Mars U China Learning Lead

Job Description:

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategic Partnership & Business Alignment

• Direct dialogue with China Business Segment President/GM and Senior leadership team to deeply understand market challenges, growth drivers, and talent implications.
• Proactively identify (“smell”) capability needs across the organization and influence business leaders to integrate L&D priorities into the broader people strategy.
• Provoke business leaders’ assumptions of capability gaps, and lead strategic conversations to accurately diagnose and validate the real learning needs behind business challenges.
• Inspire new possibilities of what/how L&D solutions can contribute to business growth, and obtain strong endorsement and sponsorship from senior leadership team.
• Act as the reliable strategic L&D partner for business leaders, being the first person they turn to for capability development opportunity/challenge, and gaining credits with impactful learning solutions/advices
• Partner with segment P&O leaders to identify capability gaps and prioritize learning interventions that deliver measurable business impact, to support segment people strategy.

2. Learning Strategy Development

• Translate the China business strategy into a comprehensive L&D strategy that enables China business growth through capability development
• Guided by Global Mars U learning strategy, synthesize insights from dialogues with senior leadership team, capability gap analyses to formulate a comprehensive China L&D strategy that fully aligned with China’s business priorities and talent development agenda.
• Define clear strategic pillars, learning modalities (experiential, digital, blended, etc.), success KPIs, and governance models to drive capability building for today and tomorrow.
• Present and obtain buy-in from segment P&O heads and global stakeholders, ensuring the strategy is both locally relevant and globally aligned, and that sufficient resources and executive sponsorship are committed.
• Establish a strategy-to-execution roadmap that prioritizes high-impact initiatives, phases rollout plans, and builds organizational readiness for sustainable capability building.
• Continuously refine the China L&D strategy based on evolving business context, emerging market trends, stakeholders’ feedback, and strategic inputs from Global Mars U

3. Learning Program Design & Development

• Design, curate, and deliver high-impact learning solutions focused on leadership excellence, including 0-to-1 program design where needs coming from top leadership team (CXO level) and target learners are CXO-1 (one level below C-suite) across business segments
• Lead the end-to-end process of key learning initiatives, including needs analysis, instructional design, piloting, and scalable rollout across China.
• Demonstrate deep mastery and flexible application of leading L&D frameworks, methodologies and best practices to design a high-impact learning solutions that shift behavior, elevate performance and deliver measurable business outcomes. through cutting-edge learning experiences.
• Embed measurement and evaluation mechanisms upfront to track learner progress, behavior change, and business impact, iterating rapidly based on data and feedback to ensure learning solutions genuinely drive impact.
• Deploy global Mars U curricula with fit-for-China approach to ensure cultural relevance and technical compatibility

4. Learning Culture

• Lead initiative that foster a culture of learning in China under the direction of Global Mars University
• Champion the "Employer Value Proposition" (EVP) internally, ensuring learning is a key driver for talent attraction and retention.
• Drive the adoption of digital learning platforms and self-directed learning behaviors to create a modern and accessible learning environment

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5. Team Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of L&D professionals in China.
• Manage team daily operation, ensuring high-quality delivery and cost-effectiveness.
• Build highly engaged HPC team

6. Member of Global Mars University Leadership Team

• Act as the strategic representative China within the Global Mars Learning Leadership Team.
• Proactively share market insights, regional talent trends, and best practices to influence the global learning roadmap.
• Ensure global alignment while advocating for the agility required to win in the local market.

Qualifications & Experience

• Experience: Minimum 15+ years of experience in Learning & Development, with at least 5 years in a leadership role. Experience within a Multi-National corporation (MNC) is mandatory.
• L&D Expertise：A seasoned Learning & Development expert with deep mastery of leading L&D frameworks and methodologies, and proven hands-on experience in design, development, and delivery of high-impact leadership programs for senior leaders, with proven track record of business impact.
• Strong expertise and experience in designing and facilitation of pivotal and fit-for-purpose workshops to senior leadership team based on various business needs.
• Strategic Agility: Proven track record of translating business strategy into actionable learning strategies. Strong ability to “smell” needs, challenging leaders’ assumptions, and validate real learning needs behind business challenges-not just fulfilling training requests. Must be able to demonstrate how L&D initiatives have directly supported business growth.
• Stakeholder Management: Extensive experience navigating complex, matrix organizations with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels without direct authority. Track record of conducting direct dialogues with senior leaders in providing L&D insights/recommendations
• Global Mindset: Comfortable operating in a dual-reporting structure. Able to balance global consistency with local customization.
• Project Management: Strong program management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Team Leadership: Proven experience leading, coaching and developing high-performing L&D team in a complex matrix organization
• Communication: Exceptional influencing, presentation, and coaching skills. Must be fluent in both English and Mandarin (written and verbal) to bridge global and local teams effectively.

Key Competencies

• Business Acumen: Understands P&L, marketing, and sales drivers.
• Consulting and Business Partnering Skill.
• Influencing without authority
• Strategic Mindset
• Innovation: Brings fresh ideas regarding digital learning and modern L&D trends.
• Managing Complexity
• Customer Centricity
• Global Perspective
• Purpose-driven and Value-focused
• Functional / technical skills: L&D Instructional Design / Adult Learning/Social Learning/Team Coaching etc.