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.

• Drive HR strategy and workstream execution supporting mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, legal entity formations, and new business initiatives. Influence business decisions by identifying workforce implications, organizational risks, operational dependencies, costs, and people-related requirements throughout the business lifecycle.
• Direct HR coordination for new business standup, integration, ramp-up, and stabilization programs. Drive alignment across Human Resources, Finance, Legal, IT, Payroll, Talent Acquisition, Purchasing, HR Centers of Excellence, business leadership, venture partners, and external service providers to enable successful business launch and operation.
• Drive HR integration and change strategy for acquired and integrating businesses through the extended post-close period. Direct the migration of acquired work forces onto applicable HR, payroll, time, and talent platforms; drive harmonization of policies, benefits, job architecture, and service delivery; and maintain accountability for change management, manager enablement, communications, and adoption for affected populations.
• Strategize workforce, governance, compliance, organizational design, employee relations, labor relations, culture, and HR operating model solutions for new and evolving businesses. Analyze qualitative and quantitative information, influence risk decisions, create recommendations, and provide thought leadership supporting informed business choices.
• 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 while aligning with applicable Ford policies, contractual commitments, and regulatory requirements. Direct employment-related entity decisions involving employer-of-record determination, employment tax and regulatory registrations, benefit plan participation, and payroll structure.
• 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. Define service scope, ownership, performance expectations, costs, decision rights, escalation processes, and exit or transition requirements appropriate to the business…