Director, Global Compensation at Grant Thornton in Chicago, IL

Director, Global Compensation

Location: Chicago, IL, United States

Grant Thornton is seeking a Director, Global Compensation to join the team. Approved office locations can be found below.

As Director, Global Compensation, you will lead the strategy, design, and governance of compensation across our global footprint — harmonizing pay practices across countries while respecting local markets and regulatory requirements. You’ll own our global compensation philosophy, build scalable pay structures, and serve as a key architect of our global job framework. A defining feature of this role is leading compensation integration for M&A activity — bringing newly acquired firms onto a consistent job and pay architecture in a way that protects talent, realizes synergies, and drives cultural alignment. You’ll partner across People & Culture, Finance, Legal, and business leadership, because together is how we succeed.

Your day-to-day may include:

Global compensation strategy, design, and integration

• Own and evolve the global compensation strategy and pay philosophy, ensuring alignment to business goals and competitive market positioning.

• Design and maintain scalable, market-based pay structures that flex across geographies while preserving global consistency.

• Serve as the subject-matter expert, advising senior leaders on pay decisions, market positioning, and total cash competitiveness

• Lead the development and governance of the global job architecture — job levels, ranks/progression, career paths, and technical specialty alignment that is anchored in a consistent, competency-based taxonomy.

• Oversee job mapping, leveling, and validation as roles are aligned to the global framework and migrated into HRIS systems and define a phased path to the firm’s compensation strategy (base, bonus, equity).

• Assess integration-driven role changes (scope, retention risk, market demand) and recommend base pay and bonus actions with strong change-management discipline.

Benchmarking and market insight

• Lead the benchmarking approach and market positioning; manage survey providers (e.g., Mercer, WTW etc.) and market-pricing tools (e.g., Payfactors).

• Interpret market data to inform structure design, salary ranges, and bonus tables.

• Administer salary structures across geographies.

Governance, risk and compliance

• Ensure compliance with all local and global regulatory requirements, including EU Pay Transparency Directive readiness and pay equity reporting across jurisdictions.

• Lead pay equity analysis and remediation planning (e.g., via Syndio) and manage compensation-related risk.

• Ensure compliance with US federal, state, and local pay regulations, minimum-wage/threshold updates, and state pay-transparency and pay-data-reporting requirements.

Systems, cycles and leadership

• Own the end-to-end administration of annual compensation cycles (base pay, bonus, equity) across geographies ensuring accurate, timely and consistent execution.

• Drive continuous process improvement across comp tools and HRIS.

• Maintain data integrity and controls — validate compensation data before system pushes, minimize ad hoc exceptions, and enforce consistent, well-documented processes.

• Contribute executive level materials with clear, data-driven insights.

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of compensation professionals.

• Serve as escalation point for compensation questions from HR Business Partners, People Operations, Talent Acquisition and business leadership.

Technical skills, qualifications, and experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in HR, Business, Finance, or related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred.

• 10+ years of progressive compensation experience, including 3+ years leading global compensation strategy, design, and governance.

• Demonstrated expertise in global job architecture, leveling, and pay structure design.

• Direct experience supporting M&A compensation integration and harmonization.

• Familiarity with global regulatory environments, including EU Pay Transparency and pay equity.

• Strong command of compensation systems and tools (e.g., Oracle HCM, Payfactors, Syndio) and advanced Excel/analytics.

• Excellent verbal and written communication; ability to influence and build consensus across geographies.

• Professional certification (e.g., CCP, GRP) preferred.

The base salary range for this position is between $187,500 and $312,500. Placement within the pay range is at Grant Thornton’s discretion, and it is based on multiple factors, including but not limited to, job -related knowledge/skills, experience, business needs, progression within the role, geographic location, and internal equity. At Grant Thornton, compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.

At Grant Thornton, we believe in making business more personal and building trust into every result – for our clients and you. Here, we go beyond your expectations of a career in professional services by offering a career path with more: more opportunity, more flexibility, and more support. It’s what makes us different, and we think being different makes us better.

In the U.S., Grant Thornton delivers professional services through two specialized entities: Grant Thornton LLP, a licensed, certified public accounting (CPA) firm that provides audit and assurance services ― and Grant Thornton Advisors LLC (not a licensed CPA firm), which exclusively provides non-attest offerings, including tax and advisory services.

In 2025, Grant Thornton formed a multinational, multidisciplinary platform with Grant Thornton Ireland. The platform offers a premier Trans-Atlantic advisory and tax practice, as well as independent American and Irish audit practices. With $2.7 billion in revenues and more than 50 offices spanning the U.S., Ireland and other territories, the platform delivers a singular client experience that includes enhanced solutions and capabilities, backed by powerful technologies and a roster of 12,000 quality-driven professionals enjoying exceptional career-growth opportunities and a distinctive cross-border culture.

Grant Thornton is part of the Grant Thornton International Limited network, which provides access to its member firms in more than 150 global markets.