Vice President, Total Rewards & HR Technology and People Services

About Certara

Certara accelerates the potential of bringing medicines to market and to patients using biosimulation software, technology, and services to transform traditional drug discovery and development. Our clients include more than 2,400 biopharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and regulatory agencies across 70 countries.

Our goal is to enable the life sciences industry's use of data, modeling, and analytics to make better decisions across the various phases of discovery and drug development. Our software and scientists incorporate modern advances in scientific understanding, drug development experience, data analysis, and AI resulting in significant opportunities to decrease the cost and increase the probability of success for new drug approval and commercialization.

Certara is looking for a hands-on Vice President of Total Rewards & HR Technology and People Services to own and evolve our global compensation, benefits, equity, HR operations, and people technology programs. Reporting directly to the CHRO, this is a high-visibility role for someone who combines deep functional expertise with a genuine passion for technology, efficiency, and getting things done in a lean environment.

You'll be both strategist and executor - designing programs that reinforce a pay for performance culture, managing vendors, driving HRIS and automation initiatives, and serving as a trusted analytical partner to HR and senior business leadership across the full employee lifecycle.

What You'll Own

• Global compensation design and administration - base pay structures, incentives, equity, and executive pay - with a strong focus on pay for performance
• End-to-end equity plan administration in partnership with the equity administrator and Legal
• Global benefits strategy, plan design, and vendor management
• Job architecture - job families, leveling, grade structures, titling, and career pathways
• Full employee lifecycle operations - onboarding, job changes, internal mobility, leave, and offboarding
• SOX compliance - internal controls, audit readiness, segregation of duties, and access governance across HR systems
• HRIS roadmap and implementation; automation and AI-enabled process improvement
• HR compliance across global jurisdictions and partnership with Finance on global payroll processes
• Vendor management across the full HR and total rewards ecosystem
• Workforce analytics and modeling to drive compensation, headcount, and organizational decisions

We're looking for someone who has genuinely done this work - not managed people who did it. The profile below reflects what success looks like in this role:

Must-Haves
* 15+ years of progressive HR leadership with a track record of building and running total rewards and HR operations functions in complex, global environments

* Proven ability to design compensation programs that reinforce pay for performance - you've built or overhauled merit, bonus, or incentive frameworks with real differentiation and measurable impact

* Hands-on operator with a global footprint - you've personally administered programs across multiple countries and know the regulatory, cultural, and operational complexity that comes with it

* HRIS implementation depth - you've been in the room for system selection, configuration, and go-live, not just inherited a system someone else built

* SOX experience - you understand HR's role in internal controls, audit readiness, and access governance, and you've worked in a SOX-compliant environment

* M&A experience - you've navigated the complexity of harmonizing programs and onboarding acquired populations under real time pressure

* Strong financial acumen - you model, forecast, and partner with Finance as a peer, not a requester

* Executive presence - you present to and influence C-suite leaders with confidence, clarity, and credibility

* Pragmatic and business-first - you solve for outcomes, not process, and you know the difference

Highly Preferred
* Background in life sciences, pharma, biotech, or technology companies

* Experience with automation tools and AI-enabled HR platforms - you've piloted something, not just read about it

* Advanced degree (MBA, MS HR) or professional certification (CCP, SHRM-SCP)

The right candidate is efficiency-obsessed, tech-forward by nature, and a genuine collaborator who invests in the broader HR team and across functions. You're a builder who creates structure, modernizes systems, and communicates in the language of business - pragmatic, data-grounded, and outcome-focused. You don't need perfect information to move forward - you make sound calls and course-correct as needed, without waiting for a playbook.

Certara bases all employment-related decision on merit, taking into consideration qualifications, skills, achievement, and performance. We treat all applicants and employees without regard to personal characteristics such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, nationality, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental condition, genetic information, military service, or other characteristic protected by law.