M&A Technology Director

At Informa, no two days and no two people are the same, and you'll find the freedom, opportunity and support of a fantastic community to make a real impact.

We’re an international business that connects specialists with knowledge, helping them to learn more, know more and do more through live and on demand events, digital and data-driven services and academic research.

We are home to over 10,000 colleagues across 30 countries and are a member of the UK’s FTSE 100 group of leading public companies.

In Global Support, we provide expert guidance and hands-on support to the Informa Group and Informa’s many business teams. Across tech, finance, legal, corporate development, HR, communications, operations and many other areas, we work collaboratively and flexibly to help our brands serve their customers and help the company succeed.

Reporting to the Chief Technology Strategy Officer, with a dotted line to the Group Director, Corporate Development, the Technology M&A Director will be responsible for leading the technology integration planning and execution for our Mergers, Acquisitions and, Divestments Portfolio with accountability for our technology integration strategy.  You will be accountable for ensuring that Informa has a clearly defined, repeatable and scalable operating model for the efficient and effective onboarding and offboarding of businesses; for coordinating with Divisional CTOs and SVPs, TS&S Leadership, Corporate Development and business M&A Directors to ensure all parties are aligned around integration roadmaps (including plans, budgets and timelines) and for overseeing the execution of technology integration efforts, ensuring appropriate visibility and mitigation of risks/issues and effective monitoring of deliverables and outcomes.

This role works with and through technology teams across the business.  It will not specifically manage the delivery of integration efforts (which will sit with the business and the respective technology delivery teams) but will ensure they are planned, delivered and adopted effectively and through the use of repeatable, transparent and efficient processes, playbooks and resourcing models.  It therefore requires the ability to lead, communicate and influence through networks, having excellent stakeholder management skills and operating comfortably at the centre of complex matrices.

M&A technology playbooks and best practices.  Accountable for:

• Ensuring all technology functions/practices have clearly defined and appropriate:
  1. Policies/guardrails/redlines that drive integration planning and decision making;
  2. Playbooks that drive due diligence/discovery analyses and delivery planning;
  3. Resourcing models and sourcing strategies that enable resources to be scaled up and down in line with M&A demand
• Ensuring all initiatives within the Portfolio have an appropriate governance structure that enables effective decision making and mitigation of technology risks/issues
• Ensuring regular retros drive a continuous learning and improvement culture and for embedding these into common practice
• Driving adoption of best practice change frameworks/processes/artefacts etc (defined by the Tech Change Team) throughout the M&A Technology Portfolio

Due Diligence

• Ultimate oversight for the technical evaluation of systems in potential acquisitions, due diligence and risk assessment. Coordinates TS&S TLT to ensure alignment on risk profile of the deal based on allocated transaction time and data quality obtained.
• Oversight of target technology operating models, considering the strategic technology roadmap and identifying trade-offs and impacts of integration options which could span near term / tactical and long term strategic. Ensure that planning for completing the integration takes into account all other TS&S strategy / activity to ensure no surprises in timelines, capacity or dependencies post deal close.
• Support the TS&S M&A Delivery Leads (who work with Enterprise Architecture and the dedicated M&A resources within the TS&S delivery towers) to undertake Due Diligence to:
  1. Complete the DD questionnaire for each area
  2. Identify the critical scope components that will be required for the integration
  3. Complete high level cost estimates based on standard estimating methodologies
  4. Identify critical risks/issues that may impact the deal structure or outcome and ensure these are made transparent to Corp Dev when creating the business case for the deal

Mobilisation:

• Accountable for the TS&S Mobilisation portfolio, ensuring that sufficient capacity / capability is available to meet the M&A pipeline demand. Accountable for ensuring sufficient engagement with GBS, HR, other functions and the Integration Officer and Business Integration Programme Manager to ensure alignment to overall commercial strategy and other key functional dependencies. Ensure that all Technology related decisions are ratified and agreed with senior execs before integration implementation begins.
• Support the TS&S M&A Delivery Leads (who work with Enterprise Architecture and the dedicated M&A resources within the TS&S delivery towers) to undertake post deal close activities that make up Mobilisation including:
  1. As is architecture, As is application catalogue, As is resource model (covering internal teams and third-party suppliers), As is technology budget (covering resources, software, hosting etc), planned technology changes/investments, known technology risks
  2. Landing Architecture to move the acquired business onto the Informa stack (including any options analysis required where target architecture is not yet built and interim solutions need to be identified)
  3. Integration strategy, scope, objectives, and roadmap (including timeline and budget), based on the deal objectives, synergy targets and Informa guardrails/redlines
• Work with Finance business partners to ensure that cost budgets (recurring/BAU and one-off integration costs) and synergies are effectively understood and agreed by relevant technology leaders, and then tracked throughout the lifetime of the programme to ensure an accurate and complete picture of all integration costs
• Work with the business and Corp Dev M&A Director(s), to define and agree the appropriate governance structure, reporting and escalation mechanisms to ensure appropriate decision-making around technology integration for each deal 
• Ensure alignment with wider TS&S strategic initiatives and TCO agenda to align individual acquisition goals to wider technology strategy. Highlight opportunities and risks associated with key technology decisions and coordinate discussions with the Business, Corp Dev and group functions to ensure alignment on options and impacts.
• Run and manage the TS&S M&A Implementation Board which oversees all TS&S M&A related activity across all IT domains, ensuring alignment on functional plans with GBS, and acting as an escalation point for any mobilisation or integration implementation risks and issues
• Identify integration risks, issues and dependencies and define mitigation/contingency plans

Integration Implementation Oversight:

• Oversee all M&A technology integration delivery, ensuring that in lines into business owned plans and supports the business in delivering the required outcomes to support the commercial strategy and required synergies
• Coordinate TS&S delivery towers (via the TS&S M&A Delivery Leads) to ensure that implementation happens on time / on budget according to the design, costs and timelines that were agreed at completion of Mobilisation. Act as a focal point for risk and issue escalation
• Provide clear and accurate view of TS&S M&A status to TS&S, Corp Dev and Divisions to allow sufficient oversight and control at the exec level. Manage and resolve the integration conflicts and challenges and escalate critical issues to senior management, ensuring timely resolution
• Ensure compliance with regulatory, legal, and contractual requirements and Informa’s standards/guardrails/redlines
• Ensure appropriate change management and stakeholder engagement activities are planned to ensure the integration is supported and accepted by colleagues and customers

Monitoring:

• Working with the TCT function, use KPIs, milestones and deliverables to track and measure the progress and performance of technology integration activities, ensuring the integration delivers expected outcomes
• Post-integration, evaluate the technology integration outcomes and lessons learned and provide the feedback and recommendations for continuous improvement
• Maintain visibility and tracking of integration activities for a three-year period post-deal

Communication:

• Communicate the integration vision, goals, and expectations to internal and external technology stakeholders to enable effective planning and decision-making
• Provide regular updates and feedback on the portfolio status and achievements
• Facilitate the technology integration collaboration and communication across IT teams and the business units, fostering IT alignment and an integration culture

Team leadership and management:

• Build and lead a small team of high-performing TS&S M&A Delivery leads who will be accountable for coordinating high quality inputs into DD, driving activities during Mobilisation (ratified architectures, delivery plans and costs, alignment of all parties and approval via appropriate forums) and driving Integration (ensuring plans are delivered to agreed timelines and budgets – or remediating technology blockers where they exist)
• Engage and support the wider set of key M&A stakeholders across TS&S, the Business and Corp Dev to foster inclusive and integrated ways of working, transparent communications and aligned expectations

• Considerable experience in leading teams to execute M&A integration
• Proven experience of driving technology operating model improvements including the introduction of controls, processes, structures and tools
• Expert in planning and managing portfolios of complex strategic change across a federated organisation, including complex portfolio governance
• Experience supporting senior leaders to build strong relationships and ways of working, and to take a collaborative approach to complex problem-solving.
• Proven ability to drive a broad group of stakeholders with disparate views towards a common goal
• Strong business acumen and presence at the leadership level as well as with highly technical staff
• Highly numerate with strong experience of financial planning and cost management
• Ability to communicate effectively, with strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence
• Strong negotiation skills: negotiates internally and externally at high levels or with persons of influence
• Strong leadership skills with a team-oriented and collaborative approach to work
• Ability to influence corporate opinion and key stakeholders and to make timely decisions