Director, Total Compensation - location flexible

Director, Total Compensation

Reports to: SVP Performance and Reward

Location: Flexible

About Us

KONE is a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry: our job is to make the world’s cities better places to live. At KONE, our mission is to improve the flow of urban life. As a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry, KONE provides elevators, escalators, and automatic building doors, as well as solutions for maintenance and modernization, which add value to the life cycle of any building.

Purpose

The Total Compensation Director is a senior leader within the Performance & Reward function and acts as the global owner of all compensation frameworks, structures, and policies. The role sets the strategic direction for total compensation and ensures a consistent, competitive, and compliant approach across all markets. This position shapes KONE’s compensation philosophy, designs core reward frameworks, and leads governance and budget integration to support business performance and strategic workforce needs.

Key Responsibilities

• Set the global Total Compensation Strategy in alignment with the broader Performance & Reward vision and business strategy.
• Design and maintain global total compensation frameworks that ensure competitiveness, transparency, and internal equity.
• Lead the development of global base pay structures, salary ranges, progression logic, and pay philosophy.
• Own the design and governance of short term incentive programs, ensuring alignment to desired performance outcomes.
• Own global compensation governance, including policies, operational standards, approval matrices, and audit mechanisms.
• Lead annual budget integration for compensation-related costs, working closely with Finance to model scenarios and ensure affordability.
• Provide thought leadership on market trends, competitive positioning, and strategic reward priorities.
• Lead and develop a team of compensation professionals and build strong collaboration across the global Performance & Reward community.
• Member of the KONE Performance and Reward Management Team

What We’re Looking For

• Extensive experience in global compensation, total rewards, or performance & reward roles in a complex, multinational environment.
• Deep expertise in compensation design, job architecture, market benchmarking, and incentive planning.
• Strong analytical skills and comfort with financial modelling and scenario planning.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and operate in a matrix environment.
• Strong governance mindset with experience building scalable global frameworks.
• Clear and structured communication skills.

At KONE, we are focused on creating an innovative and collaborative working culture where we value the contribution of each individual. Employee engagement is a key focus area for us and we encourage participation and the sharing of information and ideas. Sustainability is an integral part of our culture and the daily practice. We follow ethical business practices and we seek to develop a culture of working together where co-workers trust and respect each other and good performance is recognized. In being a great place to work, we are proud to offer a range of experiences and opportunities that will help you to achieve your career and personal goals and enable you to live a healthy and balanced life.

Read more on https://careers.kone.com/en/