Vice President, Total Rewards

Summary

Join Western Digital as the Vice President, Total Rewards, leading the compensation, benefits, and HR M&A functions for the standalone HDD business. Reporting to the Chief Human Resources Officer, you will be a key member of the HR leadership team, shaping the company's rewards strategy and programs. This role involves designing and implementing compensation, equity, recognition, and benefits programs aligned with strategic goals. You will also oversee operational execution, collaborate with various stakeholders, and advise the Board's Compensation Committee. The ideal candidate is a proven Total Rewards leader with experience in a multibillion-dollar, global public company, possessing expertise in compensation, benefits, and HR M&A. This position requires strong leadership, communication, and analytical skills.

Requirements

• Be a proven Total Rewards leader who has led a compensation, benefits and HR M&A teams at a multibillion-dollar, global public company
• Have excellent credentials and experience in compensation, benefits, and wellness
• Have previous experience designing and administering executive and innovative rewards programs and partnered closely with a Board of Directors
• Have a career defined by a keen understanding of the competitive environment for attracting, developing, and retaining talent, as well as a deep knowledge of regulatory, compliance, legislative and market issues and trends and policy implications related to compensation
• Have experience scaling and maturing the Total Rewards function
• Have a collaborative leadership style that relies on excellent influencing and communication skills when developing and executing the strategies, programs and practices that create a robust value proposition for the Rewards strategy
• Be a hands-on leader, comfortable wearing many hats, and operating in a lean environment with a desire for ongoing learning, to keep Western Digital at the forefront of trends across executive compensation and the broader total rewards function
• Have relevant experience in developing, managing, and leading compensation and benefit programs, including executive compensation, broad based compensation, and employee benefits
• Have superior executive presence with the ability and credibility to present ideas and recommendations at all levels within the organization and to the Executive Leadership team and Board of Directors
• Grasp complexities and connections among problems or issues, be able to prioritize elements that will most drive success
• Have keen analytical capabilities, with the ability to identify and bring forward trends or market gaps in all elements of total rewards programs, as well as risks
• Have exceptional business knowledge, general management, and leadership capability
• Have the ability to set clear and challenging goals while committing Western Digital to operational excellence; be tenacious and accountable in driving results
• Be comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty; have the ability to adapt and lead through complex situations
• Be a leader who is viewed by others as having a high degree of integrity and forethought in their approach to making decisions; have the ability to act in a transparent and consistent manner while always considering what is best for Western Digital
• Have the ability to attract and recruit top talent, motivate the team, delegate effectively, celebrate diversity within the team, and manage performance; be widely viewed as a strong developer of others
• Have the ability to persevere in the face of challenges and exhibit a steadfast resolve and relentless commitment to higher standards, which commands respect from followers
• Be a leader who is self-reflective and aware of their own limitations; lead by example and drive the organization's performance with an attitude of continuous improvement by being open to feedback and self-improvement

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategy, design, operational execution, communication and administration of Western Digital’s compensation, equity, recognition, benefits, mobility and HR M&A programs and activities, including annual and long-term incentives, equity incentives, executive compensation and recognition
• Provide leadership to Western Digital’s job architecture program, ensuring that all salary programs, merit budgets and salary structures have market pricing at their core and are aligned with Western Digital’s overall philosophy
• Develop strategies to drive employee awareness and understanding of all compensation, recognition, and benefit programs; align as appropriate to Western Digital’s Talent Philosophy
• Lead all components of board level materials, presentations and recommendations related to Total Rewards, including direct ownership for the Proxy’s CD&A as well as all total rewards-related governance matters
• Responsible for the executive reward agenda, leads, and brings innovation to Executive compensation plan design. Acts as a strategic and trusted advisor on Executive compensation matters to senior leadership across the organization. Establishes credibility & confidence to enable practical and thoughtful engagement with the Compensation Committee, Executive team and leadership
• Monitor external trends and benchmarks. Proactively adjust total reward programs to stay competitive in the market; drive additional total rewards benefits harmonization outside the United States
• Ensure compensation, recognition, benefits and equity programs are both innovatively and equitably designed and then consistently applied
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to ensure optimal integrations with enterprise goal setting and metric development, performance, and talent management systems
• Develop deep relationships with leaders across the organization, HR Business Partners, and Talent Acquisition to help understand how total rewards is impacting Western Digital’s ability to attract the best talent
• Grow talent capability and bench strength within Total Rewards to enables stronger leadership succession
• Lead rewards related strategy and execution of People Reporting & partner effectively with the Analytics function to drive mature, data-driven conclusions and decisions across the organization at scale
• Responsible for all HR matters related to M&A, including leading teams’ efforts for due diligence reviews of M&A targets all the way through integration of compensation, pension, benefits and other HR systems of acquired companies

Preferred Qualifications

Have experience leading Total Rewards organizations through times of transformation; leadership through M&A activity, divestitures, spin-offs and carve-outs

Benefits

• Paid vacation time
• Paid sick leave
• Medical/dental/vision insurance
• Life, accident and disability insurance
• Tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts
• Employee assistance program
• Other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity
• Tuition reimbursement
• Transit
• The Applause Program
• Employee stock purchase plan
• The Western Digital Savings 401(k) Plan
• Short-Term Incentive (STI) Plan, which provides incentive awards based on Company and individual performance
• Annual Long-Term Incentive (LTI) program, which consists of restricted stock units (RSUs) or cash equivalents, pursuant to the terms of the LTI plan
• RSU awards are also available to eligible new hires, subject to Western Digital’s Standard Terms and Conditions for Restricted Stock Unit Awards