Head of Value Creation

Grant Thornton is seeking a Managing Director, Value Creation Office to join the team. 

Reporting to the Chief Financial Officer, the Managing Director, Value Creation Office (VCO), will lead Grant Thornton’s enterprise value creation capability during a period of sustained growth, transformation, and active M&A.  The role is responsible for translating investment theses, synergy assumptions, operating model opportunities, and transformation initiatives into disciplined value creation plans with clear ownership, milestones, evidence standards, and financial tracking.

The VCO leader will own the consolidated value tracker, evidence-based savings validation, regional and functional value creation governance, and monthly accountability routines that connect reported initiatives to financial outcomes.  This role will work closely with the Integration Management Office (IMO) leader so that value creation opportunities are embedded into integration planning early and realized through coordinated execution.

The successful candidate must be a senior value creation and transformation operator who can partner closely with business and functional leaders while maintaining disciplined accountability for results. The role requires strong financial acumen, sponsor-level communication skills, rigorous benefit tracking, and the credibility to challenge reported value, assumptions, timelines, and risks.

Key Responsibilities:

Value Creation Strategy and Plan Development

• Translate investment theses, diligence findings, operating model opportunities, and transformation priorities into value creation plans across cost, revenue, capability, process, and operating model dimensions.

• Partner with Corporate Development, Finance, IMO, and functional leadership during diligence and pre-close planning to validate value creation opportunities, risks, dependencies, and resourcing needs.

• Define value creation priorities by acquisition, region, function, and initiative, ensuring that value capture plans are realistic, sequenced, and tied to accountable owners.

• Maintain a balanced view of value creation across cost takeout, revenue synergy, process simplification, shared services, procurement, systems, working capital, and operating discipline.

Synergy Realization, Savings Validation, and Financial Tracking

• Define synergy targets, value realization metrics, benefit categories, evidence requirements, and financial tracking methodology.

• Own the consolidated value creation tracker and ensure consistent taxonomy, data quality, assumption documentation, and comparability across regions and functions.

• Validate reported savings using supporting evidence, finance review, run-rate logic, timing assumptions, and P&L realization analysis.

• Differentiate between identified, actioned, in-flight, realized, and at-risk benefits so leadership has a clear view of what is committed versus what is actually flowing through financial results.

Monthly P&L Accountability and Governance

• Design and lead monthly P&L accountability reviews to assess delivery against targets, identify risks, challenge assumptions, and confirm actions required to close gaps.

• Provide disciplined governance over initiative owners, ensuring that savings and value creation plans have clear owners, milestones, financial impact, and evidence expectations.

• Escalate material risks, missed milestones, low-confidence initiatives, data quality issues, and resourcing gaps with clear recommendations and decision asks.

• Prepare executive updates for the CFO, CEO, COO, Executive Committee, and New Mountain Capital focused on value realized, risks to target, pipeline quality, and required decisions.

Regional and Functional Value Creation Execution

• Partner with regional leadership and functional leaders to define, challenge, and execute savings and value creation initiatives by country, function, and business unit.

• Support country-level and function-level target setting while maintaining central visibility, comparability, and governance across the global platform.

• Drive value creation workstreams across procurement, workforce efficiency, SG&A, go-to-market, service delivery, shared services, facilities, technology, process standardization, and operating model simplification.

• Ensure value creation plans balance financial value with business continuity, client impact, talent retention, control environment, and long-term scalability.

Integration Partnership and Deal Lifecycle Alignment

• Work in lockstep with the IMO leader to embed value creation opportunities into integration plans from diligence and Day 1 planning through stabilization and value realization.

• Ensure integration milestones reflect synergy dependencies, value capture assumptions, operating model changes, and handoffs from integration execution to ongoing value ownership.

• Partner with Corporate Development so diligence findings feed directly into post-close value capture programs and so future acquisition theses are informed by integration capacity and value realization experience.

• Maintain close alignment with the CFO-led cadence between VCO and IMO, including weekly alignment meetings, dependency management, issue escalation, and handoff governance.

Business Case Discipline and Investment Governance

• Establish a consistent business case framework for value creation initiatives, including baseline, initiative value, cost to achieve, timing, risks, dependencies, owner, and measurement approach.

• Challenge investment requests and transformation spend to ensure they are tied to measurable outcomes, strategic priorities, and credible execution plans.

• Support prioritization of initiatives based on value impact, confidence, timing, complexity, resource needs, and operating risk.

• Coordinate with Finance and FP&A to ensure value creation reporting is consistent with forecast, budget, management reporting, and sponsor-facing materials.

Reporting, Insights, and Executive Communication

• Produce concise, decision-oriented reporting on value creation performance, savings realization, risks, dependencies, financial impact, and required actions.

• Use data and analytics to identify trends, gaps, leakage, acceleration opportunities, and risks to value realization.

• Build dashboards and reporting routines that give leaders a clear view of value creation progress without creating unnecessary reporting burden.

• Communicate clearly with senior leadership and sponsor stakeholders on outcomes, trade-offs, confidence levels, and the path to realizing committed value.

Continuous Improvement and Value Creation Playbook

• Institutionalize a repeatable value creation playbook that can be applied consistently across acquisitions, regions, functions, and transformation initiatives.

• Capture lessons learned from integration and value creation activity and embed those lessons into future diligence, integration, and post-close value planning.

• Improve value creation taxonomy, validation standards, dashboards, governance routines, and business case templates over time.

• Develop the VCO into a durable enterprise capability that supports continued inorganic growth and operating model scale.

 

Professional Experience and Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, Operations, or a related field; advanced degree preferred but not required.

• Minimum of 15 years of progressively senior leadership experience across value creation, transformation, operational improvement, finance, corporate development, post-merger integration, or private equity portfolio operations.

• Demonstrated track record translating value creation theses into measurable financial outcomes across cost, revenue, operating model, process, and transformation levers.

• Experience with synergy tracking, business case governance, savings validation, P&L accountability, management reporting, and executive decision support.

• Experience operating in a private equity-backed or sponsor-facing environment preferred.

• Strong financial and operational acumen, including comfort with EBITDA, run-rate savings, one-time costs, phasing, forecast impact, P&L realization, and initiative-level ROI.

• Ability to lead through influence, challenge assumptions constructively, and build accountability across regional and functional leadership teams.

• Exceptional written and oral communication skills, with the ability to produce executive-ready materials focused on realized value, risks, trade-offs, and decisions.

 

The base salary range for this position is between $303,000 and $450,000. Placement within the pay range is at Grant Thornton’s discretion, and it is based on multiple factors, including but not limited to, job -related knowledge/skills, experience, business needs, progression within the role, geographic location, and internal equity. At Grant Thornton, compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.

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