Post-Merger Integration Roles and Responsibilities: Who Decides What
Most acquirers set up a three-tier hierarchy of integration teams with each tier playing a different role:
- At the top, the Steering Committee — often the CEO, CFO, COO, and other senior functional leaders — sets direction, approves major plans and decisions, and resolves issues that require executive-level attention.
- Below the Steering Committee, the Integration Management Office (IMO) drives the integration forward, coordinates work across functions, tracks progress, and provides consistent reporting to leadership. The Integration Manager leads the IMO and keeps the overall effort on track.
- Reporting to the IMO are the individual workstreams such as Sales, HR, Finance, IT, Communications, and Legal. Each workstream has a dedicated lead who owns its plan, drives execution, and raises issues that need to be resolved outside the workstream.
The well-defined roles for teams are only useful if the players stay connected. The IMO and workstream leads should meet at the same time every week — no exceptions. A consistent meeting cadence creates a regular forum to review progress, surface issues, and resolve dependencies. Clear ownership at these meetings on "who can decide what" keeps an integration on track.
Use the free documents in this section to communicate to your teams what decisions they own and when issues need to moved up the integration chain of command.
| Workstream | Deliverable / File | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| IMO | Team Roles and Governance: 100-Day Integration | Defines the teams, roles, decision rights, operating cadence, and controls needed to maintain an integration's momentum from Pre-Close through integration complete at Day 100. |
| IMO | Integration Management Office (IMO) Roles and Responsibilities | Explains the key roles within the Integration Management Office and the responsibilities each one has in planning, managing, and delivering a successful integration |
| IMO | The Role of Post-Merger Integration Manager | Defines the scope and responsibilities of the Post-Merger Integration Manager role, clarifying how it drives strategy alongside the Steering Committee and IMO |
| IMO | M&A Integration Team Roles & Responsibilities | Maps out integration team structure, showing how workstreams, the Steering Committee, and the IMO fit together |
| IMO | Post-Merger Integration Meeting Schedule | Defines series of mandatory meetings on team member schedules so focus on integration is maintained |
| IMO | Post-Merger Integration RACI Matrix | Assigns Responsible, Accountable, Consulting, and Included roles across the steering committee, IMO, functional teams, synergy owners, and accounting for major integration tasks |
| Communications | Post-Merger Integration Communication Matrix | Specifies the type of information, format, and distribution frequency for each stakeholder group |
| Human Resources | Human Resources: 10 Key M&A Responsibilities | Walks through HRs core M&A responsibilities, from workforce planning and due diligence to comparing benefits and compensation between the two companies |