Senior Director (m/f/d) - People & Culture

Senior Director (m/f/d) - People & Culture

Intro

For our location in Freiburg im Breisgau, we are looking for a Senior Director (f/m/d) - People & Culture.

At NexWafe, we are developing a pioneering process to produce silicon wafers with fewer process steps, resulting in significant savings in production costs, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. As a Senior Director (f/m/d) - People & Culture you will play a key role in shaping and executing our people strategy in a fast-growing, international industrial environment.
Join our global team, shape the future of renewable energy and discover your career opportunities at NexWafe.

Your Mission

• Own and lead all aspects of People & HR globally, developing and executing both strategic and operational initiatives in close partnership with senior leadership across our sites in Germany and North America.
• Lead, coach, develop and grow the people team of 3 talented specialists, based in Freiburg, Germany.
• Act as a business partner to the executive team, particularly CEO and CFO and support the wider management team strategic HR guidance.
• Responsible for all end-to-end people processes along the employee lifecycle, including budgeting and outsourced payroll - together with the team.
• Anticipate, implement and continuously align Nexwafe's people programmes with the company's culture, ensuring an effective, engaging & inclusive team environment for people from all backgrounds.
• Drive organizational development initiatives, including resource allocation, and change management strategies.
• Leverage HR analytics to identify trends, assess organizational health, and inform data-driven decision-making and action planning.
• Build strong relationships with relevant stakeholders and local works councils, providing support and guidance on HR matters.
• Motivate, retain and develop the team and provide advice and coaching on leadership, people development and employee relations.
• Serve as a neutral and trusted point of contact for employees, offering support and resolution for sensitive or complex issues with discretion and empathy.

This role reports directly to the CFO and is part of NexWafe's extended management team.

Your profile

• You are a passionate HR professional with at least 10 years of relevant HR experience, including several years in a leadership role, ideally in an industrial and international setting.
• Degree in Business Studies, Psychology, or a related field.
• Proven experience working with works councils.
• Strong hands‑on mentality with a high level of decisiveness and execution power.
• Demonstrated care for people and high empathy to quickly build trust throughout your area of responsibility.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, especially at C-level.
• Previous experience in performance management, compensation, talent management, workforce planning, and employee engagement.
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills in both German and English.

Why us?

• A diverse team: Short decision-making processes, flat hierarchies and collaboration with experts from different areas await you.
• A diverse and exciting job: A company that contributes to the commercialisation of environmentally friendly solar energy with a low carbon footprint.
• Stability with a certain degree of flexibility: A permanent position with flexible working hours.
• Attractive remuneration programme: An attractive salary, a company pension scheme and profit-sharing for employees.
• Healthy balance: Take your physical and mental health to the next level with an annual health budget and a HanseFit membership.
• Expand your language skills: Optimise your career prospects with the language courses offered.

At NexWafe, we're striving to set a new standard for the future of photovoltaic wafer production. The need for efficient, affordable and cleanly produced solar technology has never been greater – we're rising to meet that challenge.