Lead – Talent Acquisition

Job Summary & Purpose

Lead the Talent Acquisition function across the Sharaf DG and Sharaf Retail group — owning the hiring strategy and quality bar across all businesses, all countries and all levels. The role operates simultaneously as a hands-on senior hiring practitioner (personally closing leadership and other strategic roles), a strategic owner of the group's talent agenda (including the India GCC scale-up and other central scale-up initiatives), an active talent scout cultivating relationships with new-age tech, product, data and AI leadership to make the group a tech-first organisation, and a trusted talent advisor to the CEO and Executive Committee. Leads the TA leadership team across UAE and India and sets the operating standard, technology stack and AI-led assessment architecture that the wider function runs on.

Key Performance Areas (KPAs) & Principal Accountabilities

TA Strategy & Function Leadership

• Own end-to-end Talent Acquisition strategy and delivery for the entire Sharaf DG and Sharaf Retail group, across all businesses, geographies and levels.
• Define the group's multi-year hiring roadmap in line with business strategy, growth waves, GCC build-out and new market or business entries; sequence priorities and resourcing accordingly.
• Set and enforce the operating standard, process backbone, technology stack and AI-led assessment architecture that the function runs on; ensure consistent quality of hire across regions and entities.
• Operate as the single point of accountability for the function's overall outcomes — quality of hire, time-to-fill on critical roles, offer-to-join conversion, employer brand health and TA cost-to-revenue.

Senior & Leadership Hiring (Hands-On)

• Personally own and close leadership and other strategic roles across the group — CXO, function heads, country managers, business heads and senior tech / product / analytics leadership.
• Build and maintain a credible bench of leadership and specialist talent through ongoing market mapping and relationship-building, not just at the point of hiring need.
• Run senior hiring loops to a higher governance standard — pre-Loop documentation pack, structured competency assessment, Final Approver readiness — and represent the function in CEO and Board-level hiring conversations.
• Manage retained executive search partners at the group level — set briefs, hold them to a high quality bar and govern commercials.

GCC Scale-Up & Central Strategic Initiatives

• Own the talent strategy and outcomes for the India GCC scale-up — set the hiring roadmap, EVP and standards; oversee the India TA Lead and the on-ground hub.
• Translate the group's GCC ambition into a clear, sequenced and resourced hiring plan; intervene directly on the most senior, scarce or strategically important hires.
• Lead other central scale-up initiatives — new business unit launches, new function set-ups, geographical expansion, leadership pipelining and talent-led M&A integration.
• Drive group-wide initiatives such as succession planning, leadership benching, internal mobility frameworks and talent intelligence capability.

Tech Talent Strategy & New-Age Scouting

• Act as the group's primary talent scout for new-age capabilities — engineering, product, data, analytics, AI/ML, digital, design and innovation — across the GCC, India and other relevant talent markets.
• Build and maintain ongoing relationships with senior leaders in these spaces well ahead of hiring intent — through proactive market mapping, thought-leadership communities, conferences and direct outreach.
• Craft and continually sharpen the group's EVP narrative for tech talent — anchored on the credible journey to becoming a tech-first organisation — and tailor it for specific target organisations and audiences.
• Position Sharaf DG and Sharaf Retail as credible destinations for senior tech talent in the region and in India, despite competing for talent against larger global brands.

CEO & Executive Committee Advisory

• Operate as the trusted talent advisor to the CEO and the Executive Committee on senior hiring, leadership benching, succession risk, market compensation trends and talent intelligence on competitors and target organisations.
• Provide forward-looking talent input into strategic decisions — new business launches, organisational restructuring, M&A and capability shifts — well before hiring requisitions are raised.
• Be candid, evidence-based and willing to push back where the talent reality demands a different decision; protect the long-term integrity of the function and the group's talent brand.
• Maintain a confidential, real-time view of leadership succession across the group and surface gaps proactively.

TA Process Ownership; Technology & AI in Partnership with COE

• Own the group's end-to-end TA process — role definition, JD and assessment architecture, sourcing, AI-led screening, structured loops, decisioning and offer governance.
• Set the structured assessment and quality-of-hire standard for the function — including the competency framework that gets configured into AI interview agents and the human-judgment overlay on top of automated scoring.
• Partner with the HR Centre of Excellence (COE) on the TA technology stack — ATS, AI interview platforms, technical assessment platforms, sourcing platforms — and on the continuous evolution of efficiency, automation and AI augmentation. Bring the practitioner lens; COE drives the technology roadmap, vendor selection and platform implementation.
• Co-own platform outcomes with COE — adoption, configuration quality, throughput and the realised efficiency gains — while retaining accountability for hiring outcomes.
• Govern the panel of executive search firms, recruitment partners and platform subscriptions across the group; rationalise the panel based on outcomes.

Team Leadership & Capability Building

• Lead the TA leadership team across UAE and India — including leads responsible for tech and leadership hiring, operational hiring and the India GCC hub.
• Set the team's structure, KPIs, capability framework and development path; build a credible bench of TA leaders within the group.
• Coach the team on senior hiring, structured assessment, market mapping and stakeholder engagement at executive level.
• Build and uphold the culture of the function — high ownership, high quality, high candidate-experience, evidence-based decision-making.

Employer Brand & External Positioning

• Lead the group's employer brand strategy — both general-purpose (Sharaf DG and Sharaf Retail as employers of choice in the region) and audience-specific (tech-first positioning, GCC positioning, leadership-talent positioning).
• Represent the group externally in talent forums, industry conferences, talent advisory boards and senior-leader communities — building visibility and inbound interest from the talent the group wants.
• Partner with Marketing and Corporate Communications to ensure consistent, credible and differentiated talent messaging across channels.

Qualitative Requirements

Experience & Pre-requisites

• 15+ years of progressive Talent Acquisition leadership experience, including significant time owning the TA function at group or enterprise level — mandatory.
• Experience hiring in the Gulf / GCC labour market (UAE, KSA and/or other GCC countries) — mandatory.
• Experience setting up or scaling Talent Acquisition for a Global Capability Centre, captive centre or offshore unit (India or comparable) — mandatory.
• Hands-on experience hiring across both tech (Engineering, Product, Data, Analytics, AI/ML) and non-tech functions at scale — mandatory.
• Deep hands-on personal experience hiring senior management and leadership talent — mandatory.
• Prior experience advising a CEO or Executive Committee on senior hiring and leadership succession — highly preferred.
• Experience across retail, e-commerce, consumer or comparable customer-facing sectors — desirable.
• Track record of being personally connected into senior tech / product / data leadership communities — a strong plus.

Educational Qualification

Bachelor's degree mandatory; MBA / PG in HR or related discipline strongly preferred.

Skills & Technical Competencies

• Demonstrated ability to operate simultaneously as a hands-on senior hiring practitioner and a strategic function leader.
• Strong personal brand and network within new-age tech, product, data and AI leadership talent pools.
• Hands-on practitioner expertise with modern TA technology — ATS platforms, AI-led interview agents and technical assessment platforms — and the judgment to calibrate AI scoring against human evidence.
• Deep practitioner knowledge of structured, competency-based interviewing, EVP construction and senior-leader assessment.
• Executive-level stakeholder management — credible with CEOs, Boards, Function Heads and senior external partners.
• Strong commercial orientation — manages executive search partners, platform vendors and TA cost economics at scale.
• Excellent strategic and analytical thinking; able to translate business strategy into talent strategy and back.
• High personal integrity, discretion and confidentiality — handles senior and sensitive matters with judgment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; comfortable at Board and CEO level.