Payroll Specialist (Bangkok-based, Relocation Provided)

Get To Know Our Team:

The People Team is a purveyor of opportunity, searching the globe for the most talented individuals and offering them an open, collaborative workplace. By prioritizing skill and potential, we have cultivated a powerful assembly of professionals through our drive for equal opportunity and diversity. We make the move to Agoda a breeze with assisted onboarding programs, and we continue to support and enrich our thousands of Agoda employees through individual growth with outstanding learning programs and various means of assistance. Our development of incredible benefits has ensured everyone can stay strong, healthy, and happy during their time at Agoda. Leading ambitious changes and making a positive impact in the lives of our employees, the People Team is a crucial and rewarding part of the Agoda family.

The Opportunity:

As a senior member of our high-performing Global Payroll team based in Bangkok, you will play a critical role in driving payroll excellence, governance, and transformation across our international payroll operations.

Reporting to the Payroll Manager, the Payroll Specialist will have end-to-end ownership of payroll operations for assigned countries or regions, ensuring timely, accurate, and compliant payroll delivery. In addition to managing complex payroll operations, you will act as a subject-matter expert, support strategic payroll initiatives, lead process improvements and transformation projects, and provide guidance to Payroll Partners within the team.

You will partner closely with People, Finance, Tax, Legal, Treasury, People Systems, and external payroll vendors to strengthen controls, improve employee experience, and build scalable global payroll processes.

What You’ll Do:

• Own end-to-end payroll delivery for assigned countries or regions, ensuring payroll is processed accurately, on time, and in compliance with local statutory and regulatory requirements.
• Lead monthly payroll activities, including validation of payroll inputs and outputs, variance analysis, statutory payments, funding requirements, and payroll sign-off.
• Manage complex payroll accounting activities, including payroll GL reconciliation, payroll funding reconciliation, vendor invoice validation, accruals, and issue resolution.
• Act as the primary payroll subject-matter expert and escalation point for complex payroll, compliance, accounting, and employee-related matters.
• Manage and govern payroll vendors against contractual obligations, SLAs, KPIs, quality standards, and regulatory requirements, driving corrective actions where necessary.
• Build strong relationships with payroll vendors and internal stakeholders to ensure risks, issues, and dependencies are identified and resolved proactively.
• Lead payroll implementations, migrations, integrations, vendor transitions, system upgrades, and new-country payroll setups while ensuring operational continuity and minimal employee impact.
• Partner with People Systems, Finance, Treasury, Tax, Legal, Rewards, HR Operations, and other People teams to design and implement scalable payroll processes, controls, and policies.
• Lead payroll readiness activities for new entities, acquisitions, reorganizations, legal entity changes, and other business transformation initiatives.
• Identify payroll compliance risks and work with relevant stakeholders to implement appropriate mitigation and controls.
• Own and drive process improvement, automation, standardization, and operational excellence initiatives across assigned payrolls.
• Perform detailed payroll analytics, trend analysis, root-cause analysis, and variance reviews to identify risks and opportunities for improvement.
• Support payroll forecasting, budgeting, cash-flow planning, and funding requirements in partnership with Finance and Treasury.
• Lead and support internal, external, statutory, and SOX audits, ensuring documentation, controls, and remediation actions are completed within agreed timelines.
• Develop and maintain payroll SOPs, controls, process documentation, governance frameworks, and operational dashboards.
• Provide guidance, coaching, and day-to-day support to Payroll Partners, helping build payroll capability and knowledge across the team.
• Support the Payroll Manager with operational governance, workload prioritization, risk management, stakeholder updates, and strategic payroll initiatives.
• Represent Payroll in cross-functional projects and forums and effectively communicate payroll risks, decisions, and recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Drive a strong employee-focused payroll experience by ensuring payroll inquiries and escalations are handled professionally, accurately, and within agreed service levels.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field.
• At least 5–7 years of end-to-end payroll and/or payroll accounting experience, preferably within a large, international, fast-paced organization.
• Strong experience managing multi-country payroll across APAC, Europe, NAM, or multiple international regions.
• Strong knowledge of payroll operations, payroll accounting, statutory compliance, taxation, social security, payroll controls, and payroll funding processes.
• Proven experience independently managing complex payrolls and resolving payroll, compliance, vendor, and employee escalations.
• Demonstrated experience leading payroll migrations, implementations, integrations, vendor transitions, legal entity changes, or transformation projects.
• Strong payroll vendor management experience, including SLA/KPI governance, performance management, issue escalation, and service improvement.
• Proven ability to lead process improvement, standardization, automation, and control enhancement initiatives.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to perform payroll variance analysis, root-cause analysis, and identify operational risks.
• Good understanding of payroll accounting, GL reconciliation, accruals, payroll funding, vendor invoices, forecasting, and budgeting.
• Experience supporting internal/external audits and working within a strong governance and controls environment.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across People, Finance, Tax, Legal, Treasury, Technology, and external partners.
• Strong written and verbal English communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex payroll topics clearly to both operational and senior stakeholders.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and other productivity tools.
• Experience with Workday and global payroll platforms is preferred.
• Experience with payroll analytics, automation, reporting tools, or Power BI would be an advantage.
• Ability to coach and support junior team members and contribute to building a high-performing payroll team.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and capable of managing multiple priorities and payroll deadlines simultaneously.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, multicultural, and continuously evolving global environment.
• Demonstrates resilience, ownership, sound judgment, and the ability to remain effective under pressure.
• Maintains a high level of discretion, confidentiality, integrity, and professional ethics.