Interview: Your First 90 Days as a Payroll Leader

Lisa Hopper is Payroll Services Director at Cezanne, where she leads the payroll function with a focus on accuracy, compliance, and continuous improvement.

With extensive experience in managing complex payroll operations, Lisa is passionate about making payroll not just a back-office necessity but a strategic contributor to business success. She works closely with HR and finance teams to streamline processes, harness technology, and ensure employees are paid correctly and on time.

Known for her attention to detail and collaborative approach, Lisa also mentors payroll professionals, helping to develop the next generation of payroll leaders. Her skill and experience saw her added to the 2025 Reward Strategy Partner 50 List, which showcases individuals who have played a part in shaping and continue to shape the future of Pay & Reward within businesses.

Here, she discusses her own career and how new payroll pros can make the biggest impact within their first 90 days of a new role.

Hi Lisa! Tell us a little more about yourself and your role at Cezanne

I joined Cezanne in 2024 as Payroll Services Director to help shape and grow the payroll business for both our Managed Payroll Service and Inhouse Payroll offerings. We’ve scaled pretty fast in the past 12 months, which has been both exciting and challenging in equal measures!

There were two main reasons why I was attracted the role at Cezanne. Firstly, I have such a passion for payroll, and to be able to help and influence a product and service like I can in this role was an opportunity I could not pass by. Secondly, and probably the main reason, was the culture.

Everyone at Cezanne works together and supports each other no matter which department you are in, across the business, the help, knowledge and support is always there. I also have one of the most talented teams that I have worked alongside since my payroll journey began – they’re genuinely a talented bunch!

How did you get into payroll – was it something you always wanted to do?

My first ever job was working for an emergency medical service, and my job was to add up the hours on paper timesheets to pay the doctors and nurses. From there I stepped into the accounts team and I worked hard towards becoming an accountant. However, the universe had other plans and no matter what role I took on in my early career it was never far away from Payroll.

Whether it was posting the payroll journals or calculating commissions, I always found myself having tasks to do connected to payroll. Fast forward a few years, and I started to work in an accountancy practice where I was managing payroll and producing accounts from scratch. The one skill I needed to know more about was the actual processing of a payroll! Thankfully though, the rest is history.

When interviewing for payroll roles in my team, I always ask the candidates how they got into payroll and it always saddens me that the answer is nearly always ‘I just fell into it’. Payroll is an excellent and incredibly rewarding career. It touches every employee and department of any business and should be recognised as such.

How did you find your first payroll leadership role? What was the most challenging aspect?

My first leadership role at Director level was as Operations Director for a Payroll service within a finance business. The most challenging aspect, as with any payroll service, was the speed, pace and time constraints within the payroll process to make sure the payments were both accurate and on time.

What do you think is the most important thing a new payroll leader can do in their first 90 days in charge?

It’s simple, really: get to know your team, the product, and the processes. Those first 90 days are about building relationships and understanding the landscape you’ve stepped into. Spend time with your team – listen to them, understand their challenges, and show that you value their expertise.

At the same time, dive into the product and the processes behind it. You can’t lead effectively if you don’t understand how things actually work day-to-day. And don’t just skim the surface when it comes to the data! Make sure the right data is being collected, in the right way, so that any Key Performance Indicators you set are truly meaningful. Strong KPIs don’t just measure activity; they help you track progress, highlight risks, and prove the value payroll brings to the business.

What’s the biggest mistake you see new payroll leaders make, and how can they avoid it? 

Not planning ahead. Payroll is such a busy operation that often the planning side suffers as there is never ‘enough time’.  It is so important that new leaders give themselves enough time to think things through, look at the budgets, look at improvements.  The one piece of advice I wish I could give myself in my early leadership career would be block out the diary for two hours a week to strategise and plan forward!

Payroll can be stressful, especially with tight deadlines. How do you manage the pressure, and support your team through it?

Payroll is definitely a pressure cooker environment. It’s an emotive area of any business and one wrong calculation can end up with the business and its’ clients losing confidence in you. Everyone remembers the one time you get it wrong but never remembers the other thousand times you get it right in payroll!

I think it’s important for your team to know that sometimes we don’t get it right, we are human after all!  It is how we show up and fix it that really matters.

If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice in your first 90 days, what would it be?

Stick to the plan – you know what you’re doing! I had a 90-day plan when I first started, and looking back, I wish I’d stuck to it a bit more firmly. It’s easy to get pulled off track when you’re new to a business, but keeping your focus and following the plan really makes a difference.

How do you make sure payroll is seen as more than just a back-office function in the business?

Passion is key – if you’re genuinely passionate about what you do, it’s infectious. People notice it, and it helps elevate the profile of payroll as a profession. I really believe attitudes towards payroll are shifting. More and more, we’re seeing payroll professionals represented at leadership level, and the function is finally being recognised as its own area of specialism. And make no mistake: that visibility matters!

When payroll is taken seriously as a strategic function, not just a back-office task, it opens doors for better decision-making, stronger collaboration with other departments, and ultimately a better employee experience. Passion fuels that change. It encourages people to champion payroll, push for innovation, and show the real value it brings to the business.

What do you think the biggest challenges for Payroll teams will be in the next few years?

There’s been a lot going on in the world of payroll over the past twelve months that’s made it quite tricky – with scams and fraud being a major talking point. But going forward, I think payrolling benefits is probably the next big change on the horizon. Even though it’s been pushed back a year, I think it has the potential to really shake up the payroll world. It’s going to force payroll professionals to rethink a lot of processes. They’ll need to make sure their businesses are prepared, that the right registrations are in place, and that they fully understand what this shift means for them.

Luckily here at Cezanne, we’ve all got the systems set up and ready, but the real challenge for leaders elsewhere is making sure every business – especially small and medium ones that don’t usually have in-house payroll expertise – actually know and understands what their responsibilities are.

And finally, what’s the most rewarding part of being a payroll leader for you?

Without a doubt it is seeing my team grow in their knowledge, experience and confidence. Seeing the next generation of payroll professionals rising through the industry and myself being able to be part of their journey is a blessing. I had a few special people who supported me on my payroll journey, and I feel a real responsibility to pay that forward.