People M&A Lead: End-to-End Diligence & Integration

CryptoproNetwork; Northern (KY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Payward is seeking an HR (People) M&A Lead to own the people side of the M&A process from diligence through integration. Reporting to the CPO, this high-velocity role demands fast judgments, data-driven risk assessment, and hands-on ownership.

The successful candidate will model compensation and equity, design retention plans, and coordinate with corp dev, legal, finance, and People leadership to drive post-close readiness and scalable playbooks for future deals.

Qualifications

• 8+ years across M&A people/HR diligence, integration, total rewards, or corp dev with hands-on ownership of people workstream on completed deals.
• Track record of running multi-diligence processes on tight timelines.
• Strong analytical depth in comp, equity, dilution, retention cost and integration spend.

Responsibilities

• Own the people workstream of Payward's M&A activity end to end, from diligence to close and integration.
• Build and own People DDQ including data requests, target questions, follow-ups, and workshops.
• Crunch high-volume data rooms using AI to compress review cycles.
• Translate findings into a short list of risk flags with recommendations.
• Lead drafting of people-side deal mechanics including comp, equity, retention, earn-out.

Skills

M&A diligence

HR integration

Analytical depth

Global deal experience

AI/automation

Executive communication

Confidentiality

Ambiguity handling

Job description

Payward is seeking an HR (People) M&A Lead to own the people side of the M&A process from diligence through integration. Reporting to the CPO, this high-velocity role demands fast judgments, data-driven risk assessment, and hands-on ownership.

The successful candidate will model compensation and equity, design retention plans, and coordinate with corp dev, legal, finance, and People leadership to drive post-close readiness and scalable playbooks for future deals.