HR (People) M&A Lead

About the role

Payward is hiring a HR (People) M&A Lead to own the people side of our M&A activity end to end — from first-pass diligence through close and integration. Reporting directly to our CPO, this is a high-pace, high-volume seat that needs someone who thrives on fast turnarounds and incomplete information. We're looking for an in-house operator with an analyst's mindset who can use AI to move fast through messy data rooms, but whose real edge is judgment — knowing what risks matter and when to deviate.

Opportunities

• Own the people's workstream of Payward's M&A activity end to end — from first-pass diligence through close and integration.
• Build and own People due diligence questionnaire (DDQ) including data requests and questions to the target, follow-ups and deeper-dive workshops.
• Crunch high-volume, low-structure data rooms — employment contracts, org data, comp and equity files, policies, claims history — using AI and automation to compress review cycles.
• Filter signal from noise: translate hundreds of findings into a short list of flags scored against Payward's risk tolerance, with a clear recommendation attached to each.
• Lead the drafting of the people-side deal mechanics: comp modelling, equity treatment, retention and earn-out structures, and deal-specific considerations that hold up in negotiation with founders.
• Sit in the room with corp dev, legal, finance and People leadership — leverage SMEs and push recommendations upward, defending them with data.
• Act as People M&A program manager during integration after signing: support org design, levelling and comp harmonization, retention execution, and Day 1 people readiness.
• Turn each deal into reusable infrastructure and learnings — playbooks, DDQ templates, risk scoring, and automation that make the next deal faster.

What you bring

• 8+ years across M&A people/HR diligence, integration, total rewards, or corp dev — with hands-on ownership of the people workstream on completed deals.
• A track record of running multi-diligence processes in tandem, to a hard timeline: knowing what to prioritize or defer.
• Strong analytical depth — comfortable modelling comp, equity, dilution, retention cost and integration spend directly, not briefing someone else to do it.
• Global/cross-border deal experience with multi-jurisdiction and/or regulatory change of control employment considerations.
• Demonstrated use of AI and automation to review large document volumes, with judgement about where the model's output can and cannot be trusted.
• Ability to make and communicate risk calls on incomplete information, and to state a position clearly to executive stakeholders.
• Credibility in founder-facing negotiation conversations on comp, equity and retention structures.
• Rigorous confidentiality instincts and comfort operating on live, undisclosed transactions.
• High agency in ambiguity — deals move, scope shifts, and no one hands over a finished process.

Nice to haves

• Crypto, fintech or regulated financial services acquisition experience.
• Experience integrating founder-led or early-stage teams into a larger platform.
• Prior work building a diligence or integration playbook from scratch.

Pay

Compensation Range: $110.4K - $220.8K