Head of Talent Agility

Role Overview

Are you ready to dismantle traditional, administrative HR and build the future of talent management?

We are seeking a visionary Head of Talent Agility to join our People & Culture team. Traditional job architecture and legacy talent designations and processes are too structured and plodding for the age of AI. At Zscaler, we are building an AI-Native P&C organization, and we need a disruptive leader to architect the talent operating system that brings our enterprise talent strategy to life.  

In this role, you will architect a dynamic "talent operating system" focused on AI-powered inferred skills, self-directed career pathing, robust talent intelligence, and vibrant job marketplaces. You will champion a talent philosophy that is agile, technology-driven, and centered on uncovering emergent skillsets, and aspirations to enable seamless employee mobility, workforce agility, and next-generation succession planning.

Business Outcomes You Are Responsible For

• Enterprise Talent Intelligence: Establish an actionable, dynamic view of enterprise talent and capabilities to identify and close critical skill gaps before they impact business velocity.
• Talent Fluidity & Deployment: Create the intelligence and mechanisms that enable leaders and HRBPs to identify and deploy talent against the highest-priority business and capability needs.
• Accelerated Internal Mobility: Significantly increase the percentage of roles filled internally by seamlessly matching employee skills and aspirations to open opportunities via the talent marketplace in partnership with Talent Acquisition and HRBPs.
• Enhanced Retention & Engagement: Increase career growth and internal opportunity for high-performing and critical talent, contributing to stronger retention and engagement.
• Robust Succession Readiness: Build a demonstrable, data-backed succession system for leadership and critical-role pipeline integrating performance, potential, skills and readiness to ensure business continuity and organizational agility.

Key Responsibilities

• Build the Talent Architecture & Intelligence Engine: Design and launch a comprehensive, modern talent architecture, intelligence and mechanisms purpose-built for an AI-native, hyper-growth enterprise purpose-built for an AI-native, hyper-growth enterprise rather than constrained by traditional talent management practices, including our talent philosophy, operating principles, performance indicators, processes, and tools across talent intelligence, career architecture, mobility, talent reviews and succession integrated with Zscaler’s performance and development ecosystem.
• AI-Powered Talent Profiling: Partner with People Strategy & Operations/People Science to translate workforce data into actionable talent intelligence to build dynamic profiles based on inferred, self-declared, and peer/manager-declared skills, moving beyond static job descriptions to map true organizational capability. Uncover emergent skillsets both internally and externally to proactively design development plans to meet future talent needs.
• Self-Directed Career Pathing & Mobility: In partnership with TA, HRBPs and People Technology, conceptualize and deploy an internal talent marketplace that dynamically matches employees' self-declared career interests and evolving skills with Zscaler's business needs and strategic initiatives.
• Strategic and Proactive Talent & Succession Intelligence: Provide talent and capability intelligence that informs enterprise and functional workforce planning, succession and development strategies.
• Translate Talent Intelligence into Action: Partner across People Success to translate talent insights into leadership, learning, performance, career and team interventions that build priority capabilities and strengthen the talent pipeline.

The skills you bring

• 10+ years of high-impact experience in Talent Strategy, or Organizational Development, with at least 5 years in a leadership capacity (Director level or equivalent).
• Proven track record of disruption: Demonstrated experience reimagining legacy talent practices and replacing them with simpler, agile, technology-enabled approaches centered on skills and mobility.
• Expertise in Talent Tech & AI: Deep understanding of internal talent marketplaces, skills-ontology platforms, and talent intelligence tools. A strong appetite for utilizing AI to infer skills and drive workforce planning.
• Strategic execution: Ability to operate with the strategic foresight of an executive advisor while remaining deeply involved in the daily craft of program building (a true player-coach).
• Agility & Ownership: An "impact over activity" mindset, coupled with high diplomatic acumen and the ability to thrive in a matrixed, hyper-growth environment.
• Respect the Past to Innovate the Future: Innovate by learning from the past, not being limited by it. Embrace curiosity, balance new ideas with practical application, and have the courage to challenge old ways to find simpler, more effective solutions. True innovation demands a curious mind that questions everything and applies a simplified, practical lens to discover what is essential.