Head of Human Resources

About Search Partner

Talentsquare is a Workforce Architecture and Talent Solutions company. We help ambitious organisations build, access, and deploy the human capability they need to grow—through advisory, search, intelligence, development, and our on-demand platform, Circuit.

For this mandate, Talentsquare has been retained to identify and secure the most qualified candidate who can deliver lasting impact.

The Opportunity

Our client is a premier Nigerian Managed Security Services Provider, delivering managed SOC, MDR, red team, DFIR, and professional services to enterprise and government clients. As the company scales, it seeks a strategic and highly professional Head of Human Resources to build the people infrastructure that will carry the business forward.

This is not a routine HR management role. You will report to executive management and partner directly with technical and business leaders to architect a high-performance, security-conscious workforce. You will own HR strategy, talent acquisition, performance management, employee relations, learning and development, compensation, compliance, HR technology, and workforce analytics. Your work will shape how the firm attracts, develops, and retains the specialised talent that defends Nigeria’s most critical digital assets.

If you are a seasoned HR leader who combines deep knowledge of Nigerian employment practice with the discipline to build systems, the courage to advise senior leaders candidly, and the ambition to embed HR excellence in a fast-growing cybersecurity firm, this is the role.

Responsibilities

Strategic leadership and workforce planning

• Develop and execute an HR strategy directly aligned to the company’s business objectives.
• Translate growth plans into clear workforce, recruitment, development, and succession requirements.
• Advise executive management on organisational design, capacity planning, employee engagement, and people-related risk.
• Own the annual HR plan, budget, and implementation roadmap.

Talent acquisition and onboarding

• Build a rigorous, end-to-end recruitment engine: position scoping, structured assessment, consistent selection, and seamless onboarding.
• Cultivate pipelines for critical cybersecurity, technical, sales, and operational roles.
• Partner with universities, professional bodies, and recruitment communities to keep the firm visible to top talent.
• Track recruitment effectiveness through time-to-fill, offer-acceptance rates, and probation success.

Performance, culture, and employee relations

• Design and embed a company-wide performance management framework with clear objectives, feedback loops, and annual appraisals.
• Equip managers to set expectations, coach, evaluate, and document performance.
• Serve as the trusted professional for employee relations: grievances, disciplinary processes, investigations, and conflict resolution.
• Champion a culture of accountability, integrity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Drive engagement, recognition, and retention initiatives informed by survey data and exit-interview insights.

Learning, development, and succession

• Conduct systematic training needs assessments; build and manage an annual L&D plan tied to business and competency requirements.
• Coordinate technical, leadership, compliance, and security-awareness training.
• Maintain accurate records of skills, certifications, and renewal dates; evaluate training impact.
• Establish succession plans for critical leadership and specialist positions, and support career-pathing for cybersecurity professionals.

Compensation, benefits, and payroll coordination

• Support fair and competitive salary structures and periodic compensation reviews.
• Provide accurate, validated payroll inputs to Finance within deadlines.
• Maintain strict confidentiality over compensation information.
• Ensure all compensation decisions are consistent with policy and properly documented.

HR governance, compliance, and cybersecurity workforce integrity

• Develop, review, and maintain policies, employment templates, and the employee handbook.
• Guarantee HR practices comply with Nigerian employment regulations, statutory obligations, and professional standards.
• Coordinate background checks, confidentiality agreements, and joiner-mover-leaver controls with IT and Information Security.
• Support investigations involving misconduct or potential insider risk; protect sensitive employee, customer, and commercial information.

HR technology, AI, and analytics

• Lead the adoption and continuous improvement of the HRIS and digital HR workflows.
• Identify opportunities to digitise and automate repetitive HR processes.
• Leverage workforce analytics to inform recruitment, retention, performance, and succession decisions.
• Evaluate and implement AI-enabled HR tools responsibly, ensuring human oversight, fairness, and data protection.

Executive reporting

• Deliver accurate monthly and quarterly HR reports covering workforce demographics, vacancies, recruitment progress, turnover, performance trends, training status, employee relations matters, engagement risks, and compliance posture.

Core Mandate - 12 Months

• Complete a comprehensive audit of HR policies, records, contracts, and processes.
• Establish an approved workforce plan and updated organisational structure.
• Strengthen recruitment, assessment, onboarding, and probation management.
• Implement a company-wide performance management framework with manager training.
• Build an executive HR dashboard and monthly reporting cadence.
• Review compensation, benefits, engagement, and retention risks.
• Embed structured training, competency tracking, and certification monitoring.
• Harden joiner, mover, and leaver controls with IT and Information Security.
• Improve the HRIS and automate selected HR workflows.
• Present and execute a 12-month HR improvement roadmap.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in HR Management, Business Administration, Industrial Relations, Psychology, Social Sciences, or a related discipline.
• Minimum of 7 years of progressive HR experience, including at least 3 years leading an HR team or function.
• Strong, practical knowledge of Nigerian employment regulations, statutory requirements, and HR professional standards.
• At least one recognised professional certification: CIPM (with active membership and a valid HR Practitioners’ Licence strongly preferred), SHRM-CP/SCP, HRCI PHR/SPHR, or CIPD.
• Demonstrable experience across the full HR spectrum: recruitment, performance management, employee relations, policy development, learning and development, compensation administration, and HR reporting.
• Hands-on experience with HRIS platforms, workforce analytics, and HR process automation. Digitally literate and proficient in Microsoft Office.
• Commercial awareness and the confidence to advise, influence, and constructively challenge executive management.
• High integrity, sound professional judgment, and the ability to handle sensitive information with absolute confidentiality.
• Excellent communication (written and verbal), conflict resolution, stakeholder management, analytical, and organisational skills.
• Experience in cybersecurity, technology, telecommunications, financial services, professional services, or a similarly fast-paced environment is a distinct advantage.
• Experience supporting technical teams, distributed employees, or 24/7 operations is an advantage.