“The first thing we talk about is understanding the very specific products or assets being sold, and then we identify the people around that.” - Sallie Cunningham

HR’s involvement during a divestiture

Sallie explains what the key materials HR must have when it comes to preparing for due diligence during a divestiture and which transition records are required for HR to gather.

At the time we recorded this podcast, Sallie was the HR Executive and M&A leader for GE Corporate, where she was leading the HR workstreams for the sale of GE Healthcare's Biopharma business to Danaher, which closed on March 31, 2020. The business, now called Cytiva, is a standalone operating company within Danaher's Life Sciences segment. Sallie transitioned to Cytiva at close and is now the HR integration leader for the business. 

“If you think about what the business needs for Day 1, they have to be able to accept a purchase order, invoice a customer, ship a product, and of course pay the employees. There are a lot of things that can be figured out after close, but payroll is not one of them.” - Sallie Cunningham