About this role
About Blackpanda
Somewhere in Asia tonight, a server room is on fire. Not literally — though sometimes it might as well be. A ransomware note is blinking on a managing director's screen in a tower above Singapore. A family office in Hong Kong is locked out of its own ledgers. A trading desk in Japan is running orders on paper. Across the South China Sea in the Philippines, a hospitality group has just learned its booking system isn't its own anymore. Somewhere — Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia — a CIO is staring at the ceiling at three in the morning, wondering who to call.
That call comes to us.
Blackpanda is Asia's premier cyber crisis response firm — Lloyd's of London–accredited, regionally headquartered, and built for one purpose: to walk in when the worst has already happened, and walk out leaving the company still on its feet. We do incident response and digital forensics. That is it. No identity crisis about what we are. We are pure IR, and we like it that way.
Three channels, one operating force. We reach the market in three ways, and every channel feeds the same unit.
• Consulting. Hourly, senior-led engagements for enterprises and board-level matters where complexity, sensitivity, or scale demand our most experienced operators.
• IR-1. Our proprietary fixed-cost subscription is sold through IT channels and underwritten on our own insurance paper. IR-1 puts a real response solution in the hands of mid-market and small companies who have never been able to afford traditional cyber cover — paid up front, before the breach, with our team on the other end of every activation.
• Traditional cyber insurance. Full-stack policies for the mature, board-level buyer, with our response practice on the inside of every claim. Not a panel. Not a vendor. Our own people.
As a Lloyd's coverholder, the revenue arrives before the breach, not after it. Where traditional insurers park that float in markets, we pour ours straight back into the team — into people, training, tooling, and hours on the keyboard against real adversaries. Our gross margins run roughly two times those of traditional IR firms, and every point of that advantage compounds inside the unit.
The Cyber In-Extremis Force. At the centre of everything is the CIF.
Borrowed the term from the special operations world and you'll understand what we mean by it. In extremis describes the moment a situation has moved beyond the tolerance of conventional units. When the building is already burning. When there is no time, no margin, no second chance. In-extremis forces are the no-fail option — who you call when calling anyone else means accepting the loss.
Blackpanda was founded by three former operators of the Commander's In-Extremis Force, one of five CIF teams the United States military positioned around the world, theirs based out of Okinawa. They built this firm because they had served inside the original — and they know what right looks like. How the best are selected. How the best are trained. How the best stand ready when the call comes. They are building the cyber equivalent the only way they know how: same standards, same discipline, same refusal to compromise on who gets to wear the patch.
We set a hard floor under who is allowed in the room. Every responder on the CIF roster holds — or is actively earning — multiple SANS Institute certifications, the most rigorous DFIR qualifications in the field. Network forensics, enterprise cloud, Linux, Windows, adversary tradecraft. The company pays for the coursework. The company pays for the certifications. The bar is not negotiable.
By the end of 2026, Blackpanda expects to field 25 full-time incident responders — by a wide margin the largest pure-IR team in Asia-Pacific and Japan. You want to run with the best? You have to be trained by the best. We do this so that one day there is no question — inside the firm or outside it — about who is the best.
Our Core Values
• Sincerity — If we say we'll do it, it's as good as done. In combat, you have to know your right flank will be there at 0200 when they said they would. The work is the same.
• Unity — Debate fiercely, then commit fully. We all row in the same direction.
• Efficiency — Timing beats speed, precision beats power, leverage beats strength.
• Humility — Humility forms the basis of honor. We listen, then we act, then we listen again.
• Grit — We don't sugarcoat setbacks or bad news. We face challenges head-on and we don't quit when it gets hard.
Our story:
Blackpanda is Asia's leading cyber incident response company, delivering digital emergency response across three integrated channels: IR consulting, IR-1 assurance subscriptions, and Lloyd's of London-underwritten cyber insurance. Each is purpose-built for a different buyer, whether enterprise, mass market, or sophisticated risk-transfer clients, and each stands alone as full incident response. Together, these channels reach the entire commercial market, because our mission is to provide digital emergency response for everyone. Buy all three and they combine into the complete post-attack recovery solution: preparation in advance, response the moment you're hit, and financial recovery paid for by insurance. One local team to help you get ready, respond, and recover.
Our Mission: To provide digital emergency response to everyone.
Our Vision: Accessing cyber incident response is as universally accessible as dialing 9-1-1.
What we are looking for:
An HR Generalist based in Blackpanda HQ in Singapore who will run the people function across all Blackpanda offices.
This is a broad seat, not a narrow one. On a given week you will be closing out a payroll cycle in Manila, chasing an Employment Pass renewal with MOM, sitting in on a final-round interview for a responder in Tokyo, and building the logistics for the annual Tribe Onsite. You will own the whole employee lifecycle, end to end, and you will be the person our team turns to when something about their employment needs sorting out.
You will report to the VP People and Culture, and work as the operational engine of that function: turning policy into practice, keeping us compliant in five jurisdictions with five different sets of statutory obligations, and hiring against a bar we refuse to lower. We are growing toward 25 full-time responders, part of the total 75 full-time employees by the end of 2026 — every one of them found, contracted, onboarded, trained, and looked after by the function you help run.
The right person is equal-part operator and builder. Comfortable doing the work themselves, precise about detail, and able to hold confidence absolutely. We are not looking for someone who wants to administer an existing machine. We are looking for someone who wants to build one.
This is a first hire, as we build out the team together with the company growth.
Responsibilities and Duties:
HR Operations, Payroll & Compliance
• Own the full employee lifecycle across Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, and Malaysia — offers, employment contracts, onboarding, confirmations, transfers, movements, and exits.
• Own and manage vendor relationships for Employer of Record (EOR) service providers and staff augmentation agencies that we work with across all markets.
• Support Finance to on monthly payroll with in-country payroll providers across all five markets: inputs, variable compensation, approvals, reconciliation, and off-cycle payments. Payroll is never late and never wrong.
• Maintain statutory compliance in every market we operate in, including Singapore's Employment Act, CPF, IR8A and IR21 filings; Hong Kong's Employment Ordinance and MPF; Japan's Labour Standards Act and social insurance obligations; the Philippines' Labor Code, SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG; and Malaysia's Employment Act, EPF, SOCSO and EIS. Work collaboratively with the Legal team in this regard.
• Manage all work pass and immigration matters, including Employment Pass, S Pass and dependant pass applications, renewals, appeals and cancellations in Singapore, and the equivalent processes in our other markets.
• Own the HRIS as the single source of truth: employee records, leave, headcount reporting, and org data. Keep it clean enough that anyone can pull an accurate number from it without asking you first.
• Administer benefits and employee / staff related insurance across the region — corporate health and dental plans, enrolments, claims escalations, and annual renewals with brokers.
• Draft, maintain and localise HR policies and the employee handbook so that a single company standard holds up against five sets of local law.
• Produce the people reporting the leadership team runs on: headcount, attrition, cost per hire, time to fill, and leave liability.
Culture, Communications & Employee Relations
• Be the first point of contact for employee questions and concerns across the region, and handle employee relations matters — grievances, investigations, performance management, and exits — with fairness, documentation, and discretion.
• Work with the CxOs to plan and run the annual week-long Tribe Onsite and quarterly leadership Offsites, including budget, travel, logistics and programme.
• Drive internal communications and keep offices in four time zones feeling like one team.
• Make the core values operational — Sincerity, Unity, Efficiency, Humility, Grit — through recognition, onboarding, and the way decisions get made and explained.
• Support the wellbeing of a team that works crisis response 24/7, where a bad week is genuinely a bad week.
Qualifications and Experience:
Required
• 5–8 years of HR generalist experience, with at least 2 years covering more than one country in Asia-Pacific.
• Experience in a high-growth or scaling company where the HR function was small and the generalist did the work rather than delegating it.
• Extraordinarily high levels of attention-to-detail, project and task management skills, and overall ability to execute and get things done on time to standard in an impressively consistent and formidable manner.
• Working knowledge of Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia employment legislation, requirements, and best practices.
• Hands-on experience running or coordinating payroll with external providers, and the discipline to be accurate about money and deadlines every single cycle.
• Comfort with HRIS and ATS platforms, and with spreadsheets and reporting — you should be able to answer a headcount or cost question the same day it is asked.
• Excellent written and spoken English, and the judgement to write clearly to a whole company as well as carefully to one person.
• Absolute discretion with confidential information, and sound judgement about where the line sits.
• Willingness to travel regionally several times a year and to flex hours across time zones.
Preferred
• Direct exposure to employment practice in one or more of Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, or Malaysia.
• Experience hiring technical or cyber security talent, or in professional services, consulting, or insurance.
• Experience standing up HR operations in a new country — entity setup, provider selection, contract templates, onboarding of a first local hire.
• Working proficiency in an additional regional language (Mandarin, Japanese, Filipino, or Bahasa Malaysia).
• Relevant professional certification (IHRP-CP/SP, SHRM-CP/SCP, CIPD) or a degree in Human Resources, Business, Psychology, or a related field.
Who this suits
You are organised and detail-oriented to the point of being slightly annoying about it. You are exceptionally punctual. You would rather fix a broken process than complain about it twice. You can hold a difficult conversation without flinching and without being unkind. And you want to build something — a real function, in a real company, at the point in its growth where the decisions you make still shape what it becomes.
What we offer:
• 40 days paid leave per year inclusive of public holidays, which may be taken at the discretion of the employee subject to compliance with our Leave Policy and the approval of their manager.
• Limited Work From Anywhere policy allotment, allowing for work from alternate locations contingent upon coverage provided by teammates and approved by manager for 5 days per quarter.
• Enrolment in the company's comprehensive corporate health plan that includes a large direct billing network for medical and dental coverage.
• Opportunities for inter-office travel, including a required annual week-long Tribe Onsite meet-up and quarterly week-long leadership Offsites.
• $5000 USD/year for professional training budget contingent on approval from manager with 12-month retention requirement
• Competitive base salary with performance-based variable compensation tied to market results, plus equity participation in Blackpanda's growth.
Declamation:
Candidates who successfully pass the Interview stage may be required to complete a Case Study, used to evaluate their technical knowledge and application of their skills in practical scenarios relevant to the role.
Blackpanda is committed to building a culturally diverse company, and we value a broad set of opinions in our team. As we grow, we are looking to build a team with a range of viewpoints at its core, and we encourage applications from minority candidates and all genders however you identify (X/F/M).
Blackpanda does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruitment agencies. We will not be responsible for any fees related to unsolicited candidates submitted by recruiters with whom we have not established explicit, written agreements for our job vacancies. By submitting any candidate information, recruiters agree to forfeit any claim to fees should their candidate be hired without an established agreement with Blackpanda.