M&A Integrations Manager (Contractor)

United Kingdom

6/2/2025

About Us

Azets saw the light of day in 2016, as a result of bringing leading-edge UK and Nordic business services companies together. For decades, we have provided business-critical support to thousands of clients throughout the UK and the Nordic region. Today, we are an international accounting, tax, advisory and business services company that delivers a personal experience, both digitally and at your door. We are on a mission to help organisations of all shapes and sizes achieve their ambitions, saving them precious time to focus on what they do best. Azets Group has over 8,000 people and supports some 90,000 clients across its network of 160+ offices in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia and Romania. Its clients include enterprises, SMEs, large scale businesses, public sector organisations, and private clients, across multiple sectors. It generates revenues of approximately £700 million and has acquired more than 90 local providers since inception. Azets’ client experience is based on delivering a highly personalised service, through its local office network and proprietary digital workplace technology Azets CoZone, a unique cloud-based portal. Azets CoZone offers SMEs a market-leading digital solution, with instant access to information about their business that simplifies workflows, increases operational productivity, and supports a more productive client relationship. Azets is backed by two leading private equity investors: PAI, with its deep sector expertise in Business Services, and Hg, with its longstanding heritage in software and services investing. Both investors have a strong track record of partnering with management teams to rapidly scale businesses and create global industry leaders. Azets has ambitious plans to become a £1.3 billion business by 2027. ;;

The role

The Integration Manager is the conductor of the orchestra when it comes to integration. This is a senior role which has a high internal profile in a private equity backed group and will be integral to the success of our buy and build strategy. You will be responsible for working with key stakeholders within Azets (both the operating business and the support functions) and the acquired business to ensure integration delivery of the key business objectives. The role will work closely with the regional M&A team and ultimately reports into the Regional M&A Leader.

Key accountabilities

•  Creation and maintenance of project plans for the integration and driving the achievement of those plans. Initial integration plans will be developed in conjunction with the acquiring business unit, the target business and the M&A team during the due diligence process and further refined once the deal is announced to staff and greater involvement is possible.
•  Ownership and running of the integration governance structure – including steering committees and workstreams, ensuring content is created and coordinating with the stakeholders .
•  Maintaining a firm grasp of the risks and issues, plans, dependencies of the project to provide the glue which brings all the elements together, ensuring priorities are agreed and delivered and that no elements are overlooked.
•  Prioritisation – managing stakeholder expectations and balancing the need to integrate in a timely manner while ensuring that staff and clients of the acquired business remain fully engaged .
•  Ownership of the integration budget.
•  Synergy benefits case management – creation and alignment with the business, tracking and realisation - working closely with relevant functions, especially Finance.
•  Manage the performance of third parties delivering into the programme. Ensure they are delivering on time, to budget and to specification.
•  Ensuring compliance with all necessary standards and regulations – working with compliance colleagues.
•  Presentations as required – progress updates, benefits cases, staff briefings
•  Close alignment to business change – ensuring that all change is communicated, embedded and positively received within the business
•  Strong focus on ensuring that the integration journey for acquired business employees is as positive and rewarding as possible. A key metric of this will be post-deal performance and attrition.
•  Active participation in Global M&A team, sharing best practice and lessons learnt, assisting colleagues to develop their approach and the overall M&A and Integration Playbook.
  
  

Skills & Experience

•  Working within business integrations
•  Working within business transformation programmes in a professional services environment
•  Project delivery within a wider programme of business change
•  Experience working within a matrix management environment
•  Accountancy / finance / practice management systems experience an advantage
•  Experience owning and managing budgets