HR Due Diligence: Best practice and insight

Panel discussion: 

Harriet Innes, Private Equality M&A People Specialist, Deloitte
Andrew Howard, Employment lawyer, Deloitte
Nicole Jones, Head of Talent, Advent
Kathleen Maes, HR Director, BT Group

Gurm Dhillon, UK M&A Leader, Deloitte
Gurm is the UK Leader for Deloitte’s Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) businesses in the UK. As well as managing our M&A teams on a day to day basis, he is also responsible for driving forward Deloitte’s multi-disciplinary M&A offering across the breadth and depth of our M&A capabilities. We support our clients in the most complex and transformational M&A situations, focussing on creating sustainable value pre, during and post transaction. From a client perspective Gurm works primarily with Financial investors and is the EMEA Relationship Partner for Deloitte's largest private equity client.

Nicole Jones, Talent Director, PSG, Advent
Nicole Jones joined Advent in 2020 and is Head of Talent, Europe, for the Portfolio Support Group. She is a Director, based in London, and is focused on talent development at our portfolio companies.

Prior to joining Advent, Nicole was the Human Resources Director, Investments, C&D and International at M&G plc, and held chief of staff roles at M&G and Prudential. She also ran Prudential’s Indian operations and the communications function for M&G. Previously, she spent five years at Egon Zehnder, leading mandates in search and assessment. Earlier in her career, Nicole was the Head of Investor Relations at a PE-backed outsourcing business after corporate finance and business development roles in the company through the business’ IPO. She began her career in investment banking at Deutsche Bank in London.

She has a BA (Hons) from Queens University and an International MBA from Schulich School of Business in Canada.

Louise Hunter, Director, Deloitte 
Louise leads Deloitte’s HR due diligence practice, advising companies on the people-related costs and risks to consider in a transaction. Louise advises on multiple transactions each year across a broad range of HR issues in the UK and globally, working regularly as part of cross-border and cross-disciplinary Deloitte transaction teams. Louise is a qualified actuary and applies her analytical skills to data covering a range of HR topics including reward, benefits, employee turnover and organisation design.

Harriet Innes, Private Equity M&A People Specialist, Deloitte
Harriet is a Director in Deloitte’s Private Equity team and focuses on unlocking value through the HR and People aspects of transactions. Harriet advises clients across the full transaction lifecycle, from buy-side due diligence to preparing for successful exits. Harriet has extensive experience in managing employee transition, structuring compensation and benefits, and streamlining HR operations.

Andrew Howard, Employment lawyer, Deloitte
Andrew leads Deloitte's People Law and Employee Relations team and has over 15 years’ experience of advising employers on contentious and non-contentious aspects of the employment relationship. He has significant experience of advising on the employment aspects of transfers of undertakings and corporate reorganisations, often involving an international dimension. Andrew works with both legal and non-legal teams bringing Deloitte’s multi-disciplinary approach to clients on all people aspects of M&A and restructuring activity, including advising on people strategy, separation, employment legal and HR due diligence, deal documentation and post-transaction integration.

Kathleen Maes, HR Director, BT Group
Kathleen has been with BT for nine years, currently working within BT International. For the past three years, her focus has been on transformation and M&A activity. Kathleen has led the people strategy for five successful divestments and currently runs the Labour Cost Transformation programme for BT International, supporting the build of the Global Telco Platform.

Melissa Bruno, Partner, BDO
Melissa is a Partner in the People Advisory Services practice at BDO.