Senior HR Business Partner (Legal & Compliance)

Ares is seeking an accomplished Senior Human Resources Business Partner to support its Legal, Risk and Compliance businesses. This role will serve as a senior HR advisor to Legal, Risk & Compliance leadership and will play a critical role in shaping and executing the talent and organizational strategies that support the continued growth and evolution of these businesses. 

The Senior HRBP will partner closely with senior leaders to build, develop, and retain high-performing teams capable of delivering against the firm's ambitious growth objectives. The role requires a strategic, commercially minded HR leader who can operate effectively at the most senior levels of the organization, understand the dynamics of global Legal, Risk & Compliance functions, navigate complex organizational issues, and translate business priorities into effective talent strategies. 

The successful candidate will bring deep expertise across talent management, organizational effectiveness, leadership development, workforce planning, succession planning, performance management, and employee relations. This individual will serve as a trusted advisor and thought partner to senior leadership while helping the businesses scale effectively, develop leadership capability, strengthen talent pipelines, and evolve their organizational models to support continued growth.  Other core responsibilities will include providing general HR guidance/counsel to managers and employees, managing employee relations and performance issues; facilitating new employee onboarding and exits; facilitating core processes related to headcount planning/organizational design, performance management, compensation, promotions; partnering with the Talent Acquisition team on searches from a recruitment strategy standpoint; playing a leading role in diversity and learning and development initiatives. 

Ares is a fast-paced, high-growth, and rapidly evolving organization. Success in this role requires the ability to move seamlessly between strategic advisory and hands-on execution, exercise sound judgment in complex situations, and build strong relationships across businesses, functions, geographies, and levels of the organization. 

Reporting relationships 

• →Act as a trusted strategic advisor to Legal, Risk & Compliance leaders/managers, developing a deep understanding of business strategy, growth objectives, organizational priorities, and talent needs to deliver commercially relevant HR strategies and solutions. 

• →Partner closely with business leadership to develop and execute talent and organizational strategies that enable growth and ensure the organization has the right talent, structure, and capabilities to deliver against evolving business priorities. 

• →Advise leadership on organizational design and effectiveness, including operating models, spans and layers, role clarity, team structures, leadership accountabilities, and organizational capabilities required to support continued scale and growth. 

• →Lead strategic workforce and headcount planning, partnering with leadership to anticipate future talent and capability requirements and align investment in talent with business priorities. 

• →Drive succession planning and talent reviews across functions, identifying critical roles and talent and developing thoughtful succession and development strategies. 

• →Proactively identify organizational, talent, and workforce trends across the businesses and translate these into actionable insights and recommendations to strengthen organizational effectiveness, talent outcomes, and the employee experience. 

• →Lead and influence key annual talent processes, including performance management, promotions, compensation planning, succession planning, talent reviews, and workforce planning, ensuring strong alignment between talent decisions, performance differentiation, and business priorities. 

• →Partner with senior leaders to assess, develop, and retain key talent, including proactively identifying retention risks, capability gaps, and development opportunities across critical populations. 

• →Advise leaders and managers on complex people and organizational matters, providing thoughtful, pragmatic, and commercially oriented guidance while balancing business objectives, employee considerations, risk, and Ares policies and practices. 

• →Support the continued evolution and scaling of the functions by identifying organizational and talent implications. 

• →Leverage workforce analytics, market intelligence, and qualitative insights to identify emerging talent and organizational themes and provide proactive, data-informed recommendations to business leadership. 

• →Identify opportunities to strengthen organizational effectiveness and HR practices across the functions, sharing best practices and helping drive scalable and consistent approaches across the global organizations. 

• →Build strong partnerships across the HR function and collaborate within the HR team to deliver integrated solutions aligned with business priorities, including: 

• →Talent Acquisition: Partner on strategic workforce planning, senior and critical hiring, candidate slate reviews, selection strategy, and offer structuring to ensure high-quality hiring outcomes and build the capabilities required to support future growth. 

• →Reward: Partner on compensation strategy, annual compensation processes, benchmarking, retention considerations, and complex compensation matters to support competitive, performance-oriented, and commercially appropriate outcomes. 

• →Talent Development: Drive succession planning, talent reviews, leadership development, performance management, and targeted development strategies for critical talent and future leaders. 

• →HR Operations: Partner to ensure effective execution of employee lifecycle processes while identifying opportunities to improve efficiency, scalability, data quality, and the employee and manager experience. 

• →DEI: Embed inclusive talent practices into hiring, development, promotion, succession, and broader people strategies in support of the firm's objectives and talent priorities. 

Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree required 

• Advanced Degree preferred 

• 12-15+ years of progressive HR experience, including substantial experience operating as a senior HR Business Partner to executives and leadership teams within alternative asset management, asset management, financial services, investment banking, or another sophisticated, high-performance professional services environment. 

• Demonstrated success serving as a strategic HR advisor to senior executives within complex, global, high-growth, and client-focused organizations. 

• Experience supporting client-facing, distribution, wealth management, fundraising, product, or other commercial organizations strongly preferred. 

• Deep experience translating business strategy and growth objectives into organizational and talent strategies. 

• Experience building, coaching and developing high-performing teams with a strong player-coach mindset. 

• Demonstrated expertise in organizational design, workforce planning, succession planning, talent management, leadership development, change management, and organizational transformation. 

• Significant experience advising senior leaders on complex performance, compensation, promotion, succession, development, and retention decisions. 

• Strong analytical capabilities with demonstrated ability to use workforce data, market intelligence, and business insights to inform talent strategies and executive decision-making. 

• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel and PowerPoint; experience with Workday or comparable HRIS platforms preferred. 

The successful candidate will: 

• Bring strong commercial acumen and intellectual curiosity, with the ability to quickly develop a deep understanding of Legal, Risk & Compliance business models, strategic priorities, growth drivers, and talent implications. 

• Operate as a credible and trusted advisor to senior executives, combining strong business judgment with deep HR expertise. 

• Demonstrate a strong bias for action, exceptional work ethic, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment. 

• Exercise sound judgment and operate with a high degree of autonomy, discretion, and personal accountability. 

• Exhibit the highest standards of integrity, professionalism, and ethical decision-making. 

• Navigate ambiguity and organizational complexity with confidence, resilience, adaptability, and pragmatism. 

• Demonstrate exceptional relationship management and influencing skills, quickly establishing credibility and building effective partnerships across businesses, functions, geographies, and levels. 

• Balance strategic thinking with a hands-on, execution-oriented approach and a willingness to engage directly in complex or high-priority matters. 

• Demonstrate strong organizational discipline and the ability to manage multiple, competing priorities without sacrificing quality or attention to detail. 

• Bring deep expertise in organizational design, workforce planning, talent management, and organizational transformation. 

• Leverage strong analytical capabilities to interpret data, identify trends, challenge assumptions, and develop evidence-based HR strategies and recommendations. 

• Communicate with clarity, credibility, and impact, both verbally and in writing, and tailor communication effectively across diverse stakeholder groups. 

• Maintain composure, sound judgment, and professionalism in high-pressure, sensitive, or highly confidential situations. 

• Demonstrate reliability, strong personal accountability, intellectual rigor, and a collaborative, team-oriented mindset. 

• Handle confidential and sensitive business and employee information with the utmost discretion and care.