People & Culture Lead

About Vinyl Equity

We’re building the next generation of capital-markets infrastructure, starting with a modern, digital-native transfer agent designed for today’s public companies.

Vinyl Equity is transforming one of the most legacy-heavy and operationally critical parts of the capital markets by delivering the first API-driven, real-time infrastructure for public companies. Our platform replaces slow, manual processes with secure, automated workflows that help issuers operate faster, more efficiently, and with greater confidence.

We’re backed by leading investors including Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Infinity Ventures, and others who have funded many of the world’s most impactful financial-technology companies. Our team draws from deep experience at NYSE, Equiniti, Computershare, and AngelList, giving us a unique understanding of the industry’s pain points — and how to solve them.

We have a massive market, a well-defined customer, and strong momentum. With demand accelerating and new product lines on the horizon, there’s never been a better time to join.

This is a company where everyone owns a disproportionate share of the outcome — and where the people function is central to how we grow, hire, and operate. We are hiring our first dedicated People & Culture leader to build that function from the ground up.

About the Role

People & Culture at a startup is not a support function — it is a strategic one. You will be the person who decides how we hire, how we onboard, how we comply, how we pay, and how we show up as an employer in a competitive market. You will own the full spectrum of what most large companies distribute across five or six specialized teams.

This is a Director-level individual contributor role. You will report directly to the Founders and operate with high autonomy and high accountability. You will be our HR Director, our full-cycle recruiter, our compliance owner, our office manager, and our administrative backbone — not because we could not hire five people, but because a great operator at this level can do all of it, and doing all of it from one seat means no gaps, no handoffs, and no excuses.

The scope is intentionally broad. You will handle everything from drafting employment contracts and managing statutory filings to sourcing candidates and running POSH training. You will liaise with government authorities, coordinate payroll compliance, and sit across the table from candidates making career decisions. If you need a narrow brief to do your best work, this is not the right role. If you thrive when you own the whole picture, it might be the most interesting seat in the building.

Key Responsibilities

HR Advisory

• Draft, review, and own all employment contracts, offer letters, consulting agreements, and NDAs — employee, vendor, and consultant
• Build and maintain the Employee Handbook and the full suite of HR policies, keeping them current with applicable law and company evolution
• Design and administer compensation structures and employee benefits programmes, including benchmarking and periodic review
• Ensure compliance with all applicable central and state employment laws; serve as the internal authority on employment-law questions from founders and managers
• Own the complete pre- and post-onboarding experience — from offer acceptance to Day 90 — including documentation, induction, and early culture integration
• Handle employee grievances, performance conversations, disciplinary proceedings, and separation or termination processes with discretion and legal soundness
• Prepare all HR letters — offer, appointment, confirmation, promotion, warning, experience, and relieving
• Administer leave management, attendance tracking, and absence records; maintain accurate, audit-ready employee records and documentation
• Manage HR query resolution for employees and managers with defined turnaround standards

HR Audit & Compliance

• Conduct periodic compliance health checks across HR operations — payroll accuracy, document completeness, and policy adherence
• Ensure full compliance with applicable central and state labour laws, including timely filing of statutory remittances and returns
• Maintain all mandatory registers and records required under relevant labour legislations
• Coordinate and provide assistance during labour inspections, hearings, and government notices or summons; liaise directly with labour departments and statutory authorities
• Ensure statutory display of all required Abstracts and Notices under applicable labour laws; maintain notice board compliance records

POSH Compliance

• Draft, implement, and periodically review the company POSH Policy
• Onboard and manage the External Member of the Internal Committee (IC)
• Conduct mandatory annual POSH training for IC Members and all employees
• Provide oversight and support in any complaint redressal process; prepare and submit the Annual POSH Report

Labour Law Registrations & Payroll Compliance

• Obtain and maintain all required registrations — Shops & Establishment, PF, ESIC, Gratuity, POSH, Employment Exchange, PT, and LWF
• Own end-to-end statutory payroll compliance for PF, ESIC, PT, and LWF — including deductions, remittances, filings, and employee support
• Coordinate with payroll vendors and the finance team to ensure accurate, timely disbursement and statutory compliance every cycle
• Track registration renewal deadlines; ensure no lapse in any statutory registration

Background Verification

• Own the full BGV process — reference checks, global database checks, and verification of address, education, identity, and CIBIL
• Manage BGV vendor relationships and turnaround times; document and maintain all outcomes for audit purposes

Talent Acquisition

• Own end-to-end recruiting across all functions — from writing job descriptions and sourcing to offer management and close
• Source candidates proactively through LinkedIn, job portals, referrals, networks, and campus pipelines
• Drive structured interview processes — scheduling, coordination, feedback collection, and debrief facilitation
• Lead compensation benchmarking, offer negotiation, and a consistent candidate experience that reflects the company's culture
• Build and maintain a talent pipeline for anticipated roles; track hiring metrics including time-to-fill, offer-to-join ratio, and source effectiveness
• Own employer branding — articulate why this company is a great place to work and make that story real across every touchpoint

Office Management & Administration

• Manage day-to-day office operations — facilities, vendors, supplies, housekeeping, and utilities
• Plan and execute team events, offsites, and culture-building initiatives
• Own travel and accommodation logistics for employees and leadership
• Manage the office budget and track operational expenditure with discipline
• Maintain asset registers and coordinate IT equipment allocation with vendors
• Provide executive administrative support to Founders as needed — including correspondence, scheduling, and filings

Role Requirements

• 6–10 years of progressive HR experience, with at least 3 years in a role that required operating independently across multiple HR domains simultaneously
• Hands-on, current working knowledge of Indian labour law — central and state — including PF, ESIC, PT, LWF, Shops & Establishment, and the POSH Act. You have personally managed filings and inspections, not supervised someone else doing it
• Direct experience managing end-to-end statutory payroll compliance, including remittances and returns across PF, ESIC, PT, and LWF
• Demonstrated track record of full-cycle recruiting across functions and seniority levels — sourcing, screening, coordinating, and closing
• Experience drafting employment contracts, HR policies, and the Employee Handbook from scratch or near-scratch
• Prior experience in a startup or high-growth company environment where the scope was broad, the team was lean, and the expectation was ownership rather than coordination
• Strong written communication — you can draft a policy, a legal letter, a job description, and a grievance response, and all four will be clear, precise, and professionally sound
• High discretion and sound judgment on sensitive matters involving compensation, performance, conflict, and compliance

Nice to Haves

• MBA or PGDM in Human Resources, or equivalent professional certification in HR management or labour law
• Additional certification in POSH compliance, IC membership, or labour law
• Experience with HRMS platforms, payroll software, and ATS tools
• Experience setting up the people function at a company from the founding stage
• Familiarity with BGV vendor management and the mechanics of global database screening

You could be a great fit if:

• You have operated across the full HR stack — advisory, compliance, recruiting, and admin — and you are energised by that breadth, not overwhelmed by it
• You find statutory compliance genuinely interesting. You know which registers to maintain, which filings are due in which month, and which government authority to call when something is unclear
• You believe that a strong people function at a startup is built on discipline and documentation, not on perks and programmes — and you bring both the rigour and the warmth to make that real
• You are comfortable being the only HR person in the room — and you make that work by being very well-prepared, very organised, and very good at prioritising
• You hold yourself to the same standard you hold everyone else, and you do not let important things fall through the cracks regardless of how busy it gets
• You are excited by the idea of building something from scratch, operating with real autonomy, and being evaluated on outcomes rather than activity

Why join us?

• Build the people function from the ground up — your policies, your hiring bar, your systems, your culture. The slate is clean and the mandate is real
• Work directly with the Founders from day one. You will be in the room for decisions that matter, and your work will be visible across the entire organisation
• Be a core part of an early-stage company at an inflection point — with the ownership, exposure, and long-term upside that come with that
• Competitive compensation with performance-linked incentives and meaningful equity participation
• Work alongside the team in office in Mangaluru with flexibility as the company matures

Benefits

• Competitive base salary, benchmarked against Indian startup market rates at the Director level
• Equity-based compensation
• Comprehensive health coverage for you and dependants
• Flexible and generous leave policy
• In-office working arrangement in Mangaluru
• Direct access to Founders and leadership on day one