People M&A Lead for Global Crypto & Fintech

Kraken; United States; On-site; USD 110,000 - 221,000; Full time

Job summary

Kraken is hiring a People M&A Lead to own the people side of our M&A activity end to end. You will drive due diligence, data-room analysis, and integration with a data-driven, risk-aware approach.

This role requires 8+ years in M&A-related HR work, global experience, and the ability to negotiate with founders. You will work closely with corp dev, legal, and finance leaders to shape deal terms and post-close organization design.

Qualifications

• 8+ years across M&A people/HR diligence, integration, total rewards, or corp dev with hands-on ownership.
• Experience running multi-diligence processes on tight timelines.
• Strong analytical depth including comp, equity, dilution, retention, and integration spend.

Responsibilities

• Own the people workstream of Payward's M&A end to end, from diligence to integration.
• Build and own the People DDQ including data requests and workshops.
• Crunch high-volume, low-structure data rooms using AI to compress review cycles.
• Translate findings into a short list of risk flags with clear recommendations.
• Lead the drafting of people-side deal mechanics: comp, equity, retention, earn-outs.
• Collaborate with corp dev, legal, finance, and People leadership; defend with data.
• Act as People M&A program manager during integration post-signing.
• Turn each deal into reusable playbooks and automation.

Skills

M&A diligence

Integration

Total rewards

Corp dev experience

Analytical modelling

Cross-border experience

Executive stakeholder mgmt

Risk assessment

Founders negotiation

Ambiguity handling

Tools

AI tools for due diligence

Job description

Kraken is hiring a People M&A Lead to own the people side of our M&A activity end to end. You will drive due diligence, data-room analysis, and integration with a data-driven, risk-aware approach.

This role requires 8+ years in M&A-related HR work, global experience, and the ability to negotiate with founders. You will work closely with corp dev, legal, and finance leaders to shape deal terms and post-close organization design.