Senior Director, Payroll

Position Overview:

The Senior Director, Payroll is a key leader within KIPP NYC's Finance Team, responsible for setting the vision and leading the strategy, systems, and operations for a complex payroll function serving employees across multiple legal entities, schools, and programs.

Reporting to Finance leadership, the Senior Director will lead a cross-functional approach to payroll in close partnership with People Operations, Accounting, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), school and program leaders, and external partners. This leader will establish the systems, controls, processes, and accountability structures needed to deliver accurate, timely, compliant, and employee-centered payroll services across KIPP NYC.

The Senior Director leads and develops a payroll team consisting of an Assistant Director of Payroll and two Payroll Clerks and serves as KIPP NYC's senior payroll subject-matter expert. The role is responsible for strengthening internal controls, optimizing UKG and related payroll systems, managing external vendors, ensuring regulatory compliance, and continuously improving the employee payroll experience.

This role requires a strategic and collaborative leader with deep technical payroll expertise who can build sustainable systems while remaining close enough to the work to understand operational details, identify risks, solve complex problems, and provide direct leadership and operational coverage when needed.

This is a full-time position with a hybrid schedule, requiring a minimum of three in-person days per week based out of our KIPP NYC Midtown Manhattan office. The role also includes travel to KIPP NYC campuses across the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. The cadence and frequency of school visits will be determined by your leadership team. This position may require work on some company holidays as required by the payroll calendar to ensure employees are paid accurately and on time.

Duties and Responsibilities:

General responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

Payroll Leadership & Operations

• Lead KIPP NYC’s payroll function operations to effectively support employees, schools, programs, and organizational priorities.

• Lead the accurate and timely processing of regular, supplemental, and off-cycle payrolls across multiple legal entities and employee populations.

• Establish and continuously improve payroll processes, procedures, calendars, controls, service standards, and operating rhythms.

• Provide strategic oversight of payroll preparation, validation, review, approval, submission, corrections, and related activities.

• Develop and monitor key performance indicators related to payroll accuracy, timeliness, corrections, employee service, and operational effectiveness.

• Lead payroll planning and execution during high-volume periods, including significant annual onboarding, offboarding, compensation, and staffing changes.

• Proactively identify payroll risks and lead the resolution of complex, high-impact, or systemic payroll issues.

• Serve as KIPP NYC's senior payroll subject-matter expert and trusted advisor to Finance, People Operations, and organizational leadership.

Internal Controls, Compliance & Data Integrity

• Design, implement, and maintain a strong payroll internal control environment, including appropriate segregation of duties, approval structures, and independent review.

• Establish effective controls for new hires, terminations, compensation changes, employee transfers, supplemental pay, stipends, and off-cycle payments.

• Develop exception reporting, quality assurance processes, and preventative controls that identify potential errors before payroll is finalized.

• Partner closely with People Operations to ensure employee information impacting payroll is complete, accurate, timely, and appropriately authorized.

• Ensure accurate payroll treatment and financial coding across legal entities, schools, programs, departments, and cost centers.

• Ensure compliance with applicable federal, state, and local payroll tax, wage-and-hour, and employment requirements.

• Lead root-cause analyses of payroll errors and implement sustainable process, system, or control improvements that reduce future risk.

• Partner with Accounting to ensure KIPP NYC is appropriately registered as an employer in applicable jurisdictions before payroll begins in a new state, including tax withholding, unemployment/workforce requirements, and workers' compensation.

• Establish and consistently apply organizational payroll practices for employees holding multiple concurrent positions or pay arrangements, ensuring accurate and compliant treatment of hours, stipends, supplemental compensation, and overtime.

Payroll Systems & Vendor Management

• Serve as the Finance functional owner for UKG payroll operations and related payroll technologies.

• Lead the ongoing assessment, optimization, and improvement of payroll-related UKG configurations, workflows, and processes.

• Ensure payroll systems effectively support KIPP NYC's organizational structure, legal entities, pay groups, earnings and deductions, time and attendance, and complex employee pay arrangements.

• Establish strong testing, documentation, governance, and change-management processes for payroll system updates and configuration changes.

• Lead relationships with managed payroll services and other payroll-related vendors, establishing clear expectations, performance measures, service standards, and escalation procedures.

• Hold external providers accountable for accuracy, timeliness, responsiveness, and overall service quality.

• Identify opportunities to automate manual processes, strengthen system utilization, improve data integrity, and reduce payroll risk.

• Ensure changes to payroll tax requirements, rates, and applicable benefit or retirement contribution limits are monitored and implemented accurately and on time.

Employee Service & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Establish an employee-centered payroll service model grounded in responsiveness, accuracy, transparency, and excellent customer service.

• Ensure employee payroll questions and concerns are investigated and resolved accurately, respectfully, and within established service expectations.

• Lead organizational responses to significant or systemic payroll issues and ensure employees and leaders receive clear, timely, and appropriate communication.

• Partner with People Operations to strengthen employee lifecycle processes, including onboarding, offboarding, compensation changes, transfers, leaves, and organizational assignments.

• Partner with Accounting on payroll accounting, reconciliations, financial reporting, internal controls, audits, and year-end activities.

• Partner with FP&A on headcount planning, payroll budgeting and forecasting, variance analysis, and the accuracy of payroll information across schools and programs.

• Build strong, trusted relationships with school and program leaders to support accurate employee assignments, time reporting, and timely resolution of payroll issues.

• Foster shared ownership and accountability for payroll accuracy across Finance, People Operations, schools, and regional teams.

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, coach, and develop the Assistant Director of Payroll and Payroll Clerks, building a high-performing team grounded in accuracy, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, performance expectations, and decision-making structures across the payroll team.

• Develop the Assistant Director of Payroll as the primary leader of day-to-day payroll operations and the Senior Director's primary operational backup.

• Build team capacity through ongoing coaching, feedback, cross-training, and professional development.

• Ensure critical payroll processes are clearly documented and appropriately cross-trained to reduce key-person dependencies.

• Create sustainable systems that maintain strong controls and operational continuity during vacancies, vacations, peak periods, and other absences.

• Maintain sufficient technical expertise and operational knowledge to independently evaluate payroll results, challenge assumptions, troubleshoot complex issues, and directly oversee or execute payroll processes when necessary.

Continuous Improvement & Organizational Impact

• Use payroll data, trends, employee feedback, and operational metrics to identify opportunities to strengthen systems and improve the employee experience.

• Develop and implement scalable payroll practices that support KIPP NYC's evolving organizational needs.

• Partner across Finance and the Shared Services Team on initiatives that improve data quality, systems integration, operational efficiency, and organizational effectiveness.

• Stay current on payroll regulations, emerging practices, and technology developments, and translate relevant changes into effective KIPP NYC policies and processes.

• Promote a culture of continuous improvement, strong financial stewardship, and shared accountability across payroll operations.