Director, Employee Experience M&A
Adobe · San Jose, United States · 11d ago
The Opportunity
The Director, Employee Experience M&A leads the end-to-end people strategy for Adobe's transactions—from early diligence through close and post-close integration. This is a senior, high-ownership individual-contributor role for someone who can run deals independently, from beginning to end, rather than support or coordinate a single workstream. You will serve as the people lead on assigned deals, translating deal rationale into an actionable EX integration strategy and owning the outcome.
The role demands broad HR expertise, solid commercial insight, and the judgment to operate independently in complex, ambiguous, and often global environments. It requires making informed decisions while knowing when to bring up issues for validation. You will be a trusted advisor to senior leadership and the connective tissue between deal strategy and the lived employee experience. As with the rest of our team, this is a utility role. Between deals, and as we drive transformation across EX and the business, you will flex to lead high-priority initiatives beyond M&A.
What You'll Do
- Own the full people lifecycle for assigned deals, independently leading EX diligence, integration planning, and post-close execution.
- Translate deal rationale and value drivers into a concrete, measurable integration strategy and plan.
- Provide the early voice on people-integration risks, complexity, and cost during diligence, and shape how those insights inform the integration approach (and vice versa).
- Define and drive integration priorities, workstreams, and timelines across all phases; assemble and direct cross-functional effort without formal authority.
- Lead organizational transition, cultural assimilation, onboarding, and leadership/manager/team empowerment for acquired organizations, including complex and groundbreaking deals.
- Partner with Corporate Development / Integration, Legal, Finance, ATS/Systems, HRBPs, and business and target-company leaders to align on org design, operating model, and people plans.
- Advise senior leadership—including as needed the CHRO and business executives—with clear recommendations grounded in diligence findings and integration realities.
- Build and continuously improve the EX M&A playbook in partnership with the team, raising the team's ability to run more deals concurrently at consistent quality.
- Between and across deals, lead select transformation priorities—operating as a senior utility player deployable to a range of work beyond M&A.
What You Need to Succeed
Required
- 10+ years of progressive experience in HR, organizational strategy, or a related field, ideally within global enterprise environments.
- Demonstrated expertise across the full M&A deal lifecycle, with a track record of independently leading deals end-to-end.
- Broad HR knowledge across multiple fields: change management, culture and organization design, onboarding and leadership enablement, talent and workforce planning, and HR operations.
- Strong working knowledge of compensation/benefits harmonization and retention levers
- Proven ability to make high-impact decisions independently, influence senior partners, and lead cross-functionally without direct authority.
- Excellent facilitation, communication, and change-leadership skills, including experience advising executive leadership.
Preferred
- Consulting background (management, HR, or M&A advisory), bringing fungible skills that flex across the group's transformation work.
- Experience with complex-structured, stock, or asset deals and with global or multi-country employee footprints.
- Experience navigating labor relations, works councils, and local labor law consultation requirements in global deals, particularly across EMEA.
- Experience standing up or scaling M&A playbooks, processes, and tooling.
- Breadth and adaptability to perform in a senior multi-faceted role across M&A and broader transformation priorities.
About Adobe
Adobe empowers everyone to create through innovative platforms and tools that unleash creativity, productivity and personalized customer experiences. Adobe’s industry-leading offerings including Adobe Acrobat Studio, Adobe Express, Adobe Firefly, Creative Cloud, Adobe Experience Platform, Adobe Experience Manager, and GenStudio enable people and businesses to turn ideas into impact, powered by AI and driven by human ingenuity.
Our 30,000+ employees worldwide are creating the future and raising the bar as we drive the next decade of growth. We’re on a mission to hire the very best and believe in creating a company culture where all employees are empowered to make an impact. At Adobe, we believe that great ideas can come from anywhere in the organization. The next big idea could be yours.
Let’s Adobe together
At Adobe, we believe in creating a company culture where all employees are empowered to make an impact. Learn more about Adobe life, including our values and culture, focus on people, purpose and community, Adobe for All, comprehensive benefits programs, the stories we tell, the customers we serve, and how you can help us advance our mission of empowering everyone to create.
Adobe is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on gender, race or color, ethnicity or national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. Learn more.
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AI Use Guidelines for Interviews:
Our interviews are designed to reflect your own skills and thinking. The use of AI or recording tools during live interviews is not permitted unless explicitly invited by the interviewer or approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation. If these tools are used inappropriately or in a way that misrepresents your work, your application may not move forward in the process.
At Adobe, we empower employees to innovate with AI — and we look for candidates eager to do the same. As part of the hiring experience, we provide clear guidance on where AI is encouraged during the process and where it’s restricted during live interviews. See how we think about AI in the hiring experience.
Expected Pay Range:
Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several U.S. geographic markets, and we pay differently based on those defined markets. The U.S. pay range for this position is $185,800 - $278,750 annually. Pay within this range varies by work location and may also depend on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the job location during the hiring process.

In California, the pay range for this position is $192,500 - $278,750
At Adobe, for sales roles starting salaries are expressed as total target compensation (TTC = base + commission), and short-term incentives are in the form of sales commission plans. Non-sales roles starting salaries are expressed as base salary and short-term incentives are in the form of the Annual Incentive Plan (AIP).
In addition, certain roles may be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of a new hire equity award.
State-Specific Notices:
California:
Fair Chance Ordinances
Adobe will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with state and local laws and “fair chance” ordinances.
Colorado:
Application Window Notice
If this role is open to hiring in Colorado (as listed on the job posting), the application window will remain open until at least the date and time stated above in Pacific Time, in compliance with Colorado pay transparency regulations. If this role does not have Colorado listed as a hiring location, no specific application window applies, and the posting may close at any time based on hiring needs.
Massachusetts:
Massachusetts Legal Notice
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.