Head of People Controlling

YOUR MISSION

Pandora is looking for a Head of Workforce Planning to lead our integrated workforce-planning process end-to-end, ensuring that People plans and Finance forecasts translate into one consistent, decision-ready view across the Anaplan WFP and P&L modules. As a key member of the People Leadership team, you will enjoy high-profile exposure to Senior Leadership and Pandora C-Level executives—including the CEO and CFO—serving as a trusted strategic partner on critical talent and financial decisions. Over the next 12–18 months, you will build the governance, standards, and team that make Pandora's workforce plan the trusted single source of truth connecting People and Finance.

THE JOURNEY

Own the integrated workforce-planning calendar, governance, and delivery across annual budgeting, regular forecasting, and multi-year planning cycles.

Drive headcount, capacity, capability, and personnel-cost strategy across a massive operational footprint (>5,000 headcount and >€200M PEX) spanning 15+ markets in Europe and APAC, supporting iconic powerhouses like Foodpanda, Yemeksepeti, and Foodora.

Act as the primary strategic link between People and Finance, unifying workforce assumptions, planning definitions, ownership models, deadlines, and approval workflows.

Own the business process for the Anaplan WFP module and ensure full alignment with the Anaplan P&L module—reconciling headcount, personnel costs, allocations, and phasing seamlessly.

Define and maintain global planning standards for positions, vacancies, hires, exits, compensation assumptions, employer costs, restructuring impacts, transfers, and recharges.

Lead monthly actuals-versus-plan reviews, pinpointing material variances, root causes, and corrective action plans alongside Finance, People Partners, and business unit heads.

Develop actionable workforce scenarios covering growth, productivity, restructuring, cost targets, and capability gaps to provide senior executives with clear guidance on risks and trade-offs.

Team Leadership & Data Governance: Build, develop, and mentor a growing Workforce Planning team while establishing robust controls for data quality, access, version management,

WHAT YOU WILL BRING TO THE RIDE

+7 years of relevant experience in workforce planning, HR controlling, FP&A, people analytics, financial planning or a related discipline, including demonstrated experience leading a planning process and coordinating or managing a team in a matrix environment.

Strong understanding of headcount management, organisational structures, personnel-cost planning, budgeting, forecasting and P&L mechanics.

Hands-on Anaplan (or comparable Systems) experience, ideally across workforce-planning and financial-planning modules, including model navigation, planning cycles, inputs/outputs, scenario management and reconciliation.

Ability to connect HR events and organisational decisions to their financial impact and explain that impact to both People and Finance audiences.

Strong analytical judgement and confidence working with large, complex and sensitive datasets, with proven stakeholder-management skills and the confidence to challenge assumptions and drive decisions without relying solely on formal authority.

High accuracy, integrity and discretion when handling employee, compensation and organisational data; professional proficiency in English.

Nice to have: experience with Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM or a comparable HRIS; experience with Power BI, Tableau, SQL or comparable tools; experience supporting reorganisations, restructuring or operating-model changes; experience in a multi-country, shared-service or geographically distributed organisation.