Director - People and Culture

About the Company:

Messe Muenchen India is a wholly owned subsidiary of Messe München GmbH, one of the world’s leading trade fair organizers, headquartered in Germany. We play a critical role in building industry-defining B2B platforms that connect global expertise with India’s fast-evolving markets. Our portfolio includes flagship trade fairs such as analytica Lab India, IFAT India, drinktec India, productronica India, laser World of Photonics India, air cargo India, and bauma CONEXPO INDIA, each operating at the intersection of business growth, innovation, and thought leadership.

As an organization, we operate with strong governance, global standards, and a deep respect for people and culture. Leadership at Messe Muenchen India is rooted in building capable teams, enabling performance through clarity and accountability, and creating an inclusive, values-led workplace. We value leaders who combine operational excellence with long-term people development, and who can scale systems, nurture talent, and strengthen culture while delivering business impact.

Role Summary:

The Director - People & Culture (P&C) will partner closely with the Chief People Officer to co-create and drive MMI’s People & Culture agenda, building the capabilities, talent, organizational practices and people infrastructure required for continued growth.

MMI operates in a high-growth environment where the business continues to evolve and reinvent itself at pace. The role therefore requires a business growth mindset, agility, pace - building people practices, capabilities and systems that can grow with the organization in tandem.

This is a hands-on leadership role requiring strategic perspective, strong execution and comfort operating through change, ambiguity and evolving priorities.

Org Structure alignment:

• Director - People & Culture reports to the Chief People Officer
• The People & Culture Team (of 3 professionals) reports to Director - People & Culture

Roles and Responsibilities, include but are not limited to:

Capability Building

• Translate business priorities into future leadership, managerial and functional capabilities.
• Build focused interventions to close critical capability gaps.
• Strengthen leadership effectiveness, with emphasis on feedback, performance and accountability.
• Measure capability through application and impact, not participation in capability development participation alone.

Organizational Effectiveness

• Diagnose organizational challenges across structure, roles, accountability and ways of working.
• Shape organization design as the business grows in scale and complexity.
• Use business, people and listening insights to identify systemic opportunities for improvement.
• Build greater adaptability and readiness for continued change.

Talent Infusion

• Anticipate the talent MMI will need next and translate this into clear workforce priorities.
• Build proactive pipelines for critical, niche and leadership talent.
• Strengthen quality of hire, with direct involvement in senior and critical talent decisions, as per needs.
• Balance external talent infusion with internal mobility, succession and career progression.

People Operations & Governance

• Continually improve People Operations for relevance, keeping it simple, scalable, reliable and people-centric.
• Design people processes, policies and systems for the organization's future scale.
• Accelerate digitization, automation and self-service while simplifying the people experience.
• Ensure strong governance across payroll, benefits, compliance, policies, records and people data.

P&C Leadership & Business Partnership

• Co-create P&C strategy and priorities with the CPO, bringing perspective, insight and constructive challenge objectively.
• Partner senior leaders on critical organization, capability and talent priorities.
• Lead, coach and mentor the P&C team while remaining hands-on in high-impact work.
• Build a function that operates with pace, ownership, commercial orientation and a scale mindset.

What success in this role looks like:

• P&C keeps pace with the business and anticipates what scale will require next.
• Critical capabilities and talent are built or infused ahead of demand.
• Structures and ways of working evolve effectively as the organization grows.
• A stronger culture of performance, ownership and accountability is visible.
• People Operations become simpler, more digital and scalable.
• The P&C team demonstrates agility, commercial orientation and strong execution.
• The CPO and Director operate as a complementary leadership partnership with clear alignment.
• The P&C team reporting to you looks up to you as a strong addition to the team and would love to learn more in your leadership.

• 14–18+ years of progressive P&C experience, with breadth across capability building, organizational effectiveness, talent and people operations.
• Experience building and scaling people practices in high-growth, evolving or transformation-intensive environments.
• Strong business acumen, with the ability to understand business priorities and translate them into pragmatic people solutions.
• A digital-first mindset, with hands-on experience using HRMS/HRIS platforms, automation and technology to simplify and scale P&C.
• Strong analytical orientation. Comfortable slicing and dicing data in Excel when deeper diagnosis is required from scratch, rather than relying only on pre-visualized dashboards.
• Experience leading P&C teams and a genuine interest in coaching and mentoring team members as their roles and capabilities evolve.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and changing priorities with sound judgment; able to simplify complexity without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• A genuine passion for People & Culture as a profession and craft - someone who actively stays curious, builds expertise and wants to keep evolving as a P&C leader.
• Independent thinking and the confidence to challenge constructively, then align and collectively own decisions.

• A leadership role shaping the growth of a leading B2B trade fair organization across India, Middle East, and Africa.
• Exposure to global exhibition networks and international best practices.
• A culture that values foresight, innovation, and performance excellence.
• Work-Life Integration with people focused policies, for e.g. Flexi working hours, Paid time-offs, WFH x 4 days/ month
• Performance-Linked Incentives.