Senior People Business Partner at MasterClass
Posted on: December 21, 2025 | $160,000 - $180,000 USD
Company Name: Masterclass.com
Team: People & Culture | Reports To: Head of People Business Partners
Division: People Operations | Employment Type: Full-Time
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA (Headquarters)
Schedule: On-Site (Office-Centric) | Experience Level: 10+ Years
Transform Lives Through Transforming Our People: About MasterClass
MasterClass stands at the forefront of online education, revolutionizing how people learn from the world's most accomplished creators, thinkers, makers, and leaders. As the premier streaming platform for knowledge and inspiration, we provide unprecedented access to over 200 instructors and classes spanning diverse fields including Arts & Entertainment, Business, Design & Style, Sports & Gaming, Writing, and many more.
Our platform offers something truly unique: the opportunity to step into Nas' recording studio, cook alongside Gordon Ramsay in his kitchen, learn cinematography from James Cameron, design your career with Elaine Welteroth, develop winning strategies with Lewis Hamilton, master storytelling with Shonda Rhimes, and unlock negotiation secrets with Chris Voss. This is the transformative power of MasterClass—putting learners directly in the room with those who have changed the world, so they can change theirs.
Behind this extraordinary member experience stands an equally extraordinary team. Our San Francisco headquarters serves as the hub for innovation, creativity, and strategic thinking that powers our mission. We're seeking talented individuals who are passionate about making a meaningful impact on millions of lives worldwide. If you're ready to help shape the future of learning while building a world-class organization, we want to hear from you.
The Strategic Importance of This Role
MasterClass is seeking an exceptional Senior People Business Partner to serve as a strategic advisor and trusted partner to our business leaders. This role sits at the critical intersection of business strategy and people strategy, directly influencing how we build, develop, and sustain our competitive advantage through our most valuable asset—our people.
As a Senior People Business Partner, you'll be an integral member of the leadership team for your designated business functions. Your influence will extend far beyond traditional HR responsibilities. You'll be a strategic architect, designing and implementing innovative people solutions that ignite employee passion, enrich our distinctive culture, and build leadership diversity and capability across all organizational levels.
This is not a transactional HR role. This is a strategic partnership position where you'll drive meaningful change, solve complex organizational challenges, and directly impact business outcomes. You'll work at the highest levels of the organization, influencing decisions that shape the future of MasterClass while ensuring our people strategy enables and accelerates our business strategy.
What You'll Accomplish in This Role
Strategic Business Partnership
Collaborate closely with senior leaders to deeply understand their strategic priorities, business challenges, and organizational objectives. You'll provide insightful counsel and support that helps them achieve their goals while building high-performing, engaged teams. Your role is to be the trusted advisor who asks the right questions, challenges thinking when appropriate, and provides solutions that drive real business impact.
Organizational Design and Effectiveness
Proactively identify organizational needs before they become problems. You'll evaluate multiple options, develop comprehensive change initiatives, and drive their execution across the organization. Whether it's restructuring teams for greater efficiency, building new capabilities to support business growth, or addressing cultural challenges that impede performance, you'll be at the forefront of organizational transformation.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Partner seamlessly with other People function teams—Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, Compensation, Employee Relations, and People Operations—to generate innovative ideas, support strategic programs, and implement solutions that serve both employees and the business. You'll be the connecting thread that ensures a cohesive people strategy across all touchpoints.
Talent Development and Succession Planning
Bring creative and highly effective solutions to succession planning challenges, conduct comprehensive talent assessments, and design development pathways for both teams and individuals. You'll identify emerging leaders, create opportunities for growth, and ensure we have the bench strength needed to execute our ambitious plans.
Compensation and Rewards Strategy
Drive the planning and flawless execution of compensation and rewards processes for your business areas. This includes annual compensation reviews, promotion cycles, equity grants, and performance-based rewards. You'll ensure these processes are fair, competitive, transparent, and aligned with business objectives while maintaining internal equity.
Manager Capability Building
Partner with the broader People Business Partner team to develop compelling content for our manager training series. Provide ongoing coaching and guidance that helps managers unlock team performance and potential. You'll be instrumental in building a community of effective people leaders who can drive results while creating exceptional employee experiences.
High Performer Development
Identify high-potential employees and create meaningful development opportunities that accelerate their growth. This includes stretch assignments, exposure to senior leadership, participation in strategic projects, mentorship programs, and customized learning experiences that prepare them for greater responsibility.
Data-Driven Insights and Solutions
Analyze people trends, metrics, and organizational data to develop clear points of view on what's working and what needs attention. You'll articulate insights in compelling ways, develop evidence-based solutions, and execute programs that address root causes rather than symptoms. Your recommendations will be grounded in data while informed by deep organizational understanding.
Employee Engagement and Compliance
Proactively get ahead of employee engagement challenges and compliance issues with sound HR recommendations and interventions. You'll remove barriers that impede business success, address concerns before they escalate, and create an environment where employees feel heard, valued, and equipped to do their best work.
Leadership Team Development
Partner with leadership to design and facilitate offsites and team-building experiences that foster trust, strengthen team dynamics, and align teams around strategic priorities. You'll create environments where difficult conversations can happen productively and where teams emerge more cohesive and aligned.
Culture of Continuous Learning
Foster a mentality of continuous learning and operational rigor throughout your business areas. You'll champion professional development, encourage calculated risk-taking and learning from failure, and build systems and processes that enable teams to operate with excellence.
What Makes You the Ideal Candidate
Professional Experience and Expertise
You bring 6+ years of People Business Partner experience with a proven track record of delivering results in high-tech, entertainment, or creative environments. You've operated at a strategic level, partnering with senior leaders on their most critical people challenges. Your experience has taught you how fast-moving, innovative companies operate, and you understand the unique people dynamics of creative and technical organizations.
Emotional Intelligence and Relationship Building
You possess exceptionally high emotional intelligence (EQ) with significant experience and comfort forging strong relationships across all levels of the organization. You can influence without authority, build trust quickly, and navigate complex interpersonal dynamics with grace and effectiveness. People seek you out for counsel because they trust your judgment and value your perspective.
Priority Management and Adaptability
You excel at managing competing priorities among multiple stakeholders. You know how to multitask effectively, re-prioritize as business needs shift, and maintain your composure when things don't go according to plan. You're comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and adjusting course as new data emerges.
Comfort with Ambiguity and Change
You thrive in environments where things move quickly, plans evolve, and the path forward isn't always clear. Rather than being paralyzed by ambiguity, you find it energizing. You're comfortable with change and help others navigate through uncertainty with confidence and optimism.
Communication Excellence
You possess outstanding interpersonal and communication skills. You can tailor your message to your audience, whether you're counseling a struggling employee, presenting to the executive team, or facilitating a difficult conversation between colleagues. You write clearly, speak persuasively, and listen actively.
Facilitation and Presentation Skills
You're a strong facilitator and presenter who can design and lead engaging experiences for groups of all sizes. Whether facilitating a strategic planning session with executives or delivering a workshop for managers, you command the room while creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable participating.
Results Orientation and Initiative
You're fundamentally results-oriented and a natural self-starter who thrives in fast-paced environments. You don't wait to be told what to do—you see what needs to happen and make it happen. You set high standards for yourself and deliver work that reflects those standards. You measure success by the impact you create, not just the activities you complete.
Your Growth and Development Journey
This role offers extraordinary opportunities for professional growth and development:
Building Strategic Partnership Skills
Learn how to build credibility and become a high-impact People Business Partner to senior stakeholders. You'll develop the ability to balance being a trusted advisor with being a challenger who pushes thinking and drives better outcomes.
Driving Business Impact Through People Strategy
Discover how to develop collaborative relationships that directly impact business outcomes. You'll see firsthand how effective people strategies can accelerate business performance and how to position your recommendations to maximize their adoption and effectiveness.
Adopting External Perspectives
Learn how to adopt an outside-in approach that helps leaders respond effectively to external trends, competitive dynamics, and market shifts. You'll develop the ability to bring fresh perspectives that challenge internal orthodoxy and drive innovation.
Measuring Program Effectiveness
Develop expertise in implementing talent initiatives and programs while building robust measurement frameworks that demonstrate their effectiveness. You'll learn how to tell compelling stories with data that influence investment decisions and strategic direction.
Data Analysis and Business Acumen
Enhance your ability to analyze business data, create actionable insights, and guide strategic decision-making. You'll build fluency in financial metrics, business models, and operational drivers that will elevate your strategic contributions.
Why Choose MasterClass
Competitive Total Compensation
We offer a salary range of $160,000 - $180,000 USD for this position, commensurate with experience and qualifications. This range reflects our location-based compensation strategy for NYC/CA/WA markets.
Equity Ownership
Share in the success you help create through equity compensation that aligns your contributions with company growth and success.
Comprehensive Benefits Package
Enjoy medical, dental, and vision coverage, flexible paid time off, and a range of additional benefits designed to support your wellbeing and work-life integration.
Meaningful Impact
Your work will directly influence the employee experience for talented professionals who are, in turn, impacting millions of learners worldwide. It's hard to find more meaningful work than building an organization that changes lives.
Professional Growth
Work alongside talented colleagues, learn from experienced leaders, and continuously develop your strategic HR capabilities in an environment that values growth and development.
Inclusive Culture
Join a diverse team that values different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. We believe our best work emerges when we bring together diverse ideas and create an environment where everyone can contribute fully.
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
At MasterClass, we recognize that our best work emerges when our employees bring together ideas that are diverse in thought, background, and experience. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
We provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the application or interview process, please let us know. We're committed to ensuring you have the opportunity to showcase your talents and experience our culture firsthand.
Compensation Philosophy and Flexibility
Our salary ranges reflect our commitment to paying competitively for our company size and industry. We recognize that the ideal candidate may be less experienced or more senior than outlined in this job description. Should that be the case, we'll communicate an adjusted salary range during the interview process that reflects the level at which we're hiring.
In addition to base salary, our total rewards package includes equity participation, comprehensive health and welfare benefits, flexible time off, professional development opportunities, and other perks that support your success both inside and outside of work.
Ready to shape the people strategy that powers world-class education? Apply now to join MasterClass as a Senior People Business Partner and help us build an organization where exceptional talent does their best work while transforming lives around the world.
MasterClass is headquartered in San Francisco, California. #LI-EC1
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