Director, HR M&A and New Business Enablement

The Director, HR M&A and New Business Enablement drives workforce planning, HR operating model design, governance, and operational readiness activities supporting mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, legal entity formations, and new business standups.

The role creates and maintains the people, process, policy, technology, and service delivery capabilities required for new, acquired, and jointly operated businesses to launch, operate, integrate, and scale successfully.

The Director operates across the full business lifecycle: influencing people implications during transaction and formation, strategizing and directing the standup of the HR capabilities a new business needs to operate, and driving the sustained integration and change work that follows close.

The role partners across Human Resources, Finance, Legal, IT, Corporate Development, Purchasing, and business leadership, and directs coordination among enterprise functions, external providers, and systems required to deliver.

This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports. The Director delivers through influence, cross-functional program leadership, and partnership with enterprise functions, external providers, venture partners, and business leaders.

The position is the primary point of connection between enterprise HR and new business leadership, ensuring workforce, compliance, service delivery, and organizational effectiveness requirements are addressed early enough to influence decisions rather than remediated after launch.

The role executes Ford’s New Business Enablement strategy across transaction, standup, ramp-up, integration, and stabilization activities and helps build repeatable capability that improves execution across future initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Drive HR strategy and workstream execution supporting mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, legal entity formations, and new business initiatives.
• Direct HR coordination for new business standup, integration, ramp-up, and stabilization programs.
• Drive HR integration and change strategy for acquired and integrating businesses through the extended post-close period.
• Strategize workforce, governance, compliance, organizational design, employee relations, labor relations, culture, and HR operating model solutions for new and evolving businesses.
• Drive planning and execution for new business initiatives, including workforce planning, organizational design, job architecture, leadership and governance structures, contingent and partner-provided workforce requirements, onboarding strategies, operating model implementation, service agreements, and business stabilization.
• Create and maintain HR governance frameworks, workforce policies, service delivery models, workforce administration processes, and compliance protocols that support newly established businesses.
• Establish and govern HR-related service agreements supporting acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, partnerships, new legal entities, and other businesses requiring services from Ford or third parties.
• Direct applicable HR systems implementation programs, including HCM, payroll, time, talent, and service management platforms, for new and integrating businesses.
• Drive workforce readiness across the full chain required for an employee to begin and sustain work.
• Create and maintain key performance indicators related to business readiness, workforce implementation, HR service delivery, compliance, operational effectiveness, change adoption, and stabilization.
• Provide thought leadership on company policies, employment regulations, labor agreements, governance requirements, workforce practices, and service delivery arrangements supporting new business entities, partnerships, and strategic initiatives.
• Influence venture leadership, partner organizations, and enterprise functions to establish workforce governance models, decision rights, escalation processes, and operating agreements that enable effective management of shared workforces, outsourced services, cross-company dependencies, and jointly operated businesses.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, Industrial Relations, Management, Finance, or a related field, or a combination of education and equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of progressively responsible experience in Human Resources, business transformation, organizational effectiveness, program management, corporate development support, integration management, shared services, consulting, or a related field.
• Experience supporting mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, legal entity formations, and/or new business standup activities.
• Experience driving complex cross-functional programs involving senior stakeholders, multiple workstreams, competing priorities, and material organizational or business risk.
• Experience creating workforce, organizational, governance, service delivery, or operating model solutions that support business objectives.
• Experience evaluating and solving complex business, workforce, organizational, cultural, or operational challenges in ambiguous or rapidly changing environments.
• Experience standing up or integrating new organizations, operating models, legal entities, systems, service delivery capabilities, or business functions.
• Experience in HR strategy, organization design, workforce planning, change management, HR operations, service delivery, or shared services.
• Experience influencing senior leaders, leading through influence, and driving alignment across enterprise functions, external providers, and business stakeholders.
• Experience working in manufacturing, energy, mobility, technology, defense, consulting, or another complex and rapidly evolving business environment preferred.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.