Director, HR M&A and New Business Enablement

Ford Motor • Dearborn, MI

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

In this position, 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.

Requirements

• 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.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in Human Resources, Organizational Development, Business Administration, Change Management, or a related discipline preferred.
• Project Management Professional or similar project or program management certification preferred.
• Prosci Change Management or similar change management certification preferred.
• SHRM-SCP, SPHR, PHR, CHRP, or equivalent HR certification preferred.

Responsibilities

• 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 workforces 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 arrangement.
• Direct applicable HR systems implementation programs, including HCM, payroll, time, talent, and service management platforms, for new and integrating businesses.
• Influence and approve business requirements, resolve system-of-record and data-ownership questions, drive delivery by third-party implementation partners, and confirm that operational requirements are contractually scoped and correctly priced.
• Drive workforce readiness across the full chain required for an employee to begin and sustain work, including onboarding, identity and system provisioning, physical access, occupational health requirements, payroll and benefits readiness, and training and certification currency.
• Create and maintain key performance indicators related to business readiness, workforce implementation, HR service delivery, compliance, operational effectiveness, change adoption, and stabilization.
• Establish interim milestones that provide advance warning of risk, analyze trends, and drive escalation with sufficient lead time for mitigation.
• 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.
• Contribute lessons learned, reusable solutions, and implementation experience to the team’s shared playbooks, frameworks, and enterprise capability.
• 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.

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.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director