Senior Compensation Specialist

Garda is seeking a Sr. Compensation Analyst to support and deliver strategic, technical and execution-based compensation initiatives supporting our end-to-end investment and business functions. We are hiring in either our New York or Wayzata office. This job post is for the Wayzata office role. 

As a member of our HR Operations team within the Human Capital Management (HCM) function, you will work closely with internal HCM, Finance/Controller & IT teams, supporting our annual compensation process, utilizing internal business systems and HR technologies. This role plays an essential part in ensuring our compensation programs enable us to attract, retain, and reward top talent.

This position focuses on designing and maintaining job architecture frameworks, including job leveling, titling, and career laddering; leading compensation planning cycles involving salary benchmarking, merit increases, and variable compensation programs; and building and maintaining complex Excel models to drive technical analysis, compensation scenario modeling, and reporting for Garda senior leaders. This role will serve as a primary compensation point of contact for our global business.

Primary responsibilities for the role include:

• Own and manage the end-to-end annual compensation cycle, including compensation benchmarking, salary planning, and the variable compensation process.
• Build, maintain, and improve complex Excel-based compensation models across multiple distinct incentive schemes, including base pay, short-term incentives, long-term incentives, and other variable pay structures, each with their own logic and inputs.
• Develop and maintain analytics using excel and other compensation tools. Perform rigorous analyses on complex data sets (including internal and external benchmarks) to tell visually compelling stories and provide strategic insights, hypotheses, and conclusions based upon findings to leaders at all levels.
• Create compensation policies, procedures, and training materials, and communicate to employees and Senior Leaders.
• Partner closely with the Controller team with other functions to respond to requests for information and analysis using HR and Finance data systems.
• Monitor regulatory changes (FLSA, EEO, pay transparency) to maintain compliance.
• Manage compensation survey participation and submissions; conduct follow-up research and analysis of survey results to assess market positioning, identify compensation gaps, and model proposed structure changes; present findings and recommendations to HCM and business leadership to support annual compensation planning and ongoing pay equity initiatives.
• Maintain and govern job architecture, including job evaluations, market pricing, and compensation structure management for the global population.
• Advise and partner with Talent Acquisition, HCM, and managers on compensation decisions.
• Identify overall areas for process improvement and establish effective and efficient processes.
• Support additional HCM initiatives, operational activities, and cross-functional projects as needed to meet evolving business and organizational priorities.

Qualifications & Desired Skills 

• Bachelor’s degree in information systems, human resources, business, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Minimum of 5 years of Compensation experience.
• Proven analytical, modeling, and reporting capabilities.
• Understanding of HR processes, policies, and regulations related to Compensation and Variable Pay
• Strong HRIS experience, including data extraction, reconciliation and reporting.
• High attention to detail and understanding of downstream impacts of data errors.
• Expert level Excel proficiency with the understanding of developing large models with numerous inputs and outputs.
• Experience working across HR, Finance and IT systems
• Experience working on compensation and equity-related projects
• Embrace a shared drive to learn, improve and achieve lasting impact.
• Self-starter with the ability to work both independently and collaboratively, managing priorities effectively in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to collaborate effectively across diverse teams and stakeholders