Talent Acquisition Manager (UAEN)

Purpose

The Talent Acquisition Manager is responsible for designing and executing a forward-looking, digitally and AI enabled talent acquisition strategy that ensures the organization attracts world-class investment and corporate talent. The role leads end-to-end hiring across the organisation. This includes driving a strong Emiratization agenda and ensuring alignment with the organization's long-term workforce strategy.

This position plays a critical role in transforming the recruitment function through AI-driven sourcing tools, automation, workforce analytics, and HR chatbots, ensuring an optimized, data-rich, and candidate-centric recruitment experience suitable for a sovereign wealth fund operating in global financial markets.

Strategic Responsibilities

·         Develop and execute an enterprise-wide Talent Acquisition Strategy that supports long-term capability needs with a clear strategy on sourcing qualified talent from the industry

·         Lead the digital transformation of recruitment, integrating AI-enabled screening, predictive analytics, automated workflows, and talent intelligence to enhance quality of hire and reduce cycle times.

·         Drive a proactive Emiratization hiring strategy, providing opportunities for UAE National talent.

·         Partner with senior leadership, business heads, and the HR team to forecast workforce needs and translate them into structured hiring plans.

·         Drive the Employer Branding Strategy, positioning EIA as an employer of choice locally and globally by leveraging institutional brand equity, digital content, talent communities, and industry partnerships.

·         Establish governance for all talent acquisition processes, ensuring alignment with internal policies, Board governance, and regulatory requirements.

·         (In conjunction with relevant corporate functions) define and maintain a governance framework for AI in Talent Acquisition, covering data usage, vendor selection, performance monitoring, and improving / phasing-out tools that no longer meet quality or risk standards.

·         Ensure hiring complies with data privacy regulations, and EIA policies, including transparency, fairness, non-discrimination, and candidate due-process standards.

·         Build Human In the Loop processes to ensure recruitment related roles remain augmented (not displaced) by AI augmented as well ongoing human skill development in talent acquisition

·          Lead manpower planning and workforce demand forecasting in collaboration with business leaders and Finance, ensuring alignment with investment strategy and approved headcount plans.

·          Support organization design and role structuring, including job design, span of control, and headcount optimization.

·         Manage and monitor the Talent Acquisition budget, ensuring cost-effective hiring, vendor spend discipline, and alignment with approved workforce plans.

Core Responsibilities

 1. End-to-End Recruitment Management

·         Oversee the full recruitment lifecycle: job design, sourcing, assessments, interview management, offers, onboarding, and post-hire integration.

·         Ensure AI-augmented candidate screening and shortlisting using ATS algorithms, skill-based matching, and chatbot-enabled candidate engagement.

·         Maintain strong hiring processes for senior, specialist, and investment roles including due diligence, reference checks, and assessment centre management.

·         Embed competency-based and behaviour-based selection methodologies aligned with organizational values and investment-industry expectations.

2. Talent Intelligence, Analytics & Reporting

·         Build and maintain advanced Talent Acquisition dashboards covering hiring trends, pipeline analytics, time-to-fill, cost-per-hire, source effectiveness, and workforce forecasting.

·         Apply predictive analytics to analyse attrition risks, talent gaps, and long-term hiring needs.

·         Provide market insights on compensation, investment sector mobility, and talent availability.

3. Emiratization & National Talent Development

·         Lead targeted strategies to identify, attract, assess, and onboard UAE Nationals across all business units.

·         Establish partnerships with universities, scholarship programs, and government entities to build strong national pipelines.

·         Align hiring practices with Emiratization KPIs, national reporting requirements, and relevant governance structures.

4. Employer Branding & Talent Pipelines

·         Build global and local talent communities for ongoing talent needs such as UAE National investment professionals.

·         Promote internships, analyst programs, early careers initiatives, and UAE National rotational programs.

5. Vendor & Technology Management

·         Oversee partnerships with recruitment agencies, executive search firms, assessment vendors, and technology providers.

·         Evaluate and implement AI, automation, and recruitment-tech platforms (ATS, CRM, assessment tools) to enhance efficiency and decision quality.

·         Ensure vendor performance meets agreed-upon SLAs and governance requirements.

 6.  Manpower Planning, Budgeting & Organization Design

·         Execute annual and multi-year manpower planning cycles and translate approved plans into hiring roadmaps.

·         Partner with Finance to manage recruitment-related budgets, track spend, and optimize cost efficiency.

·         Support organizational structure changes, role creation, and headcount approvals in line with governance requirements.

·         Provide data-driven insights on workforce capacity, hiring prioritization, and organizational effectiveness.

6. Governance, Compliance & Quality Assurance

·         Work with relevant internal functions such as Risk Management, Legal, IT and HR Enablement to ensure all recruitment practices comply with Emiratization requirements, audit guidelines, and internal HR policies.

·         Maintain detailed documentation for audits, risk reviews, and process transparency.

·         Reduce hiring-related risks through strong controls, structured assessments, and data accuracy.

·         Ensure best practice management of AI tools including transparency, bias management, and accountability.

·         Monitor and validate AI and algorithmic models used in Talent Acquisition, including performance, accuracy, and fairness metrics; manage recalibration, retraining, or retirement where needed.

·         Maintain documentation of AI models and tools used in recruitment, including purpose, data sources, key assumptions, known limitations, and controls.

·         Undertake regular audits or AI-enabled processes to monitor for bias, accuracy, privacy and acceptable use

People & Leadership Responsibilities

·         Lead, mentor, and develop the Talent Acquisition team to ensure capability growth, AI literacy, and operational excellence.

·         Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, service excellence, and accountability.

·         Serve as a trusted advisor to senior management and business leaders on workforce planning, hiring decisions, and market insights.

·         Build strong cross-functional relationships with HR, Legal, Finance, Risk, Audit, and Investment teams.

Requirements

Education & Qualifications

·         Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or related field.

·         Master’s degree or professional certifications (CIPD, SHRM, ATD) preferred.

Experience Requirements

·         8-12 years of progressive experience in Talent Acquisition, with at least 3 years in a managerial role.

·         Solid experience of recruitment for indirect and direct investment professionals in a regulated environment as well as corporate functions for financial services organisations. 

·         Experience predominantly gained in-house ideally in a Sovereign Wealth Fund, investment / asset management company, investment bank.

·         UAE inhouse experience

·         Experience using AI, automation, and data analytics in recruitment.

·         Strong track record managing Emiratization programs.