<p>Salary: 140000 - 180000 + 25% Bonus</p><p>Location: Wilmington, DE Hybrid</p><p>Employment Type: permanent plus Benefits</p><p><br></p><p>About the Role</p><p>A 700MM PE-backed company is seeking a Payroll Director to lead the strategy, oversight, and transformation of payroll operations for a multi-state workforce of 3000 employees. This leader will drive process overhauls, system integrations, automation, and compliance enhancements while ensuring timely and accurate payroll delivery in a high-growth environment.</p><p><br></p><p>The Payroll Director will be a hands-on leader and strategic partner, collaborating with HR, Finance, Accounting, and Benefits. Success in this role requires expertise in payroll transformations, building and scaling teams, resolving system implementation issues, and leading process improvement initiatives that strengthen scalability, accuracy, and compliance. The ideal person will have a strong background dealing with transitioning an organization from a manual to automated payroll process.</p><p><br></p><p>Key Responsibilities</p><p>Provide strategic leadership and direction for payroll operations across multiple states.</p><p>Lead payroll transformation projects including system implementations, workflow automation, and process redesigns.</p><p>Build and manage payroll teams from the ground up while remaining hands-on with complex payroll matters.</p><p>Identify and resolve payroll system issues caused by incomplete or inaccurate implementations, ensuring data integrity and functionality.</p><p>Oversee full-cycle payroll processing, ensuring compliance with federal, state, and local tax regulations.</p><p>Serve as the systems expert in ADP Workforce Now, SmartCompliance, and Workday HRIS, managing integrations, reporting, and troubleshooting.</p><p>Partner with Finance and Accounting on payroll-related general ledger reconciliations, journal entries, and month-end and year-end close.</p><p>Direct compliance efforts including payroll tax filings, regulatory reporting, and audit preparedness.</p><p>Advise executive leadership with payroll strategy insights, risk mitigation recommendations, and workforce analytics.</p><p>Mentor payroll staff, fostering accountability, detail oriented growth, and continuous improvement.</p><p>Lead organizational change management initiatives to support adoption of payroll technologies and policies.</p><p><br></p><p>Qualifications</p><p>Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, HR, or related field, or equivalent experience.</p><p>Ten or more years of progressive payroll leadership experience, including multi-state workforce oversight.</p><p>Proven success in payroll transformations, team building, and system implementations.</p><p>Hands-on expertise resolving payroll system issues and correcting inaccurate implementations.</p><p>Strong knowledge of US payroll laws, tax regulations, and compliance requirements.</p><p>Proficiency with ADP Workforce Now, SmartCompliance, and Workday HRIS with advanced Excel skills including pivot tables and vlookups.</p><p>Experience in payroll accounting, reconciliations, and financial reporting.</p><p>Ability to partner with executive leadership to drive strategic initiatives.</p><p>Strong leadership, communication, and change management skills.</p><p>CPP certification preferred.</p>

Full Cycle Payroll, Multi-state Payroll, ADP Workforce Now, bi-Monthly Payroll, Payroll - Over 500 Employees, Payroll software, Reconcile Payroll, Special Payroll Deductions, Payroll - Multi-State, Payroll - Manual, Payroll - In-House, Certified Payroll detail oriented (CPP)

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