Director, HR Business Partner
Serving the needs of all families with young children, Carter’s Inc. is the largest North American apparel retailer exclusively for babies and young children, encompassing Carter’s, OshKosh B’gosh, Skip*Hop and Little Planet brands. Meaningful work, constant learning, genuine people, and a community guided by core values that promote inclusion and innovation is in everything we do. There are many reasons to build your career at Carter's.
How you’ll make an impact:
The Director, HR Business Partner (HRBP), leads the strategic HR partnership for multiple corporate client groups across the organization and directly manages a team of HR managers and HR specialists responsible for strategic talent, workforce design, HR product/service delivery and change enablement. This leader will act as the senior HR partner to functional leaders, ensuring HR solutions align to business priorities across the enterprise while building the capability and performance of the HR team.
Strategic HR Business Partner – 50%
Serve as the senior HR partner to functional leaders, aligning people strategies with business priorities across multiple corporate client groups.
Lead talent strategy and workforce planning, translating business goals into clear people plans (capability needs, succession, critical roles, and hiring strategies).
Act as a trusted advisor to leaders by anticipating talent risks and opportunities, co-creating solutions, and guiding organization design decisions to improve effectiveness and workflow.
Design and deliver succession and high-potential (HIPO) strategies for critical leadership roles, including defining criteria, facilitating talent reviews, and translating outcomes into development and mobility plans.
Use people data and analytics to inform decisions, tell clear value stories, and connect HR initiatives to business outcomes through dashboards and regular leadership reviews.
Build strong stakeholder engagement by establishing regular strategic partnership reviews, communicating HR’s value, and leveraging leader success stories to drive advocacy.
HR Transformation & Team Leadership – 50%
Partner closely with HR Centers of Excellence to ensure clarity across the HR operating model and effective integration of services and solutions.
Drive adoption of HR platforms, digital tools, and standardized processes that improve efficiency and scalability.
Embed change management into HR initiatives, defining success metrics and tracking outcomes such as leader adoption, succession coverage, and readiness for critical roles.
Report progress and impact of HR transformation efforts to HR leadership and business stakeholders.
Lead, coach, and develop a team of HR Managers and HR Specialists, building strong capability in strategic consulting, talent planning, and change leadership.
Set clear expectations and priorities for the team, ensuring high-quality delivery of HR solutions while balancing strategic and operational demands.
Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement within the HRBP team.
We’d Love to hear from you if:
Business acumen: Ability to translate enterprise strategy into workforce implications, quantify talent risks and connect HR investments to business outcomes.
People leadership and team capability building: Proven experience managing managers and specialists; ability to redeploy capacity, coach leaders, and create role clarity in an HR operating model.
Talent management: Proficiency in leading succession planning, HIPO identification, leadership development and strategic workforce planning tailored to cross functional business contexts. Expected to own talent strategies for client groups and deliver measurable bench strength improvements.
Data judgment: Ability to interpret people analytics, craft data stories tied to business KPIs to influence decisions across client groups.
Relationship management: Skill in building trusted c-suite and senior leader relationships, secure buy-in for strategic HR initiatives. Expected to act as equal thought partner to business leaders.
Strategic consulting: Consulting capability to diagnose performance gaps, design workforce solutions, guide leaders through tradeoffs and cocreate long-term talent plans. Expected to shape business decisions with workforce insight.
Agility: Aptitude for iterative problem solving, navigating volatility, and reprioritizing talent efforts quickly across multiple client groups during business shifts. Expected to guide teams through constrained optimization of competing goals.
Must have skills and experiences:
A minimum of 8 years of proven senior HRBP / strategic talent leadership experience supporting multiple business client groups in large, complex organizations, preferably including retail or other consumer-facing businesses. Demonstrated success in designing/implementing talent strategies and succession planning for critical roles.
Strong experience using people analytics and translating data into business recommendations; experience working with people analytics or chief people analytics teams to create dashboards and value stories.
Track record of partnering with senior leaders and influencing cross functional stakeholders (COEs, IT, Finance) to secure buy in and drive adoption of strategic HR initiatives.
Demonstrated change management experience in HR transformation, productized HR, or HR technology implementations (including stakeholder engagement, adoption planning and governance
Experience designing or facilitating participative design or talent workshops and guiding leaders to rank redesign goals and navigate tradeoffs.
Strong communication and storytelling skills, including experience delivering partnership reviews and advocating HR value through leader success stories and measurable impact.
Education and credentials: typically, bachelor’s degree in HR, business, organizational development or related field; advanced degree or relevant certifications preferred where applicable.
NOTE: This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive. The duties described may be changed or reassigned at the discretion of management, and the employee may be required to perform duties that are not listed in the job description.
Carters is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local law.