking an experienced, business-oriented Head of People to design and run the human systems that power our mission. You’ll connect talent to organizational performance in a global, distributed, and exceptionally lean context—serving as both architect and hands-on operator across talent acquisition, org design, leadership development, performance, rewards, HR operations, and employee relations.

Reports to: Chief Operating Officer

Travel Requirement: Must be able to travel ~3-4 times per year to one of our countries of operation for team retreats or field visits

Level: We are open to considering exceptional candidates at both the Senior Director and Vice President levels, depending on experience and fit.

What we’re looking for:

• People-as-performance operator: Strong business acumen with a track record of treating the People function as a driver of company/organizational outcomes (talent density, speed, quality, and reliability)—not just a compliance, people support, or admin team.
• A builder in lean, distributed environments: Demonstrated success building simple, scalable systems (hiring, performance, rewards, workforce models, HRIS) across multiple countries and regulatory contexts—with high judgment on tradeoffs under tight constraints.
• Trusted pair of hands for complex employee relations: Depth in sensitive employee relations, risk management, and safeguarding across very diverse contexts and cultural settings; calm, discreet, and principled.
• Exceptional leader and manager: Recruits, calibrates, and develops senior talent; sets a high bar; builds a small, high-leverage team and operating cadence that scales.
• First-principles, outcome oriented problem solver: Structured, analytical thinker who disaggregates problems, designs from first principles, iterates quickly, and measures results.
• Varied context experience: Comfort moving between private sector and NGO settings and between different org sizes; able to bring best-of-both to GD’s model.

Why work at GiveDirectly?

At GiveDirectly, we work to ensure that you have everything you need to excel in your role and on your team, including:

• A supportive team that works hard and cares hard
• A robust health benefits plan (exact details will vary by country)
• Flexible paid time off that staff is encouraged to take
• Allowances for desk set-up and learning and development

• Make talent a competitive advantage: Raise the hiring bar; build a repeatable "hiring machine" (calibration, principles/values assessment, structured loops, quality-at-30/90 days). Build a proactive network and bench for executive and scarce roles.
• Design performance + rewards: Implement a lightweight, high-signal performance system tied to development and consequences; refresh compensation and total rewards to attract and retain top talent in our markets while preserving our lean model and staying economically efficient as an organization.
• Be the steady employee relations advisor: Lead on sensitive personnel matters with discretion and fairness; support investigations, safeguarding, crisis response, and change communications.
• Coach and level up leadership: Partner with the CEO/COO and executives on org design, succession, and leadership effectiveness; intervene early to raise or replace when needed.
• Build scalable global people ops: Improve HRIS/workforce tools; standardize core processes; ensure compliant, efficient operations across countries (subsidiaries, contractors, EOR/PEO) in close partnership with Finance and Legal.
• Strengthen culture and engagement: Ensure our values are felt and lived across the organization; that staff are supported to be at their best thanks to inclusive practices that build growth, trust, belonging, creativity, and execution speed.
• Own people analytics: Ship leadership dashboards (headcount, hiring velocity/quality, retention, eNPS/voice, performance distribution) to inform decisions and accountability.
• Operate with leverage: Keep the People team small, senior, and high-output; set SLAs, clarify ownership, and continuously remove friction for program and fundraising teams.

• Strong business acumen
• Building simple, scalable systems across multiple countries and regulatory contexts
• Employee relations and risk management
• Leadership and management
• Structured, analytical thinking
• First-principles problem solving
• Comfort moving between private sector and NGO settings

• Track record of treating the People function as a driver of company/organizational outcomes
• Demonstrated success building systems across multiple countries and regulatory contexts
• Depth in sensitive employee relations, risk management, and safeguarding
• Experience recruiting, calibrating, and developing senior talent
• Varied context experience across different organizational sizes and sectors