Integration Team for a Bank Merger Built Before Day One

Build the Integration Team Before Day One

Firms with strong integration skills are 1.7 times likelier to beat revenue targets. Building the integration team before Day One gets them there.

Alexander Kiel

Business Analyst · Banking & Wealth Management

07.08.2025 · 8 MIN READ · BUSINESS INTEGRATION

ON THIS PAGE

1. Appoint the Integration Leader First

2. Set Up a Small Integration Office

3. Staff the Integration Team Jointly

4. Free Up Time for Integration Work

5. Keep the People You Need

6. Use a Clean Team Before Closing

Sample case: Truist

In short

FAQ

An integration team decides how much of a merger's value a bank actually keeps. McKinsey found that companies with the right integration capabilities are 1.6 and 1.7 times more likely to exceed their cost and revenue targets. Yet integration leadership is a weak spot: 29% of executives called it their biggest concern.

Supervisors look at the same point. The ECB expects every bank merger to rest on a credible business and integration plan. Its guide adds that the plan should clearly articulate the governance of the integration process and that a strong leadership team is in place with a proven track record.

Both depend on people who are named, freed up and working together before Day One. Who in your bank would lead the integration if the deal were signed tomorrow?

Illustrative integration team set-up for a bank merger: a steering committee above an integration leader and a small integration management office, six joint workstreams staffed from both banks and a separate clean team for sensitive data until closing

STEP 1

Appoint the Integration Leader First

Name one integration leader before anyone else. This person runs the integration day to day, breaks deadlocks between the two banks and reports to the steering committee. Choose a senior manager who knows the business and has the trust of both executive teams, not a project manager from outside the core business.

McKinsey's review of more than 300 integrations advises the CEO to have the integration manager in place a month or so before the deal is announced. The role is usually full time: integration managers are relieved of their usual duties for six months to a year.

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Name the integration leader before the deal is announced

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Release the leader from their current role for the full period

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Give the leader direct access to both executive teams

Who in your bank has the trust of both management teams to lead an integration?

Keep in mind: An integration leader who keeps a full day job spends the first critical months catching up instead of steering.

STEP 2

Set Up a Small Integration Office

Next, give the leader an integration management office (IMO). It owns the integration plan, the RAID log, the decision log and the weekly status report. It also sets one weekly reporting rhythm for all workstreams.

The office can stay small. McKinsey describes an integration office of three to eight full-time analysts and junior managers that tracks the workstreams. In a bank merger it also feeds the supervisor: the ECB expects the plan to be managed and closely monitored by the management body. My article on the decision log shows how to record what the steering committee decides.

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Staff the office with three to eight full-time people

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Set one weekly reporting rhythm for all workstreams

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Keep the plan, RAID log and decision log in one place

Could your bank show the supervisor the status of every integration workstream within one day?

Keep in mind: An integration office that only collects status reports adds work. It must also chase decisions and escalate blocked items.

STEP 3

Staff the Integration Team Jointly

Then staff the workstreams. Each one gets a business lead and members from both banks. A typical bank merger needs workstreams for clients and products, operations, IT and data, risk and compliance, finance, HR and communication. Mixed teams find gaps faster, because each side knows where its own processes and systems are weak.

The scope is wide. The ECB asks for progress reports covering all aspects, for example governance, risk management, products, marketing, branches and the IT integration plan. It also expects the plan to pay due attention to the integration of different risk cultures. In one McKinsey case, team members joined an IMO-led boot camp as soon as the integration teams were staffed.

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Name a business lead and a deputy for every workstream

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Fill each workstream with staff from both banks

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Run a joint kick-off on goals, methods and decision rights

Does each workstream in your integration have a named lead from the business side?

Keep in mind: Teams drawn only from the acquiring bank miss how the other bank really works. They then design processes its staff cannot run.

STEP 4

Free Up Time for Integration Work

Most team members work on the integration next to their day job. Agree with each line manager how many days a week the person gives to the integration and who covers the rest. On the acquired side of a private banking sale in 2018, the relationship managers I worked with prepared KYC, CRS and account opening documents on top of their daily client work. Write the allocation down and review it every month. Otherwise the daily business wins every conflict.

McKinsey warns that part-time members may have little incentive to prioritise integration work unless the integration manager has a say in their appraisal. It also lists protecting the base business from risks among the first tasks of the top team. My article on the operational readiness check shows how to test that business teams are ready before each wave.

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Agree days per week with each member's line manager

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Name a deputy for the day job of every key person

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Review the time allocation in the monthly steering committee

How many days a week can your best operations staff really give to the integration?

Keep in mind: The people every workstream wants are also the ones the daily business cannot spare. Plan cover for them first.

STEP 5

Keep the People You Need

Uncertainty after an announcement makes good people look elsewhere. Identify the roles the integration cannot lose: workstream leads, system experts, key relationship managers and the staff who know the legacy processes. Talk to them early, explain their role in the combined bank and decide where a retention award is needed.

Bain's executive survey found that talent retention is the second-largest contributor to deal success. Executives who kept their key talent named a strong and compelling vision for the future as the most important element. For banks the ECB adds a rule on pay: variable remuneration should use key performance indicators linked to the milestones set out in the integration plan.

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List the roles the integration cannot afford to lose

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Explain each key person's future role before rumours do

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Tie retention awards to integration milestones

Which ten people would put your integration at risk if they resigned next month?

Keep in mind: Retention awards buy time, not commitment. People stay when they can see their place in the combined bank.

STEP 6

Use a Clean Team Before Closing

Until the deal closes, the two banks remain competitors. The integration team may plan, but it may not run the target or exchange commercially sensitive data such as client pricing, margins or individual client terms. Where planning needs such data, set up a clean team with strict access rules. This is a legal point: agree the set-up with competition lawyers in each country involved.

The European Commission fined Altice €124.5 million for implementing its acquisition of PT Portugal before approval. Altice had sought and received detailed commercially sensitive information about the target. McKinsey describes one clean team with only five members, all third-party advisers. My article on share deal vs asset deal explains which client data may move and when.

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Agree the clean team rules with competition lawyers

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Restrict sensitive data to named clean team members

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Plan Day One processes now but run them only after closing

Does your integration team know which data it may not see before the deal closes?

Keep in mind: Gun-jumping rules differ by country and by deal. Treat this step as a planning checklist, not as legal advice.

How to Turn a Group of Strangers Into a Team | Amy Edmondson (Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management @ Harvard Business School)

SAMPLE CASE

Truist

In February 2019 BB&T and SunTrust announced an all-stock merger of equals valued at approximately $66 billion. The deal targeted approximately $1.6 billion in annual net cost savings by 2022. The top team was set on the day of the announcement: the executive management team would be drawn equally from SunTrust and BB&T.

Retention followed. In May 2019 BB&T signed agreements with four senior executives in connection with integration planning, with cash awards of up to $4,162,500 that vest only after closing. The merger closed on 6 December 2019. Truist said the transition would occur as systems are integrated over the next two years.

By January 2022 Truist had completed 18 major integration milestones. In the first quarter of 2022 it finished its largest conversion, transitioning nearly seven million clients and rebranding more than 6,000 branches and ATMs.

Key takeaway: Truist set its top team and secured key executives months before closing. A bank that builds the integration team early can spend the integration period moving clients instead of filling roles.

"We now operate officially as one brand and one bank to our clients."

William H. Rogers Jr. (Chairman and CEO @ Truist)

In Short

An integration team built before Day One rests on six moves: an integration leader named early, a small integration office, joint workstreams from both banks, protected time for team members, retention of key people and a clean team for sensitive data before closing.

The result is an integration that starts on the first day after closing with named owners, a working plan and the people who know both banks.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does an integration team do in a merger?

An integration team plans and carries out the combination of two organisations. It is led by an integration leader, supported by an integration management office and organised in workstreams such as clients, operations, IT, risk and HR. It designs the target set-up, prepares Day One, moves clients and systems and reports progress to the steering committee and supervisors.

What is an integration management office?

An integration management office (IMO) is the small central team that runs the integration plan. It tracks milestones, risks, issues and decisions across all workstreams, prepares the steering committee papers and escalates blocked items. In large deals it often has a handful of full-time analysts and managers. It does not do the workstream work itself but makes sure it is done on time.

What is a clean team in M&A?

A clean team is a small group, often of external advisers, allowed to see competitively sensitive data of the other party before a deal closes. It analyses prices, margins or client terms under strict confidentiality rules and passes on only aggregated results. Clean teams help merging companies plan the integration without breaching competition rules on gun-jumping. Lawyers should agree their set-up.