Head, Talent and Performance

Our Client is a dynamic and innovative oil and gas firm serving the energy needs of the Nigerian market with a renewed focus on downstream excellence, customer-centricity, and operational efficiency. Since its inception, the company has established itself as a leader in the trading, supply, and distribution of petroleum products, leveraging a massive retail network and strategic logistics infrastructure.

As they deepen their commitment to organizational growth, talent optimization, and cultural transformation, we seek an outstanding Human Resources leader to foster a high-performance workforce, drive employee engagement, and ensure alignment with Nigerian labor laws and international industry standards.

The Head, Talent and Performance is a critical executive leadership role accountable for enterprise-wide talent strategy, organizational development, and people-based governance. The incumbent will act as a trusted advisor to the CEO and senior leadership, fostering a high-performance culture, talent integrity, and alignment with Nigerian labor laws and international best practices. This is a transformational role aimed at driving a forward-looking, agile, and digitally enabled HR function that supports the company’s innovation and growth agenda within the energy sector.

Key Responsibilities

HR Strategy Development & Implementation

• Develop and execute a comprehensive HR and talent strategy aligned with organisational goals and commercial ambitions.
• Design and implement talent infrastructure, including selection, performance governance, compensation, leadership pipelines, and organisational design.
• Provide strategic HR leadership to the executive team and board, ensuring human capital is managed with the same rigour as financial capital.

Performance Management Expertise

• Build and enforce a robust performance management system that ensures accountability, transparency, and differentiation.
• Oversee the creation of measurable objectives, real-time feedback mechanisms, and consequence management protocols.
• Ensure performance management systems drive continuous improvement in talent density and organisational capability.

Talent Management Expertise

• Lead the end-to-end talent lifecycle including attraction, assessment, selection, onboarding, and succession planning.
• Execute a talent arbitrage strategy, sourcing global-grade capability at emerging-market cost.
• Ensure all talent decisions; hiring, promotion, development, or exit—raise the overall capability of the organisation.

Learning & Development Expertise

• Design and deliver leadership development and succession frameworks to ensure institutional resilience and continuity.
• Accelerate the readiness of high-potential individuals for expanded responsibility through structured development programmes.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning and capability building.

Compensation & Benefits Administration

• Align compensation architecture with organisational values and performance outcomes.
• Develop and administer differentiated retention and reward strategies for exceptional performers.
• Ensure compensation frameworks are competitive, equitable, and support the attraction and retention of top talent.

Culture & Change Management

• Architect and enforce a high-freedom, high-accountability culture that attracts, retains, and unlocks the best talent.
• Lead cultural transformation initiatives to embed meritocracy, accountability, and operational excellence.
• Develop engagement strategies tailored to the needs of top performers.

Employee Relations & HR Governance

• Advise the board on talent governance, leadership succession, and organisational risk.
• Ensure compliance with all relevant employment laws and regulations.
• Manage employee relations, ensuring fair and consistent application of policies and procedures.

Organisation Design & Workforce Planning

• Develop forward-looking workforce models aligned to business plans and growth objectives.
• Oversee organisational design to ensure clarity of structure, reporting lines, and decision rights.
• Build analytics and reporting systems that provide actionable insights for executive decision-making.

Leadership Capability

• Serve as an operating partner to the CEO, COO, and senior leaders on all talent decisions with commercial impact.
• Represent the organisation’s people strategy with authority and credibility in both internal and external forums.
• Model executive presence, courage, and high standards, setting the tone for leadership across the organisation

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources Management, Business Administration, Psychology, Law, or a related field. An MBA or a relevant Master’s degree (e.g., MSc in Strategic HR) is highly preferred.

• Professional certifications such as CIPM (Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria) are mandatory. Additional international certifications like SPHRi, SHRM-SCP, or CIPD are strongly required.

• Minimum of 12–15 years of progressive experience in Human Resources management, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership capacity—preferably within the oil and gas, energy, or large-scale industrial sectors.

• Deep knowledge of the Nigerian labor and regulatory environment, including the Nigerian Labor Act, Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 provisions regarding human capital, and NUPRC/NMDPRA guidelines for personnel in the energy sector.

• Strong experience in strategic workforce planning, collective bargaining/industrial relations, organizational design, and high-level talent acquisition.

Leadership Attributes

• Strategic and critical thinker with deep business insight into the energy value chain and the future of work in a transitioning industry.

• High ethical standards and a proven track record in building organizational trust and fostering an inclusive workplace.

• Exceptional communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence at the Board and Executive levels.

• Ability to lead change and drive enterprise-wide culture shifts toward higher productivity and agility.

• Digitally aware, with a strong understanding of Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS), people analytics, and automated payroll/performance platforms.