What are the responsibilities and job description for the Interim Post-Merger Integration Director position at VDS Consulting Group?
Contract | 6–12 months | Day rate expenses | Travel M–F, CONUS
The mandate
Two or more manufacturing businesses just became one on paper. Your job is to make that true in practice — operations, systems, people, and culture — starting on day one and moving fastest during the first hundred days, when the window for change is widest and the risk of losing customers and key employees is highest.
You will work across every function and hold authority delegated from the CEO and the sponsor.
What you'll own
- The integration plan: workstreams, owners, milestones, dependencies, and synergy targets
- Integration management office setup and cadence
- Synergy capture and tracking, with financial validation against the deal model
- Operations integration — footprint, capacity allocation, product transfers, procurement consolidation
- Systems and data integration in coordination with IT leadership
- Organizational design, role clarity, and retention of key people
- Cultural integration, which is where most of these programs actually fail
- Customer and supplier communication and continuity
- Day-one readiness and the first 100 days
- Executive, board, and sponsor reporting
What you bring
- 12 years in operations, general management, or integration leadership
- Multiple completed post-merger integrations in manufacturing or industrial businesses, led rather than supported
- Demonstrated synergy capture against a deal model
- Cross-functional authority and the ability to use it without alienating the team you inherited
- Strong program management discipline under real time pressure
- Genuine skill with the human side — retention, communication, and culture
Strong plus: roll-up or platform-and-add-on experience; carve-out integration; PE sponsor reporting; experience linking diligence findings to the integration plan; familiarity with 360º Client Alignment®.