ChatGPT
JGA recommended.

For this appointment, I’d start with specialist global-payroll search firms , then compare them with a broader executive-search firm if the role carries substantial enterprise-wide risk, audit and governance accountability.

Because your country payroll teams will remain in place, you are not simply hiring a senior payroll operator. You need a permanent UK-based leader who can establish global controls, hold local teams and providers accountable, investigate recurring failures, and report credibly to the CFO and CHRO.

Search firms to put on the shortlist

1. Middlemore

Specialist global-payroll search

Middlemore has a dedicated Global Payroll Practice and explicitly recruits senior payroll leaders across the UK, EMEA and US. Its coverage includes payroll governance, compliance, vendor management, transformation and implementation recovery. That makes it a particularly relevant firm to test for your brief. Middlemore +1

Ask for: evidence of placing permanent Global Payroll Directors who have reduced recurring errors and established controls across decentralised country teams.

Website: [middlemore.co.uk/payroll-search](https://middlemore.co.uk/payroll-search?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

2. Frazer Jones

Frazer Jones combines payroll-specialist recruitment with wider HR leadership search. Its payroll practice covers executive payroll professionals with UK, EMEA and global remits, making it useful if the role will sit within HR or share accountability with the CHRO. Frazer Jones +1

Ask for: candidates who combine hands-on payroll expertise with executive stakeholder management, controls and the ability to challenge local payroll owners.

Website: [frazerjones.com](https://www.frazerjones.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

3. JGA Recruitment

JGA specialises in global payroll and HR technology, with experience across payroll, HRIS and HCM platforms and international talent markets. It is worth considering if recurring failures may be linked to systems, integrations, data quality or poorly managed implementations as well as operational processes. JGA Recruitment +1

Ask for: examples of directors who have corrected multi-country payroll failures and improved the reliability of payroll technology and data flows.

Website: [jgarecruitment.com](https://jgarecruitment.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

4. Portfolio Payroll

Portfolio Payroll offers permanent recruitment and executive search for senior payroll professionals, including directors. It provides a useful specialist-market comparison and may help identify candidates who have progressed from running payroll operations into broader leadership roles. Portfolio Payroll +1

Ask for: a demonstrable track record at global-director level, rather than a shortlist weighted towards UK payroll managers.

Website: [portfoliopayroll.com](https://www.portfoliopayroll.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

5. Page Executive

Page Executive is a useful bridge between payroll specialism and wider executive-level governance. Its UK People and Pay Governance practice covers international payroll, payroll transformation, reward and senior appointments. Page Executive

Ask for: candidates who can own the control environment and lead cross-functional remediation, not simply oversee payroll delivery.

Website: [pageexecutive.com](https://www.pageexecutive.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

How I would structure the search

I would invite Middlemore, Frazer Jones and Page Executive to an initial briefing. This gives you two payroll/HR specialists and a firm with a broader pay-governance perspective. Include JGA as an additional contender if systems and data failures are a significant part of the problem.

The final choice should depend on the quality of the individual search partner and their evidence of comparable placements, not the firm's brand alone.

What the CFO and CHRO should insist on

| Assessment area | Evidence to demand |

| --- | --- |

| Global controls | Introduced standard controls and clear accountability across multiple countries without taking over every local team's work |

| Failure remediation | Personally led root-cause investigations into recurring incorrect, late or incomplete payrolls |

| Risk and compliance | Established reconciliations, exception escalation, audit trails and country-level compliance monitoring |

| Vendor accountability | Improved service levels and resolved persistent failures involving outsourced payroll providers |

| Executive leadership | Presented payroll risk, control effectiveness and remediation progress to CFOs, CHROs, internal audit or risk committees |

| Sustainable improvement | Demonstrated measurable reductions in errors, late payments, repeat incidents and unresolved exceptions |

I would also ask every firm to distinguish candidates who have operated a genuinely global payroll control model from those whose experience is mainly managing a large UK payroll or coordinating outsourced country providers.

One important point before commissioning the search

Give the successful director an explicit mandate to own the global control framework, define minimum country standards, require corrective action and escalate unresolved risks. Country teams can remain responsible for local execution while the director is accountable for overall control effectiveness and recurring-failure remediation.

One question that would help refine the shortlist: will this director report to the CFO, the CHRO, or sit under one of them with a formal joint reporting line? That distinction will affect whether you should favour a finance-controls leader, a global payroll specialist or a broader HR operations executive.