Global Head of People Experience & Change - Orthopedics

About DePuy Synthes

DePuy Synthes is a global leader in Orthopaedics, advancing patient care through innovative solutions across joint reconstruction, trauma, spine, sports medicine, and related surgical technologies. As DePuy Synthes separates from Johnson & Johnson to become the world’s largest, most comprehensive Orthopaedics-focused company, the organization is entering a defining chapter—establishing its own corporate identity, voice, culture, and reputation while continuing to serve patients, customers, and healthcare systems around the world.

Position Summary

We are seeking a visionary and execution-oriented leader to serve as the Global Head of People Experience & Change - Orthopedics. This executive will be responsible for designing and leading an employee experience strategy by driving enterprise-wide change initiatives that enable superior business performance, organizational agility and employee engagement.

This role will shape how employees experience the company across every stage of the employee lifecycle—from onboarding to career growth, leadership transitions, organizational change, wellbeing, recognition, and culture moments that matter.

The leader will also oversee change management for major enterprise initiatives, ensuring successful adoption, engagement, readiness, and measurable impact across global markets.

The ideal candidate blends employee empathy, transformation expertise, data-driven decision-making, communications excellence, and strong enterprise execution capability.

Key Responsibilities

1. Global People Experience Strategy

• Define and lead the global People Experience vision aligned to business strategy and company culture.
• Design employee experiences across key lifecycle moments, targeted to specific employee groups
  • Attraction & onboarding (including IT)
  • Growth & development
  • Performance & feedback
  • Career mobility
  • Rewards & recognition
  • Leadership transitions
  • Wellbeing & inclusion
  • Offboarding / alumni
• Apply journey mapping, employee listening, and behavioral insights to redesign experiences.

2. Enterprise Change Management

• Lead change strategy and execution for enterprise-wide transformations including:
  • Organizational redesign
  • Digital / HR technology transformation
  • M&A / integrations / carve-outs
  • New operating models
  • Workforce strategy shifts
  • Culture transformation
• Build enterprise readiness, adoption, and stakeholder engagement plans.

3. Employee Listening & Insights

• Own employee listening strategy including engagement surveys, pulse surveys, focus groups, sentiment analysis, and targeted diagnostics.
• Translate insights into actions that improve experience and performance.
• Measure outcomes by business unit, region, level, and employee segment.

4. Communications & Engagement

• Partner with Internal Communications and executives to create compelling narratives during change.
• Ensure consistent, transparent, and inspiring employee communications globally.
• Equip leaders with messaging and toolkits.

5. Governance, Metrics & ROI

• Establish KPIs for employee experience and change effectiveness.
• Build dashboards measuring:
  • Adoption
  • Engagement
  • Readiness
  • Productivity impact
  • Retention
  • Program ROI
• Report progress to executive leadership and Board committees as needed.

6. Leadership & Team Building

• Build and lead a high-performing global center of excellence team.
• Develop capabilities in change management, experience design, communications, analytics, and program execution.

Required Experience

• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in Human Resources, Transformation, Employee Experience, Organizational Effectiveness, Consulting, or related fields.
• Proven success leading enterprise-wide global change initiatives in complex matrixed organizations.
• Deep expertise in employee experience design and change management methodologies.
• Experience operating in multinational environments across regions.
• Strong analytics orientation with ability to convert data into action.
• Exceptional executive communication and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Experience

• Experience in Fortune 500 / public companies.
• Background in consulting (McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, Accenture) or enterprise transformation office.
• Experience in healthcare, medtech, manufacturing, consumer, or other complex regulated industries.
• M&A integration, spin-off, or carve-out experience.
• Familiarity with HR technology platforms (Workday, SuccessFactors, Oracle, ServiceNow, etc.).

Leadership Competencies

• Enterprise mindset
• Strategic and operational balance
• High emotional intelligence
• Change catalyst
• Strong executive presence
• Data-driven decision maker
• Influences without authority
• Global cultural agility
• Bias for action and accountability

What Success Looks Like in First 12 Months

• Defined enterprise People Experience strategy globally
• Improved key employee journey scores
• Successfully led major transformation initiatives with strong adoption
• Established robust employee listening and action framework
• Increased leadership confidence in organizational change capability
• Built scalable global COE team and governance model