2021 HR M&A Roundtable Virtual Conference

Achieving sustainable deal value remains an elusive although necessary goal. Success in acquiring and integrating companies, like success in turning around a struggling operation, requires thoughtful leadership engagement and the willingness to make tough decisions. Despite M&A planning, infrastructure and process, there is no substitute for leadership. Ken will share his journey as CEO of Quest Diagnostics and the changes in management, talent, and culture necessary to achieve a dramatic financial turnaround.

Ken Freeman started his career at Corning in 1972, progressing through the finance function before leading several businesses. He joined Corning Clinical Laboratories in 1995. The company was soon spun off as Quest Diagnostics. As chairman and chief executive officer, he led the dramatic turnaround of Quest Diagnostics through 2004. Ken significantly increased shareholder value as he executed a dramatic financial turnaround, established industry leader, and drove growth both organically and via acquisition. For his work at Quest Diagnostics, Ken was named to the Business Week 50 in 2004, and HBR’s list of 100 best-performing CEOs in 2010 and 2013.

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Preparing and organizing for your next integration is often more of an aspirational goal than a realistic state. However, having an overall approach that focuses on what is critical and necessary in both the planning and the execution can make the difference between frustration, false starts, and rework versus repeatable success. This session will examine and discuss the integration must-haves and non-negotiables. Todd will provide ideas to ensure a rapid understanding of the vision and integration strategy and how-to follow-up with direct plans and actions. He will discuss how to establish key integration workstream structures and charters, conduct an actionable stakeholder analysis and the critical elements of the target organization’s operating model. The session will also present key change management and communications planning approaches, including developing total rewards communications. Todd will also present strategies to prepare for “Day One” and a methodology for conducting a successful post-integration audit and after-action review.

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Middle managers play a critical role in integration, although their engagement is often taken for granted or even overlooked. The impact of these managers and supervisors is especially critical when buy-side leaders move on to what is next and acquired leaders depart or exit emotionally. The responsibility for executing critical deal objectives is often left to middle managers. What should be their defined role and responsibility? What knowledge, ability, and skills are needed for their success? How can they become jump-started with the integration experience, change readiness and resiliency to lead others through challenging work and culture transitions? Join Mark in exploring and answering these questions from integration planning through execution. He will provide practical options to build middle-manager understanding, buy-in, and commitment to leading change that will accelerate employee adoption during your organization’s next transaction.

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Growth via acquisition or expansion, whether in a new domestic or foreign geography requires on “the ground” expertise and experience. In order to grow and scale, your company’s core HR competencies in recruiting, hiring, and onboarding along with compensation planning and benefits policy design must be tailored to meet the needs of your organization. One size definitely doesn’t fit all! In this session, Jackie Breslin, Director of HR and Compliance Services at TriNet and Debbie Millin, COO, Globalization Partners, will discuss different opportunities available to you to achieve operational excellence while mitigating risks, being compliant and managing multi-state complexities. So, you can focus on building a culture of engagement and sustained growth.

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LPL Financial formed in 1989 through the merger of two small brokerage firms, Linsco & Private Ledger and was created by the founders to provide a trusted alternative to Wall Street firms where financial advisors could build highly competitive businesses while always doing what is right for their clients. To position themselves for growth, LPL sold a 60% ownership stake to two private equity partners, Hellman & Friedman LLC and Texas Pacific Group. Then in November 2010, the parent company of LPL, LPL Financial Holdings Inc., first became publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol LPLA. Beginning with private equity funding and then by becoming a publicly traded company, LPL’s leadership recognized that a multi-year business and human capital transformation would be crucial to future success and growth. Mark and Sallie will participate in a lively and candid conversation regarding the significant leadership, people, organization and cultural changes that were developed and implemented, directly leading to business growth, highly engaged employees and delighted financial partners. They will discuss how business and HR collaboration, including what specific actions are necessary to achieve ambitious company goals. Mark and Sallie will share how to develop trusting relationships even during times of major change.

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Are you ready to have fun while you grow your network? This speed networking session will give you a few minutes to weigh in on a variety of topics, ranging from your favorite things to do, how you’ve been weathering the pandemic, and even a little bit of M&A talk. Join us for a structured and confidential opportunity to both be yourself and share a bit of yourself. No regrets!

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What can HR M&A practitioners learn from the field of customer experience (CX)? Join this session and learn how we can apply CX design and measurement principles that can propel key aspects of the employee acquisition and integration experience and create consumer-grade employee measures. Ben will also discuss the key differences to keep in mind between employees and customers and when in our HR M&A work, we can and should blend versus distinguish between the employee and the customer experience.

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Acquired leaders, managers, and employees can feel and experience this message in many ways, despite our best intentions. We know that the right first and early contact mitigates talent attrition, performance dips, productivity lapses, and at the same time, fosters culture integration and a positive employee experience. With the Covid pandemic, we pivoted. Typical post-acquisition challenges including the offer, hiring, and onboarding processes that were largely face-to-face, were replaced with virtual alternatives. Making it even more challenging for acquirers to provide the leadership, trust-building and inclusion that leads to employee value creation. As we enter the post-covid world, it is likely that many M&A activities will continue to include greater use of virtual processes. A number of recent surveys indicate that M&A activity is up globally and has significantly increased within the United States. Increased volume along with increased use of remote and online solutions requires careful decision-making going forward, especially with a blended approach. Join the conversation to examine how technology can help create a hi-touch, meaningful M&A experience that includes onboarding, along with social networking opportunities that build employee morale, wellbeing, and increased feelings of inclusion; even with a high volume and remote M&A ecosystem.

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Recent crises (global pandemic, social injustice, economic turbulence, political squabbles, and extensive social malaise) coupled with technological advances, have reshaped the world of work. To respond to these challenges, HR needs to continually reinvent itself to create, deliver, and capture value for all stakeholders.

HR reinvention starts with a simple meta-message: HR is not about HR, but about creating, delivering, and capturing value for employees, business strategies (inside) and customers, investors, and communities (outside). HR can and should move beyond benchmarking others’ best practices to identifying impactful initiatives for their own stakeholders. To accomplish this, Dave will share three separate agendas of HR focus and nine actions to take that will evolve assumptions, concretely contribute to human capital (talent, organization capability, and leadership), and design and establish the right HR function, complete with the necessary competencies.

Dave will share decades of relevant research and successful practices on leadership, talent, organizations, and HR that will provide a foundation for us to increase our stakeholder impact. These are exciting times for HR leaders with challenging opportunities that require HR reinvention. How HR professionals think, act and feel can make a significant difference in their own personal and professional lives and the lives of those they serve.

Dr. Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.He is a founding partner of the RBL Group, a consulting firm started in 2000 to help organizations and leaders deliver value and achieve outstanding and sustainable long-term results. RBL has focused on strategic HR transformation, leadership capability development, and strategy implementation. A prolific writer and prominent thought leader for over thirty years, Dave has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over thirty books, many bestsellers. He has played an essential role in shaping the HR profession as well as thinking about leadership, organizations, and talent. He has been called the “father of modern HR” and “HR thought leader of the decade” by focusing on strategic HR outcomes, governance, competencies, and practices. In his writing, teaching, and consulting, Dave continually seeks new ideas that tackle some of the thorniest and longest-standing HR challenges.

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We all know and have lived with the statistics - over 70% of all mergers and acquisitions are doomed to fail. When deals fail, the cost is not just in billions of dollars of value destroyed. Employee retention, engagement and productivity disappear, a company’s reputation falters, and the surrounding community is affected. Over a quarter of business leaders say avoidable problems with people, leadership, and culture are the primary cause of deal failure. This means the key to a successful M&A starts with and, in fact, requires uncovering significant people issues before it’s too late! Join Klint, Chair of the HR M&A Roundtable, as he shares the six vital areas HR must explore and focus on during due diligence. He will present eight powerful methods for extracting critical data from the information ecosystem, and then discuss the four fundamental ways you can mitigate the HR risks that will doom your deal to failure if not addressed. Attend this session and learn how you can identify and get ahead of the most vexing people issues that arise during M&A.

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The speed of deal making too often dictates a narrow focus on reducing gaps in the quantifiable elements of Total Rewards - compensation and benefits. This results in a missed opportunity to quickly engage acquired employees in a broader employment value proposition. Many employees, and not just millennials, value flexible work arrangements, more autonomy and a future of career development. The traditional financial package is not enough. In this session, Anna will discuss how to develop a more holistic approach to a Total Rewards M&A integration strategy. She will share how the often-overlooked “intrinsic” elements can strongly accelerate employee engagement, productivity and an organization’s overall integration objectives. Anna will share how to assess your current state – including taking inventory of your Total Rewards strategy and other integration building blocks (HR strategy, M&A deal hypothesis, employee communications approach, etc.). She will then present an overall integration strategy and approach that is both scalable and repeatable by outlining the non-negotiables (traditional Compensation & Benefits) and how to include what is usually flexible (intrinsic Total Rewards). By the end of this session, you will be able to understand how to build a holistic total reward approach to M&A integration.  

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Most acquisitive companies have continually challenged themselves to develop more consistent and repeatable approaches for integrating acquired companies. Yet few areas defy a one-size fits all approach more than selecting a strategy aligned overall business model and post integration organization design. This does not mean we cannot take a rigorous approach with a well-defined methodology – however, it does mean that we need to understand the major “groupings” of deal drivers and then establish corresponding integration frameworks (full integration, bolt-on, etc.,) that ensure we are maximizing deal value. Drawing on his experience both as a consultant and leading Dell Technologies HR M&A organization through dozens of deals, Craig Briscoe will explore the ways HR can establish a consistent and thoughtful approach to influencing the overall integration model and the postmerger organization design, reflecting different deal types and drivers to ensure that strategic deal intent is achieved. He will also include a look at immediate (first 90 days), intermediate (90-365 days) and long-term (365+) organization structure best practices that set the stage for lasting value creation while navigating short-term practical change management considerations. Craig will also identify specific leadership roles and attributes critical to the success of each type of integration model and organization design approach.

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Throughout the deal, M&A teams work tirelessly on what NOT to communicate outside the umbrella of confidentiality. Then from the very “public” beginning of the transaction, what is communicated and when sets the foundation for what follows - the new organization’s future success. Communications principles, along with critical early planning and decision making, provide business, leadership and culture-tailored communications that ensure alignment across leaders and employees on both sides. Join Stephanie, as she provides an overall strategy and approach to responding to the expectations and concerns of all stakeholders fully and thoughtfully and presenting a consistent and compelling case for change. She will share insights on planning and delivering innovative communications for each phase of the deal, including announcement, day one, and post-M&A integration.

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When it comes to planning and executing divestitures, how you manage overall complexity and multiple stakeholders, including your employees, determines whether strategic goals are achieved and how you sustain your company culture. The panel will share insights on what to consider prior to deciding on a divestiture or a spin-off and then how to establish what is important for a successful transition. Key challenges and solutions will be covered from the impact of divestiture on the HR ecosystem, to sharing implications for the buyer/carveout side, along with identifying serious gaps from the proposed sale and then devising mitigation strategies. At the end of the session, you will understand what overall framework including systems and processes is necessary to maintain business continuity, foster a positive employee experience and build a successful and positive post-transition organization.

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Leadership and culture are often quoted as the top reasons deals fail or succeed. However, a lack of understanding of the “investment thesis” and lack of smooth handoff of the due diligence concern areas identified early on by corporate development, also impacts success or failure. Without corporate development and HR M&A trust and partnership, much that is uncovered and is important can be is missed or misunderstood! In this session, Dawn will take you behind the corporate development curtain and share what matters from their perspective. She will discuss how corporate development leaders define success and the areas that they look closely at as they assess the target company against their investment thesis. Dawn will share the metrics that matter to corporate development including what drives ROI and what is measured to track value creation and/or to identify derailers. By the end of this session, you will be able to speak their language, better understand their point of view and have the foundation to build a strong and positive partnership with your own corporate development team.

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Kison will interview Jeremy Segal, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Progress, about how corporate development teams can leverage HR to produce better deal outcomes. Together they will discuss how to improve cross-functional dialogue, how HR can be an asset to corporate development teams, and what phases of the deal HR can and should be involved in.

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Selecting and then deploying technology during M&A transactions not only increases speed and accuracy, but affects many stakeholders including different corporate functions, leaders and employees from both sides, and eventually the end customer. This session will demonstrate how carefully selected technology can create a better, more customized experience for stakeholders throughout the deal process. Our panelists are from well-established technology providers who have experience working directly with M&A transactions and integrations. They will share actual client challenges and successes in how to specifically integrate technology into the overall M&A experience, helping you and your organization become a better educated technology decision maker. 

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An HR M&A playbook can create clarity by setting expectations, defining roles and responsibilities, identifying key deliverables and can help to streamline your key M&A processes. Playbooks provide necessary content along with useful tools and templates for HR and M&A teams across the business. Although it is easy to invest time and money in developing and deploying this resource, all too often, playbooks are viewed as not helpful or scalable, either to be hardly used or even totally ignored. This session will provide an approach to create a useful, applicable, and functional HR M&A playbook. Join our session presenters, Jen, Emmalina and Shelley as they share how to get started in creating a valuable and utilized HR M&A playbook. They will help you get started by sharing how to define scope and overall design considerations including both what to include and not include. Specific practical considerations regarding playbook structure and the best deployment and access technologies will be discussed along with how you can ensure that your playbook is kept up to date. By the end of this session, you will be energized to create and develop a useful HR M&A asset.

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All levels of employees experience change and uncertainty as an M&A transaction unfolds. However, acquired executives and leaders face their own unique journey and set of challenges. Their reaction and response to being acquired, not only impact their own effectiveness and engagement, but also has a profound effect on their employees. From first contact through due diligence, deal close and early integration, buy-side M&A leaders must have an overall leadership talent strategy and a well-thought approach to engagement. Deal value and integration success is at stake. Michele will present the benefits of creating an overall leadership talent strategy based on immediate and long-term business and talent requirements and then, how to shape and manage the leadership selection, recruitment, retention, and re-recruitment processes. She will discuss what strategies HR M&A practitioners can employ to onboard, engage, and retain leadership talent successfully. Approaches that include and go beyond the traditional broad-based compensation, benefits and incentives to understanding and proactively addressing the emotional experience that sell-side leaders experience.

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To contribute to deal value and growth, HR is now expected to manage strategic workstreams including cultural integration, employee experience, and organizational design, contributing to the transaction’s EQ. Becoming a true partner in aligning and contributing to success also requires understanding deal financials and valuation models – the IQ behind the deal. This is necessary to achieve next-level, sought-out influencer status. PJ Patel and Ed Hamilton, from Valuation Research Corporation, will discuss what influences valuation and purchase price and how deal synergies are identified and calculated. They will demonstrate how deal value and deal synergy affect the overall integration model, providing the foundation for understanding the HR-related implications. Join PJ and Ed as they present both the art and the science of deal valuation. Based on their experience with thousands of deals, they will provide examples of practical HR approaches that will manage a deal’s implications for employees and the company, to protect deal value. 

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We know that each transaction is different. Many factors play into deal success or failure. Learning from experience is critical in developing and demonstrating both competence and effectiveness. However, learning agility alone is not sufficient. Knowing the most important questions and when to ask then can ultimately make the difference beyond previous experience alone. Developing an overall framework of inquiry and a systematic line of questioning can help us understand what drives deal success and what can prevent it. This also takes courage and conviction.

Based on her cross-industry HR M&A experience, Elise will share how to increase impact and success by using a methodology and context-based set of questions that yield what is critical to first pinpoint and then respond to throughout the stages of a deal. Certain questions help clarify how the deal is connected to business strategy, while other questions help us anticipate risks that must be mitigated. Answers to the right questions posed at the right moment, create a realization of what really matters, both strategically and operationally, prior to rushing off to actions and solutions that may miss their mark.

As the closing speaker, Elise will discuss how to powerfully apply conference learnings, increase your courage reservoir and take the risks that go beyond your comfort zone. All in the interest in increasing your HR M&A impact and success.

Elise Vaughan is the Americas Leader for HR M&A at Cognizant. She has more than 20 years of HR experience in diverse multinational organizations. Elise joined Cognizant in 2020 and is responsible for leading the talent strategies and implementations for acquisitions, divestments and mergers. Before joining Cognizant, she spent five years at Oracle Corporation as a Director of Human Resources, responsible for Global M&A. Prior to that, Elise held leadership positions in Total Rewards, Talent Management and M&A at CareFusion Corporation.

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We all have “once in a lifetime is more than enough” M&A stories. Join our version of this favorite parlor game and come prepared to share the strangest and craziest things that have happened during one of your transactions. Two actually happened and one might have but never did.

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Mikaela Kiner’s book Female Firebrands is about how women can stand up and speak up for themselves and others. This can be especially challenging at work, given the power dynamics. Too often when someone says or does something inappropriate - we freeze. Ten minutes later we find ourselves thinking of all the things we wish we had said or done.

What if you could learn not one but two ways to prepare and gain confidence, so that you can be ready to speak up and not let those hot moments pass you by?

Mikaela will lead the group through exercises to help you know what to say and do when these situations arise.

Mikaela is a CEO, mom, executive coach, and author. In 2015, Mikaela founded Reverb to help companies create healthy, inclusive cultures that engage and inspire employees. Prior to Reverb, Mikaela held HR leadership roles at Northwest companies including Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, PopCap Games, and Redfin. Mikaela enjoys coaching leaders at all levels and working with mission-driven organizations. She’s the author of Female Firebrands: Stories and Techniques to Ignite Change, Take Control, and Succeed in the Workplace. A native Seattleite who grew up on Capitol Hill, Mikaela is married to Henry, a musician, artist, and teacher. Their two teens are good at challenging the status quo and are a constant source of learning and laughter.

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M&A work can be challenging and rewarding. When women take on key and visible HR M&A roles, they approach deals differently and are faced with unique challenges. Our mastermind panel, composed of experienced HR M&A leaders from serial acquirers, focuses on how each panelist discovered their individual strength and then built a community to share struggles and triumphs, while enriching personal and professional growth. They will share how their work together over the last 13 weeks that included truth seeking, peer accountability and genuine support, has sharpened both business and personal skills and discuss their own and collective journey to greater confidence and successes.

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Filling the Void Empathy in leadership can have a bad reputation. It’s too soft. It might show weakness. It’s exhausting. Yet data shows scores of team members want leaders to demonstrate more empathy. Come hear why one economical approach is all you need.

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Mary Cianni: Adjunct Faculty, MS Program in Executive Coaching and Organizational Consulting at New York University

The opening keynote speaker at the first Annual Conference of the HR M&A Roundtable is returning to share her personal experiences as both a consultant and CHRO. Dr. Cianni will explore how the world of M&A must adapt to the future trends and circumstances transforming work and organizations.

She will tie together conference conversations to spark ideas about ways participants can “connect the dots” to (1) enhance their professional goals, (2) deepen their impact on creating deal value, and (3) advocate for human-centric approaches to various phases of the transaction.

Dr. Mary Cianni has over 20 years of experience in the field of M&A. Mary served as the Global Leader of Integrated Solutions at Korn Ferry, responsible for transformation offerings at the firm including M&A. Prior to this role, she was the Global Leader of Willis Towers Watson’s M&A Human Capital Practice, leading a global team of M&A practitioners. She focused her consulting on change, culture, and leadership alignment. Mary co-led change leadership activities for the Towers Watson and Willis Towers Watson mergers. 

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