Director, Integration Communications

Grant Thornton•Chicago, IL

About The Position

Grant Thornton is seeking a Director, Integration Communications to join the team. The Director, Integration Communications develops and delivers all integration communications for the firm's Global Transformation Office (GTO), the centralized program that governs integration and value creation across the multinational platform. The role fills a critical need of the GTO: ensuring the right messages reach the right audiences at the right time throughout the transformation. Together with the Grant Thornton Advisors (GTA) Communications and Change Management, this role completes a dedicated employee-focused capability within the GTO, translating integration and operating model decisions into a clear, sequenced communications program that carries acquired the acquired member firms, existing practices, and firm leadership through the integration journey. Working within the GTO's governance, cadence, and playbooks, the Director owns the integration narrative, the executive and acquired entity-facing communications calendar, and the channel infrastructure that regional and entity teams rely on to deliver locally. The role begins as a dedicated individual lead and is expected to build and lead a communications team as integration volume scales.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree or relevant certification a plus
10+ years of internal, change or transformation communications experience, ideally in professional services or another partnership-led environment
Demonstrated experience communicating through M&A, integration or large-scale operating model change, including sensitive workforce and organizational messaging
Proven ability to advise and write for senior executives and partner audiences with credibility
Experience operating within an enterprise transformation or PMO governance model, working to shared roadmaps, RAID logs and reporting standards
Track record of building scalable communications infrastructure — channels, templates, toolkits — rather than delivering bespoke work at volume
Exceptional writing, editing and stakeholder-management skills; strong judgment on sensitive matters
Experience working across multiple regions, cultures and languages
Excellent communication skills; proficient in Microsoft Office Suite and relevant communications and intranet platforms

Responsibilities

Own the enterprise integration narrative, including the case for change, the destination operating model and the value story, and ensure it is expressed consistently across every audience, region and entity
Build and maintain an integrated communications strategy and calendar aligned to the GTO's wave-based, integration roadmap and Day 1 / Day 100 / steady-state gates and coordinated with the Grant Thornton Advisors Communications team
Translate operating model and functional design decisions into language that is credible and usable for partners, practitioners and support professionals
Establish messaging architecture, key message sets and approved language libraries by audience, so regional and entity teams communicate consistently without reinventing content
Serve as communications counsel to GTO leadership, workstream leads and acquired-entity leadership on sensitive and high-visibility integration messaging
Develop executive communications, town hall content, leadership briefing packs and talking points for firm and entity leaders, including managing partner and regional leadership forums
Equip people leaders as communicators through cascade kits, manager guides and Q&A that anticipate the questions integration reliably provokes
Manage communications for sensitive integration events, such as brand transitions, systems cutovers, organizational design changes, location and role impacts, in partnership with People & Culture, Legal, and Risk
Act as the integration communications liaison to the Grant Thornton Advisors Communications team
Design and deliver entity-specific communications journeys from announcement through full integration, calibrated to each entity's size, culture and integration path
Ensure acquired-entity professionals receive timely, accurate information on what is changing, when, what it means for them and where to get help
Coordinate internal and external message alignment with Grant Thornton Advisors Communications, Brand, Marketing, and Growth so client-facing and employee-facing communications do not diverge
Own the integration communications channel ecosystem, including intranet and hub content, email and newsletter programs, and collaboration-platform presence
Establish templates, toolkits, brand-compliant assets and self-service resources that scale communications delivery across regions
Set standards, approval routes and quality control for all integration communications, including those originated by regional and entity teams
Manage agency, contractor and creative resources supporting integration communications delivery
Partner with the Change Management Lead as two halves of a single people-side integration agenda: Communications, in coordination with Grant Thornton Advisors Communications, owns narrative, messaging, channels, and content; Change Management owns stakeholder analysis, readiness, training, and adoption
Sequence communications against change readiness milestones so messaging lands when audiences are prepared to act on it, not before
Maintain a joint calendar, shared stakeholder map, and agreed RACI with Change Management, People & Culture, Grant Thornton Advisors Communications and regional integration and communications leads to prevent duplicate, conflicting, or oversaturated messaging
Define and track communications effectiveness measures; use the results to adjust channel mix, cadence and message content rather than to report activity
Report communications health and sentiment trends into GTO governance and escalate emerging risks early
Capture reusable playbooks, templates and lessons learned after each integration wave so each successive entity is communicated to better than the last
Establish the integration communications function in coordination with Grant Thornton Advisors Communications: define the operating model, build the business case for incremental capacity, and recruit and lead a communications team as integration volume scales
Lead and develop the communications support resources within the GTO, aligning their work to integration priorities and regional demand
Direct any partner, agency or advisory resources brought into supplement communications delivery, transitioning capability in-house over time
Represent the function with strong executive presence, delivering clear, concise and executive-ready communications and deliverables
Build durable communications capability that endures beyond any single integration wave