Senior Director, Total Rewards (SDTR)

Ardelyx is a publicly traded commercial biopharmaceutical company founded with a mission to discover, develop and commercialize innovative first-in-class medicines that meet significant unmet medical needs. Ardelyx has two commercial products approved in the United States, IBSRELA® (tenapanor) and XPHOZAH® (tenapanor). Ardelyx has agreements for the development and commercialization of tenapanor outside of the U.S. Kyowa Kirin commercializes PHOZEVEL® (tenapanor) for hyperphosphatemia in Japan. A New Drug Application for tenapanor for hyperphosphatemia has been submitted in China with Fosun Pharma. Knight Therapeutics commercializes IBSRELA in Canada. 

Senior Director, Total Rewards (SDTR) 

Reporting to the Chief Human Resources Officer, the Senior Director, Total Rewards (TRSD) will be a key role on the HR Leadership Team making a significant impact to Ardelyx.  As an employee compensation and benefits expert in this specialty area, you will lead the overall management of the strategic plan, design, and evaluation of the company’s employee total reward program. Extensive experience building, designing, and advising in all areas related total rewards programs within life sciences organizations is required.   

Responsibilities 

• Lead the strategic and creative design and execution of employee compensation and benefits. Be a strong resource in advising and supporting equity programs.  
• Lead organizational compensation benchmarking cycles to evaluate and recommend best practices, pay parity to support a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce, and establish competitiveness while maintaining compliance and regulations. 
• Own compensation processes and programs to include salary surveys, job evaluations, benchmarking, etc. 
• Modify, or create a compensation tool, to drive consistency in employee pay practices. 
• Own employee benefit plan evaluations, collaborating with HR Leadership and benefits broker, to evaluate, recommend, and/or modify existing programs to ensure company’s competitive market position and benchmarks. 
• Own employee benefit renewals and open enrollment practices in collaboration with HR Leadership, ensuring solid change management practices when needed. 
• Responsible for Leave of Absence management and ensuring all nationwide leaves comply with legally required mandates, SDI/pay coordination, FMLA, and internal policies 
• Partner with HR Leadership to collaborate on merit and promotion processes, to maintain consistency and high standards when rewarding a high-performance culture.  
• Ensure the consistency and integrity with leave requests management, and policies. 
• Provide analytics, and data-driven insights, highlight areas of improvement, when needed. 
• Partner with HR Leadership, and cross-functional teams, to contribute, advise and develop reward and recognition practices, building strong and scalable processes offering insight to support practices and decision-making.  
• Other comp and benefits deliverables as needed. 
• Partner and contribute to the 401(k) Planning Committee 

• Bachelor’s degree in human resources, business administration, or related field, with advanced certification (CEBS, CCP), or related master’s degree with experience in executive compensation, as well as both fully funded/self-funded benefit plans. 
• 12-15 years direct experience in compensation, benefits, and equity with 7 years leading this function within the life science industry, highly desirable.  
• Broad experience with variable compensation programs (short-term incentive bonus design, and long-term incentive design, sales compensation design) and knowledge of competitive and proven pay practices, as well as benefits programs.   
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with a strong attention to detail and robust analytical and quantitative skills.  
• Demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities, operate in a proactive manner, and possess a results and solutions-oriented mindset.  
• Must be a strong, collaborative, inclusive leader capable of driving high performance within this specialty area.  
• Attention to detail and accuracy is a must.  
• Previous supervisory experience a plus.

• Hybrid, but with preference for areas within a commutable range of Fremont, CA where we have an office or concentrations of Human Resource team members.