Sr. Director of Human Resources

Position Summary

The Director of Human Resources

Multi Brand Restaurant Operations provides strategic and hands on HR leadership across four autonomous restaurant brands: Pei Wei, Pei Wei Asian Express, Pick Up Stix, and Leeann Chin. Each brand maintains its own operating model, leadership team, and culture, while aligning to shared enterprise HR standards.

Reporting directly to the COO of Pei Wei, with dotted line partnership to the VPs of the other brands, this role balances brand autonomy with centralized HR governance. The Director serves as a trusted advisor to senior brand and operations leaders while ensuring compliant, scalable, and operationally sound people practices for a high volume, hourly, multi state restaurant workforce, including significant operations in California.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Multi Brand HR Leadership & Governance

* Provide senior HR leadership and oversight for Pei Wei, Pei Wei Asian Express, Pick Up Stix, and Leeann Chin

* Partner closely with the COO of Pei Wei and maintain strong dotted line relationships with brand VPs

* Support brand specific people strategies while enforcing consistent enterprise HR policies, standards, and compliance

* Navigate and influence within a matrixed, multi brand environment without diluting accountability or clarity

Strategic & Operational HR Partnership

* Translate brand and enterprise strategies into actionable workforce, talent, and organizational plans

* Maintain hands on involvement in HR execution while providing senior level strategic counsel

* Support organizational design, succession planning, and leadership development across brands and functions

* Lead HR support during brand growth, operational change, restructures, or transformations

Employee Relations & Compliance (Restaurant & California Focus)

* Lead and personally support complex employee relations matters, investigations, and escalations across restaurant and corporate populations

* Advise brand and field leaders on performance management, corrective action, and termination decisions

* Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local employment laws, with specific emphasis on California employment regulations, including wage and hour, meal and rest periods, leave laws, and related risk exposure

* Partner with Legal, Risk, and Operations to mitigate risk and manage agency claims, audits, and litigation

Talent Management & Development

* Oversee performance management and leadership development processes for restaurant management and corporate leaders

* Partner with brand and operations leaders to identify leadership gaps and succession needs

* Support high volume, hourly and management level talent strategies in collaboration with recruiting teams

* Champion training initiatives that build bench strength and operational leadership capability across brands HR Team Leadership

* Lead, coach, and develop HR leaders and team members supporting multiple brands and geographies

* Establish clear HR service models, escalation paths, and accountability across brands

* Promote collaboration and best practice sharing while respecting brand differences Data,

Systems & Continuous Improvement

* Leverage workforce data and HR metrics to identify trends, risks, and opportunities across brands and states

* Partner with HRIS and analytics teams to ensure data accuracy and reporting integrity

* Continuously evaluate HR programs and recommend enhancements to improve efficiency, compliance, and scalability