Carve-Out Specialist

Contract | 6–12 months | Day rate + expenses | Travel M–F, CONUS

The mandate

A manufacturing business unit is being separated from a larger parent. Everything shared has to be untangled — systems, services, supply agreements, people, facilities, entities — and the standalone business has to work on day one without the parent behind it.

Carve-outs punish anyone who underestimates the shared services layer. You are hired because you have done one and know where the surprises live.

What you'll own

• Separation planning across every function, with a clear day-one operating model
• Standalone cost structure definition and validation against the deal model
• Transition Services Agreement scoping, negotiation, and exit planning — including the discipline to actually get off TSAs on schedule
• IT separation: system stand-up, data migration, and disentanglement from parent infrastructure
• Supply agreement separation and renegotiation, including intercompany supply arrangements
• Legal entity, licensing, permit, and regulatory transfer
• Employee transition, benefits stand-up, and retention of critical talent
• Facility and asset separation, including shared sites
• Customer and supplier communication and continuity through the transition

What you bring

• 12+ years in operations, finance, or transaction execution, with senior carve-out or divestiture accountability
• At least one completed carve-out led end to end, buy-side or sell-side
• Working knowledge of TSA construction and exit
• Cross-functional depth — you can hold conversations with IT, legal, HR, tax, and the plant manager on the same day
• Standalone cost modeling capability
• High tolerance for ambiguity and competing masters, since you will be serving both parent and buyer interests

Strong plus: manufacturing carve-outs specifically; international separation; PE-backed acquirer experience; direct post-close integration ownership following separation.