People & HR Director || Technology Start-Ups & Scale-Ups

I specialise in helping private equity–backed and investor-led businesses realise value through people, leadership and operating execution, particularly across FinTech and Financial Services environments undergoing growth, acquisition and transformation.

My work often starts at the point where transactions become reality. I support Boards, investors and executive teams to translate deal intent into scalable operating models, leadership capability and organisational structures that protect value, accelerate performance and enable sustainable growth beyond Day One.

Over the past decade, I have led complex integrations, carve-outs and restructurings across international markets, including the acquisition and integration of global businesses within regulated financial services and high-growth technology sectors. This has included scaling organisations across multiple geographies, building enterprise-grade people and governance frameworks, and supporting successful exits for institutional investors.

I am particularly effective in entering businesses to assess, stabilise and strengthen leadership, reduce people-related execution risk, and align workforce strategy to commercial ambition. While not a career “BAU HR leader”, I step into operational leadership roles where required, with a mandate to professionalise, simplify and leave behind stronger capability.

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WHAT OTHERS SAY

"Dylan guided the Board with regards to leadership transition at the Company, and executed with integrity and action throughout the restructuring and acquisition programme."
- Farooq Jaffrey, Fintech Venture Capital Investments

"As COO, Dylan worked closely with the CEO to implement a turnaround strategy and successfully positioned the company for its successful acquisition by Trading Technologies."
- Mark Rodrigues, Venture Partner, Illuminate Financial

"In an extremely fast moving and challenging environment, Dylan joined the Integration Team leading the People, Culture and Comms workstream of 200 people from Reg-Room and Thompson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence into CUBE. He hit the ground running, prioritising and delivering urgent and strategic requirements from his first morning."
- Andrew Scola, M&A Director, ex Deloitte, PwC

"What Dylan doesn't know about M&A you could write on your toenail!  He is super knowledgeable, knows his way around M&A like the back of his hand and is SUPER patient. He is objective, thoughtful and puts the employees first - always."
- Elinor Brett, FCIPD, CPO

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Dylan Roberts

I've rarely worked on an acquisition where the HR due diligence was 100% complete.
 
The information you need can often arrive late and, by the time you've secured it, your planning window's shrunk.

Also, on one deal, not all the senior leaders were available for the welcome. To be fair it was not their fault, but that gap costs more than people realise. The first impression an acquired workforce gets of new leadership is the one that sticks longest.

Two lessons I'd pass on to any deal team:

1️⃣  HR diligence needs to be treated like financial diligence. Incomplete information isn't a minor blocker, it's a real risk to a successful integration.

2️⃣  Day One requires the leaders in the room. Every time. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Remember, technical integration/issues can be fixed over the course of time. First impressions cannot.

#mergersandacquisitions #postmergerintegration #peopleintegration #privateequity

M&A People Integration Specialist | Co-Founder at Deal | Executing the People Agenda for PE-Backed Firms

I spent a brilliant afternoon yesterday at Parliament for the Modernising Employment All Party Parliamentary Group session: "Talent Matters: Solving the Skills Gap for Tomorrow".

There was an exceptional panel of speakers, Lord Knight, Lella Violet Halloum, Peter Elias CBE, Keith Rosser, and Irena Grugulis, who shared practical, actionable insights on what employers can do right now to tackle the UK's growing skills challenge.

But this was just the beginning. I'm looking forward to continuing to collaborate with these and others to develop best practice guidance for employers, due to be released later this year.

If the UK wants growth, we have to get serious about how we build, deploy and value talent. A fairer, more skilled, future-ready labour market won’t happen by accident.

Let’s build it.

#HR #BetterHiring #FutureOfWork #ModernisingEmployment

M&A People Integration | Interim People Leader | HR Change & Transformation | Executing the People Agenda for PE-Backed Firms

Why did I go quiet? 

Seven months ago I stopped publishing this newsletter series, why did that happen? 

I was inside the most complex multi-jurisdictional acquisition programmes I have ever run - 3 acquisitions, across 17 countries.

I was actually living this Playbook, and I stopped writing it. 

Now I am out the other side, and I have things to say that I could not say while I was inside it.

What I got right. What I got wrong. And what I missed entirely from the original series.

The M&A People Playbook is back.

#HR #MergersAndAcquisitions #PrivateEquity #HRLeadership #PostMergerIntegration

Seven months ago I stopped publishing the M&A People Playbook newsletter, why did that happen? I was inside the most complex multi-jurisdictional acqu

Open article: Why did I go quiet? by Dylan Roberts • 2 min read

A carve-out is not a small acquisition, or a simpler process to follow. The people risk is many times higher.

I know that many people will deal with them in the same way, that’s understandable. Same integration playbook with the same assumptions. 

But there is one (MASSIVE) fundamental difference.

In an acquisition you are integrating people where there are two existing employers, both with clear cultures. Org structures exist, and contracts are all in place. There is a clear defined identity and that’s what drives your plan.

But, in a carve-out, you will often be creating a new employer from scratch. There may be no existing HR support structure, no payroll, no contracts, not even a defined clear culture for this new company. So where do you start?

Things that often get missed in a carve-out are:
👉 Employment contracts - it’s a new entity so you will likely need to re-hire or transfer everyone in some way. 
👉 Employment benefits - those previous benefit plans? They no longer apply so you will need to start again, from scratch, for each country.
👉 Culture - this is a big one (like the others aren’t!). The cultural and psychological dynamic is entirely different between an acquisition and a carve-out - spend time on getting your comms right and don’t go down the path of some generic integration comms plan. It won’t work.

There’s more, a lot more, but I hope you get the idea that a playbook or a plan built for an acquisition won’t simply float across and be relevant for a carve-out. They are very different transactions that require very different thinking.

If you’re looking at a carve-out in the near future, and this post has made you think twice about how to do it, drop me line and let’s talk about it.

#MergersAndAcquisitions #PeopleIntegration #PrivateEquity #PostMergerIntegration

In almost every M&A deal I've been involved with the people risks were visible from the start.

Key talent who would walk if the deal was mishandled. Cultural fault lines between two organisations that slow integration for months. Leadership structures that needed redesigning before Day 1, not after. TUPE obligations that got picked up late because HR wasn't in the room early enough.

None of this is surprising to anyone who has been through a transaction. Yet, time and again, HR due diligence gets treated as a compliance exercise rather than a commercial one, and people integration planning starts far too late.

The companies that get this right bring their people lead into the process early and keep them there through stabilisation. Not as a support function, but as a core part of the deal team.

That's how Deal operates. Today we've launched!  🚀 

I lead the people and culture work-stream in the collective, and I bring an award-winning M&A People Integration Playbook that covers HRDD, org design, TUPE, cultural integration and retention. Built from real transactions, not theory.

If you're running a deal and you want people risk managed properly from the start, DM me directly or see Andrew Scola's post for the full picture.

Deal. Delivered.

Andrew Scola | Alexandra Keen | Michael Cramb | Patrick Thorp

#mergersandacquisitions #peopleintegration #postmergerintegration #dealexecutiom

Deal Summary Deck

On Wednesday, we launched Deal.

A small group of senior M&A operators.

One shared view of a problem that keeps showing up the same way.

⚠️ The deal closes.
⚠️ Then the portco team inherits execution on top of everything else.
⚠️ Transaction advisors hand off.
⚠️ Integration consultants arrive late.
⚠️ Nobody owns the full picture.

We built Deal to own that picture.

An independent senior M&A execution team from deal to value delivery.

If that gap is familiar, I'd welcome a conversation.


#mergersandacquisitions #privateequity #postmergerintegration #peopleintegration

Most PE firms will have a 100-day plan for any acquisition or divestment, but not as many have a Day One plan to ensure those 100 days will be a success.

The 48 hours after a deal closes can be the most dangerous in a transaction. Not because the deal falls apart - it's already done - but because the people who will make the deal work start making decisions about whether they're staying, or not. 

They're watching, and they're talking, and in the absence of clear signals from the new owners, they will generally fill the gap with assumption, and assumption, in my experience, is almost always worse than the truth.

I've been involved in integrations where Day One was treated as an admin exercise. Investors and owners get on with signing the paperwork, leaders send a welcome email, and they may hold a town hall. 

I've also led integrations where Day One was treated as the most important communication event of the entire deal. The difference in retention, pace, and cultural coherence six months later was significant, and cannot be ignored.

Here is what actually needs to happen before the ink dries:
👉 Identify and celebrate the leaders who are staying. People need visibility of an established structure that they can be a part of into the future.
👉 Brief line managers before the all-hands. This should be obvious, because people will raise concerns to those who are closest to them, not some random mailbox for a CEO to respond to in 2 weeks time.
👉 Decide what is not changing and let people know at the outset. People can absorb change but they won't accept a lack of transparency. 
👉 Be ready for resignations - these are normal and are to be expected but in and of themselves do not mean the deal will fail. But you need to be ready to respond in the right way so things don't snowball.

Don't get me wrong, a 100-day plan matters, of course it does. But it only works if you haven't lost your best people by Day 3....

🚨 HINT: save this post and share it with your deal team before your next close.

#mergersandacquisitions #peopleintegration #hr #leadership #privateequity

The UK has a skills gap. We as employers keep saying it. Government keeps acknowledging it. What very few are doing is anything to close it.

Last week I spent an afternoon at Parliament for the Modernising Employment APPG session on talent and the UK’s skills gap. We covered a lot of ground, but one thread ran through everything:

The way the UK hires is actively making the problem worse.

We screen people out based on credentials they don't need, and we rely on job descriptions written for the last person in the role. 

We conflate "culture fit" with familiarity, and then we wonder why the talent pipeline is thin.

The businesses I work with in PE-backed environments face this acutely, especially post-acquisition, when they suddenly need to scale fast and the old hiring model doesn't stretch. 

The skills are out there, but I would argue that the problem is our pre-conceived filters. So what can be done about it?

One option would be to wait for Government to issue updated policy, but there are a couple of fixes that any business can do right now, today:

✅ Job descriptions - focus these on outcomes, don’t get fixated on qualifications. Hire for what the business needs that job to deliver, not your pre-conception of what qualifications are the most relevant.

✅ Assess for potential - if you hire someone in to a role they will already excel at, then where is the opportunity for them, and you, to grow? 

If you have the opportunity to consider either, or both, of these then have a think about this week. In the meantime I’ll continue to work with the Better Hiring Institute (BHI) and the APPG sub-committee to turn this into practical guidance for all businesses. Watch this space!

#ModernisingEmployment #FutureOfWork #HR #Leadership #Skills

Launch week, done.

It's been a good few days. The response to Deal has been warm, and the conversations have been the right ones. The problem we built this to solve is clearly one people recognise.

We're just getting started.

If you're working through a transaction, and the capacity or capability question is on your mind, I'd welcome a conversation.

#mergersandacquisitions #privateequity #postmergerintegration

Most M&A integrations fail because of four decisions that nobody made clearly in the first thirty days.

I've run integrations that went smoothly and some that came close to derailing. The difference was rarely about resources or timelines. It was almost always about whether these four things were owned, explicitly, from day one:

1️⃣ Who leads the people workstream, and do they have clear authority? Not a generic project manager with a RAG status report. But someone who knows they can escalate a problem directly to the CEO and their team.

2️⃣ Have you actually read the employment contracts? TUPE, probation periods, notice clauses, change of control provisions… These shape what you can and can't do in month one.

3️⃣ Who are the three people you absolutely must retain, and have you spoken to them? These are the people who hold the client relationships and the team together. If they walk out the door in month two, the integration cost just doubled, at least.

None of this is complicated. But, many of these get skipped when people are focused on close and “assume HR will handle the people stuff."

THE PEOPLE STUFF IS THE DEAL STUFF.

Treat it as such.

#mergersandacquisitions #peopleintegration #privateequity #postmergerintegration #leadership

630 new subscribers in one day 🚀 

That tells me something - this topic matters. 

The M&A People Playbook went quiet because I was inside the most complex multi-jurisdictional acquisition programme I have ever run. Living it, but not writing about it.

Now I am out the other side, and the Playbook is back. Same topics but with a much sharper lens. 

If the people side of M&A is your world, this is for you.

Link in comments.

#mergersandacquisitions #peopleintegration #privateequity #postmergerintegration

🙌  I'm pleased to have been included again in Thomas Allgeyer's summary of M&A insights from around the globe. 

If you're involved in mergers, acquisitions, carve-outs, or divestments then follow this link to Thomas's article!

 #mergersandaquisitions #carveouts #divestments #privateequity 


https://lnkd.in/ef7FTgn6

View newsletter: Strategy, M&A & Investments

Open article: Best of LinkedIn CW 09/ 10: M&A Insights by Thomas Allgeyer • 13 min read

Signing is the easy bit. 

You’ve closed the deal and now you’re on the hook to deliver it. That’s the moment where the value can be lost or won. In those short first weeks after close, this is when the talent you paid for - those people who created the value you bought - is quietly waiting, and weighing up their options.

This is exactly the space I have been working in for past few years. Integrations, carve-outs, and PE-backed businesses mid-transaction. The pattern above is not a hypothetical, it happens time and time again.

Which is why launching Deal last week felt like we did something at exactly the right moment. We can see consolidation accelerating, and the pressure on leadership teams to execute is intensifying. The model we have built is based on our collective experience, and isn’t something I’ve seen before.

If you've got a transaction coming up, or one already underway, it's worth a conversation before you think you need one.

Andrew Scola | Alexandra Keen | Michael Cramb | Patrick Thorp

#mergersandacquisitions #peopleintegration #postmergerintegration #privateequity #hr

The biggest risk in most acquisitions isn't on the balance sheet.

It's in the people the deal team never spoke to.

Financial due diligence will tell you what a business has earned. Employment due diligence, when done properly, tells you whether it can keep earning under new ownership.

In my experience, most deals do one of these well. Very few do both.

Here's what I see get missed, repeatedly:

🚨 The shadow org chart. The official structure shows you who has the title. It doesn't show you who actually makes the decisions, who the team goes to when something goes wrong, or whose departure would quietly hollow the business out. That person rarely appears on a risk register.

🚨 The founder dependency question. Not "is the founder leaving?", that's usually already been answered. The harder question is whether the business has ever actually operated without them making the calls. Culture, client relationships, institutional knowledge, the company's USP --- these don't transfer automatically with the shares.

🚨 The unresolved tension. A grievance that hasn't been raised. A senior hire who's been looking for an exit. A pay disparity that surfaces the moment two workforce populations are put side by side. None of this appears in EBITDA analysis.

Earn-outs and deferred consideration can manage financial uncertainty. But they can't manage cultural misalignment, leadership dependency, or a workforce that didn't choose to be acquired.

Remember, PEOPLE RISK IS DEAL RISK.

The businesses that protect value post-close are the ones that treat it that way from the start. Not as an HR work-stream, but as a commercial one.

#mergersandacquisitions #peopleintegration #privateequity #hr #leadership

M&A People Comms Strategy - to use AI or not AI....  Do you have a strategy?  I want to remind you of the traditional norms of public comms.

I commented on someone's post a few days ago, who was complaining about people's perception of AI, and I voiced my view that AI has simply been trained by us in the first place.

A long time ago, my father who is an accomplished public speaker, taught me the three golden rules about communication.  

1 - Tell them what you are going to tell them
2 - Tell them
3 - Tell them what you told them

This approach has always stood me in good stead, and I wonder if AI is simply picking up on the traditional ways of doing things.  

Regardless, if you are undertaking an acquisition, do not forget to tell people what is going on, as soon as you possibly can.  Trust your people, and they will understand, and they will follow and support you.  That is it - no need for a broader M&A comms strategy.  Just be transparent.

I hope this resonates, as I'm sure a few more of you will have had the same message explained to you that I had all those years ago.  Public comms is fairly easy, but we can make it far more difficult if we spend most of our time trying to work out if AI was helping generate the content.  

It's the message that's important.

#mergersandacquisitions #publicspeaking #communication #leadership

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Amo il mio lavoro, è la mia passione e al tempo stesso la mia identità. Non sono una stacanovista ma mi piacciono i risultati e lavoro sodo per ottenerli. 

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