Pavle Tatomir

Results-driven senior HR leader with 15 years' experience delivering workforce transformation, organisational design, and executive-level people strategy across multi-country African operations. Trusted partner to senior leadership, with a record of turning around performance, strengthening HR governance and compliance, and elevating engagement, enablement, and retention. Known for using people analytics to inform ExCo decisions, aligning reward and performance systems to business outcomes, and leading complex restructuring with minimal disruption.

HR Business Partner (Southern Africa, East Africa) at Leica Geosystems (Hexagon) (2022-11 – Present)

Lead end-to-end HR strategy and operations for Leica Geosystems and IDS GeoRadar (Hexagon Group) across South Africa and multiple African markets (West Africa, Ghana, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Southern Africa), supporting ~50 employees locally and ~30 across Africa/EMEA. Act as a strategic advisor to Regional EVP, HR Directors, Sales Directors, and Country Managers, driving alignment between people strategy and commercial objectives. Accountable for talent management, organisational design, workforce planning, governance, compliance, and executive reporting across a multi-country, high-growth environment.

• Partner with executive and regional leadership to translate business strategy into actionable people plans, ensuring alignment to revenue growth, market expansion, and operational efficiency targets.
• Lead workforce planning, restructuring, and organisational design initiatives across multiple countries, balancing cost optimisation with capability building and business continuity.
• Own talent lifecycle end-to-end, including strategic hiring for niche and leadership roles, succession planning, performance management, and retention strategies for critical skills markets.
• Drive quarterly talent reviews, calibration processes, and succession pipelines to strengthen leadership bench and mitigate business risk.
• Design and implement compensation and incentive frameworks (including commission structures) aligned to commercial performance and market competitiveness.
• Establish and embed performance management frameworks, manager capability programmes, and employee engagement initiatives to build a high-performance culture.
• Lead employee relations, including complex disciplinary matters, restructuring processes, and compliance with local labour legislation across jurisdictions.
• Strengthen HR governance, policies, and processes, ensuring audit readiness, regulatory compliance, and alignment across multiple countries and entities.
• Develop and deliver executive-level HR analytics and reporting, providing data-driven insights to inform strategic decision-making at ExCo level.
• Drive change management and communication strategies during transformation initiatives to ensure stakeholder alignment and minimise business disruption.
• Delivered 38% revenue growth and 5% profit contribution uplift (H1 2024 vs H1 2025) by leading a regional turnaround and aligning people strategy to commercial priorities.
• Reduced labour turnover from 56% to 13% by redesigning compensation and commission structures and strengthening onboarding.
• Improved engagement to 85% (from 69%) and enablement to 75% (88% response rate) by rolling out performance management, manager enablement, and data-led people routines.
• Secured 97% retention of key talent post-restructure by running succession planning and targeted internal redeployment.
• Executed a large-scale restructuring with minimal business disruption by managing governance, communications, timelines, and change impact.
• Strengthened HR governance and compliance by updating policies and harmonising processes across countries.
• Elevated executive decision-making by building people analytics dashboards and reporting packs for senior leadership.

Group HR Manager at Colt Logistics (2021-01 – 2022-11)

Managed the full HR value chain for a multi-site logistics operation employing approximately 100 staff in a fully unionised environment. Held accountability for end-to-end HR governance, labour relations, workforce planning, performance management, talent acquisition, and compliance across operational, administrative, and fleet support functions.

• Increased workforce productivity by 23% by implementing a performance management system and variable incentive scheme.
• Reduced operating costs by introducing data-driven workforce planning and optimising overtime and shift patterns.
• Improved compliance and audit readiness by spearheading HR ERP and Fleetio implementations.
• Strengthened inclusion and social impact by supporting CSI and B-BBEE initiatives and governance.

HR Manager at IMR Hamburg GmbH (2015-08 – 2019-12)

Led the full HR function for a 600-employee, highly unionised construction organisation, managing a team of four and overseeing two subcontractor HR departments. Accountable for all HR operations, including recruitment, mobilisation, performance management, ER/IR and MEIBC processes, training, compliance, and workforce planning. Worked extensively with multinational teams and managed complete expat placements—from visas and relocation to onboarding and cross-border compliance—while strengthening HR governance through ERP implementation and partnering with project leadership to maintain labour stability and operational continuity.

Operations Manager at Keller Williams (2014-01 – 2015-08)

Supported organisational operations, focusing on process coordination and people operations.

HR Administrator at Fast Delivery (2011-01 – 2013-12)

Delivered HR administration and onboarding, ensuring accurate records and compliance.

Professional Business Coaching Programme – GIBS (2025)

IDip Occupational Health and Safety in Occupational Health and Safety – NEBOSH (2022)

Oxford Executive Leadership Programme in Leadership – Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (2019)

BCom in HR Management – UNISA (2014)