Hira Khan
Dubai
Summary
Senior Talent Acquisition Leader with 10+ years of global experience delivering end‑to‑end recruitment solutions across consulting, fintech, e‑commerce, Big Tech and professional services. Proven partner to C‑suite executives, Partners and senior leadership, supporting business growth through strategic workforce planning, executive search and scalable hiring strategies across EMEA, APAC and the Middle East. Recognised for deep expertise in Emiratisation and Saudization, high‑volume and niche hiring, technical and corporate recruitment, and recruitment transformation within fast‑paced, matrixed environments. Trusted advisor known for building high‑performing teams, strengthening talent pipelines and driving exceptional candidate and stakeholder experience.
Overview
9
9
years of professional experience
5
5
years of post-secondary education
Work history
Global Senior Recruiter
Lenskart
Dubai
06.2023 - 10.2024
- As part of the global recruitment team, I lead corporate hiring for the Middle East and Southeast Asia. (Covering: UAE, KSA, Singapore, Thailand and Japan) Lenskart is an e-commerce retail start up driving innovation, and delivering exceptional customer experiences.
- Develop and implement a comprehensive talent acquisition strategy aligned with the organization's short-term and long-term goals. This involves understanding workforce needs, forecasting role requirements, and creating effective recruitment plans.
- Leading Emiratisation and Saudization for the Middle East Markets. In addition to this, I am responsible for hiring all levels from entry to senior leadership.
- Graduate hiring: Building relationships with Universities, Alumni and other networking events to bring on board interns and raising the bar for future leaders
- Building strong relationships with hiring managers, business leaders, and cross-functional teams to understand hiring needs and align recruitment efforts with organizational objectives.
- Managing anywhere between 4 - 10 roles at any given time. Working in a super fast paced environment, with the need to be resilient, focussed and committed to our mission
- Project Lead for Recruitment operations to streamline the process. Projects include: D&I, compensation and benefits benchmarking, ATS automation, Global referral scheme and global recruitment sprints
Senior Recruiter (Contract)
KPMG
Dubai
10.2022 - 04.2024
- Led end-to-end recruitment for Financial Services, GRCS, and Accounting & Finance across consulting and advisory practices, managing a high-volume portfolio of circa 70 open roles.
- Partnered closely with 12+ Partners and senior stakeholders, acting as a trusted advisor on workforce planning, talent strategy, and market insights.
- Delivering hiring across multiple industries, including banking, trade, asset management, government, and corporates, for mid to senior level consulting roles.
- Drove stakeholder alignment by translating business needs into targeted hiring strategies, improving speed, quality, and candidate fit.
- Built and maintained strong talent pipelines through proactive sourcing, market mapping, and relationship-driven candidate engagement.
- Managed the full recruitment life cycle which included: role scoping, sourcing, interviews, offer negotiation, and onboarding, ensuring a high-touch candidate experience.
- Consistently met aggressive hiring timelines in a fast paced, matrixed environment while maintaining compliance with KPMG recruitment standards.
Talent Acquisition Lead
Careem (Uber Technologies)
Dubai
01.2022 - 02.2023
- Careem Pay’s vision is to become the leading digital financial services platform of the region serving consumers, captains and merchants. Its purpose is to empower people to lead better lives by simplifying their payment experiences and access to financial services. Careem is the region’s everyday Super App operating in 13 countries and over 100 cities.
- The Super App provides a host of daily services that people need to move around to order things and to transfer money in one unified smartphone app
- Leading and managing all recruitment activity within Careem Pay.
- Primarily responsible for managing the full end to end recruitment life cycle for hiring across all 13 regions.
- Creating a recruitment plan and sourcing directly for the Emiratisation and Saudization initiatives.
- Worked with the culture team on Implementation of people retention and development strategies, initiatives in the UAE office.
- Project lead for the implementation of smart working and sourcing strategies internally within the TA function.
- Subject matter expert, responsible for proactively generating talent pool, pipeline and the footprint of skills for various business units, utilizing effective and cost-efficient channels.
- Develop and execute complex sourcing strategies that target both active and passive external candidates, particularly hard-to-find talent and niche skills aligned to the Pay team initiatives
Associate Recruitment Business Manager - Saudization
Hays Plc
Dubai & London
10.2020 - 01.2022
- Internal Transfer from London HQ
- Specialising in Saudization working closely with private sector companies to help them meet their Saudization targets by identifying and recruiting qualified Saudi candidates for open positions.
- Deep understanding of the Saudi labor market, including local job market trends, compensation and benefits packages, and cultural expectations.
- Worked across all industries including heavy and soft and managed anywhere between 15-20 roles at one time
- Business development and bringing on a number of accounts in the region including Neom, STC, PIF and more.
Principal Recruiter – Regional Sales Recruitment
Hays
London
10.2020 - 04.2021
- Managing end to end recruitment for senior appointments across UK & Ireland.
- Overseeing large accounts, managing SLA’s and commercials for leading businesses and outsourced projects.
- Roles included: Sales directors, Territory Managers, VP Sales, Head of Business Development, SAAS specialists
- Working with internal stakeholders in the business for talent mapping and creating an efficient recruitment strategy nationwide.
- Building relationships with key hiring managers and using a consultative approach and best practice.
- Managed up to 15 roles at any one time across various regions. Measured on time to hire and sourcing strategies.
Global Recruiter EMEA & APAC
Revolut
London
10.2019 - 09.2020
- Headhunted by Revolut to look after global expansion within the global recruitment function. Partnering with Visa, we were launching in 33 countries across EMEA & APAC. I was the primary recruiter for the launch of our offices in Toronto, Melbourne, San Francisco, Germany, Porto, Poland, Russia & New York. I worked alongside the CEO and various VP’s when hiring for roles and providing talent mapping and solutions. During my time at Revolut, collectively we grew the business from 1000 headcount to 2500 employees worldwide.
- Regular stakeholder management/liaison up to CEO level, working closely with the senior leadership team to define roles/projects, set expectations on resourcing and managing the recruitment process as well as new hires
- Full cycle recruitment across departments including corporate functions (HR, Finance, IT, Fin crime, Workplace, STEM hiring)
- Regular travel across the world when launching in new regions
- Technical recruitment: end to end recruitment for AI, Java developers, Jira specialists, G-Suite specialists, Back end/ front end, Data scientists and software engineers.
- Managed anywhere between 10-15 roles at any one time – our KPI’s were to make a minimum of 2 hires per month as the business was fast growing. I went and above and beyond and hired for 46 roles during the time I was there
- A large part of my role also included technical recruitment – I worked alongside other tech recruiters
- Recruiting roles from entry level to VP and executive level
- Sourcing and headhunting candidates through LinkedIn Recruiter, Boolean search, Recruitment Events, social media, internal databases and referrals.
- Advising hiring managers on recruitment best practices and working in close partnership with them to develop effective and efficient recruitment processes for their respective roles.
- Partnering with HRBPS, Heads of departments and the Senior Executive teams to build the recruitment expansion plans. Researching tools and methods of talent attraction.
- Partnering with stakeholders to execute recruitment branding strategy.
- Ensuring a positive candidate experience and acting as an advocate of the brand and culture.
- Acting as a confidante within the business units in order to solve problems relating to performance management and career development
Principal Recruiter
Hays Plc
London
03.2017 - 10.2019
- Started off as an Associate Recruitment Consultant and received 3 promotions from the time I had joined. I was in the Top 10 highest billing consultants for HR in the UK.
- Clients I had managed: Heavy industries including Pharmaceuticals, Aviation, Oil and Gas, Energy, FMCG, Logistics and FM.
- Developing existing and new business through bringing clients to networking events and hosting HR events such as Salary Guide Launches, Legislation changes etc.
- Signed terms with numerous clients and developed 7 into core company accounts with multiple placements.
- Training and support to junior consultants on new business calls and candidate qualification.
- Attending new business, account development and agency meetings.
- Managing the full 360 degrees recruitment cycle. This included job advertising, LinkedIn sourcing, screening candidates, conducting face to face interviews using testing and competency based up until the offer stage.
- Full Ownership of end-to-end temporary appointments for all interim roles in Central London.
- Managed all HR temporary roles for large corporate accounts including BP International, GSK, Bank of America, UBS, Bank of England and more.
- Delivering sourcing and research methodology to access best candidates in the market
- Facilitating discussions with hiring managers to identify the key role and competency requirements
- Producing job ads and posting regularly on job boards and means of social media.
- Proactively delivering innovative direct sourcing strategies using a variety of channels including headhunting, networking (both active and passive candidates), online advertising, social media and referrals
- Market mapping – creating strategic plans with directors to ensure the right market is being targeted.
- Developing future business – a large part of the role includes networking with senior HR management and global partners.
- Maintaining data, reports and hiring metrics through ATS
HR/ Recruitment Administrator Intern
Exclusive Group
London
12.2015 - 11.2016
- Managing the full end-to-end employee life cycle including joiners, leavers, global recruitment and on-boarding for offshore offices.
- Overseeing maternity, paternity, and shared parental leave process for beginning to end.
- Solely responsible for the set up and development of the HR database, and creation of process maps for the HR team
- Advise managers, as required, on HR issues such as poor performance, conduct, capability, long-term sickness, family leave etc.
- Preparation of training contracts for employees who require academic or professional development.
- Ensuring the accuracy and quality of contractual paperwork and documents prepared by the legal team prior to final sign off.
- Ensure that employee data is current including changes in terms and conditions.
- Advise employees on the company’s HR policies, processes and procedures as required ensuring that advice is accurate, consistent and timely.
- Build and maintain effective and productive working relationships with colleagues across the company and external suppliers.
- Coordination of the annual salary benchmarking and Performance review process in line with the company compensation structure
- Assisting managers with dealing with flexible working applications
- Assisting with ER issues (i.e., performance management, disciplinary, grievances, absence) in a sensitive manner.
- Recruitment Functions
- Recruitment - placing job adverts, reviewing CVs, liaising with recruiters and arranging interviews with candidates across multiple time zones and managing the hiring paperwork.
- Producing job ad’s and posting regularly on job boards.
- Maintain relationships with clients and external stakeholders
- Managing the internal employee referral process
- Working hands on with stakeholders and managers to understand their needs and recruit the best fit for the role and company
- Ensuring that hiring managers and candidates are kept up to date with the progress and act as a key
- Partner to deliver search, talent mapping and other recruiting projects for critical, hard-to-fill roles.
- Source candidates, effectively utilizing internal advertising, LinkedIn and Job boards
- Own, execute and manage effective interview and selection processes
Education
BSc - Psychology
University of Westminster
London 09.2012 - 06.2015
A Levels - Psychology, Sociology, Business studies
Valentines High School
London 09.2010 - 06.2012
Skills
- Meet Up Resourcing Executive Search Early Careers & Internship
- Programs Nationalization ATS LinkedIn Recruiter Volume Recruitment
- Candidate Experience People Management Human Resources Learning & Development Talent Management Oracle Workday Atlassian – Confluence SAP Lever OneTouch Boolean STEM hiring Greenhouse Taleo
Languages
English
Personal Information
- Title: Talent Acquisition Lead
- Nationality: British
Timeline
Global Senior Recruiter
Lenskart
06.2023 - 10.2024
Senior Recruiter (Contract)
KPMG
10.2022 - 04.2024
Talent Acquisition Lead
Careem (Uber Technologies)
01.2022 - 02.2023
Associate Recruitment Business Manager - Saudization
Hays Plc
10.2020 - 01.2022
Principal Recruiter – Regional Sales Recruitment
Hays
10.2020 - 04.2021
Global Recruiter EMEA & APAC
Revolut
10.2019 - 09.2020
Principal Recruiter
Hays Plc
03.2017 - 10.2019
HR/ Recruitment Administrator Intern
Exclusive Group
12.2015 - 11.2016
BSc - Psychology
University of Westminster
09.2012 - 06.2015
A Levels - Psychology, Sociology, Business studies
Valentines High School
09.2010 - 06.2012