Client Solutions & Talent Strategy Lead – APAC

Client Solutions & Talent Strategy Lead – APAC

Role summary

To power our next phase of growth in APAC, we are hiring an experienced Client Solutions & Talent Strategy Lead to design and run a new delivery model that spans brings recruitment, client partnership, and commercial strategy.

This is the first role of its kind in the business and the first hire in APAC under this new model. You will initially step into a legacy operating model, and are expected to build, stress-test, and evolve the new model as the region grows.

You will operate with a high degree of autonomy, acting as the regional face of the business while remaining tightly connected to global leadership. Where global processes do not reflect local market realities, you are expected to challenge them constructively and propose better alternatives grounded in evidence and outcomes.

This role suits someone who has honed their skill set in agency or 360 recruitment, is a natural client partner who has managed their own desk or book of clients, and has worked with commercial or business operations to define strategy and delivery.

What you will own

1. Talent Strategy - You will personally own end-to-end recruitment delivery across APAC.

• Full lifecycle ownership: role scoping, market mapping, sourcing, screening, offer negotiation, onboarding

• Act as a trusted market advisor to internal stakeholders and clients:

• Challenge unrealistic briefs

• Recommend alternative profiles, locations, or rate structures

• Optimise for speed, quality, and commercial return

• Build proactive, reusable talent pipelines rather than relying on reactive hiring

• Develop deep local intelligence:

• Talent availability by market

• Compensation and rate benchmarks

• Competitor hiring patterns and movement

• Ensure hiring outcomes directly support client team performance and business objectives
  
  

This is a hands-on delivery role, not a coordination or oversight position.

2. Client Solutions & Account Ownership

You will act as the primary client partner for APAC accounts.

• Build trusted, embedded relationships with senior marketing and commercial stakeholders

• Own day-to-day account health:

• Role delivery updates

• Performance management

• Extensions, renewals, and escalations
  
  

• Lead structured client engagement:

• Quarterly Business Reviews

• Workforce planning discussions

• Talent strategy conversations

• Identify and progress opportunities for account expansion where there is clear client value

• Balance client satisfaction with commercial discipline, including rate and margin management

You are not a salesperson, but you must think commercially in every client interaction.

3. Regional ownership & model design

As the sole representative in APAC, you will operate with a founder mindset.

• Own the APAC operating rhythm day-to-day

• Actively shape and iterate the new commercial model:

• What should remain central vs local

• Where automation or tooling should replace manual work

• What breaks as volume scales

• Be a vocal, constructive contributor to how the business evolves globally

• Create the foundations for future APAC growth:

• Playbooks

• Hiring signals

• Role design for future team expansion

4. Cross-functional collaboration

You will work closely with global teams across:

• Commercial leadership

• Finance and operations

• People and compliance

• Delivery and central talent teams

Success in this role requires clarity of communication, strong judgement, and the ability to influence without hierarchy, particularly in a distributed, asynchronous environment.

Who you are

• 6–10+ years’ experience in recruitment or staffing, ideally with:
  
  

• Agency background (360 recruitment strongly preferred), or
  
  In-house recruitment with meaningful client-facing accountability

• A recruiter by training who has naturally gravitated towards client partnership and commercial problem-solving

• Deep understanding of APAC market dynamics, cultural nuance, and hiring realities

• Comfortable engaging senior marketers and business leaders as a peer, not a service desk

• Highly self-sufficient and energised by ambiguity

• Opinionated,Confident in a data-driven approach, pragmatic for commercial realities, and confident very comfortable challenging existing ways of working when they don’t serve the outcome

• Motivated by ownership, impact, and building something from first principles