R.E.D. Learning Day: How HR Directors in China Influence Global Headquarters

Get HQ to listen: how HR Directors in China influence global headquarters

If you’re an HR Director in China, learning to influence global headquarters is often harder than managing your local teams. You can see a people issue coming months ahead, but if it doesn’t show up in HQ’s dashboards, it’s easy to be heard politely and then ignored. And when HQ doesn’t hear it from you, decisions about your people still get made, just in meetings you’re not part of.

That’s the focus of our next R.E.D. Learning Day, on October 16.

Why being heard by HQ is its own skill

Being excellent at the local job and being taken seriously at headquarters are two different things. The second asks HR to speak the language of business: framing a people topic as a risk or an opportunity HQ already cares about, and knowing who actually makes the call. Getting HQ to listen is step one. Getting HQ to support you, with budget, headcount, or backing for a hard decision, is where it counts.

Who’s in the room

Jean-Luc Giraud, Managing Director at Parker & Lafitte Advisory, and Kevin Hong, Managing Partner at LYC Partners, have both spent years working between headquarters and local HR teams. Jean-Luc brings the CHRO perspective. Kevin, as a headhunter, works closely with headquarters on senior hires and sees firsthand what global leadership expects from the people it trusts in China.

What we’ll cover on influencing global headquarters

• How Jean-Luc and Kevin have bridged HQ and local HR in practice, including what didn’t work
• What HQ actually listens for when a China HRD raises an issue
• The capabilities HR Directors need to build to be heard, and supported
• Your own cases, discussed openly with peers who face the same situation

As always with the R.E.D. HR Community, it’s a small group and what’s shared in the room stays there.

Practical details

• Date: Friday, October 16, 2026
• Time: 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
• Seats: 25 maximum
• Sign-up deadline: October 13
• Venue: shared after registration
• How to register: scan the QR code to reserve your seat.

If HQ alignment is a topic you keep coming back to, this is a good morning to spend on it.