Interviews with experts
Career Development in M&A
Traditionally, corporate development professionals come from banking roles. And while nothing is wrong with that, it is always fascinating to hear other ways that professionals start their careers in M&A. Sharing his career development in M&A is Caleb Shafer, Corporate Development Associate at RS Group plc.
Implementing an Actionable GTM Strategy
Implementing your GTM Strategy is one of the most crucial parts of integration. Learn all the challenges of implementation featuring Hannah Leung, Senior Manager, M&A at Salesforce.
How to Run an Integration Led Confirmatory Diligence Process
While some companies bring the integration team in the diligence process, some take it even further. In this article, Jim Buckley, Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions Integration at VMware, talks about how to run an integration-led confirmatory diligence process.
How to Formulate Your M&A Strategy
Too many times, we've seen M&A used as a strategy to grow businesses. But in fact, M&A is not a strategy, it's a tool that organizations should use to achieve their corporate strategy. And once you understand your true north, having an M&A strategy is just as important. In this article, we will learn how to formulate an M&A strategy with Matt Arsenault, VP of Corporate Development at Jamf.
How to Stand Up an IMO
The importance of integration has never been more prevalent. And standing up a dedicated function to oversee integration is becoming more of a necessity as a company grows more prominent. Having an integration management office (IMO) might be a good idea for your company. But how do you stand up to such a function? Shedding light on this matter is Ian Burk, EVP of integration at Upland Software, as he talks about how to stand up an IMO.
How to Grow Purely on Acquisitions
From zero revenue to a billion-dollar market capitalization, Upland Software has been able to grow its business through M&A acquisitions exponentially. Learn from Austin Woody, Senior Vice President of M&A and Corporate Development at Upland Software.
How to Tie Deal Origination to Strategy Development
With so many companies out there, how do you know who to approach as your M&A targets? Helping us how to tie deal origination to strategy development is Scott Hile, Senior Director, Corporate Strategy & Development at Enviva.
How to Build a Great M&A Strategy
An M&A transaction can be an expensive mistake, but a solid strategy allows you to pick the right targets and pursue them proactively. Learn from Sreepathy Viswanathan, Chief Corporate Development Officer, HGS Healthcare, on how to build a great M&A strategy.
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Automation Roll-ups & Growing Technical Leadership Talent
In a highly fragmented industry, roll-ups are one of the most effective ways to grow a business. Daniel Burseth, Vice President at Eckhart, Inc., has bought and integrated six companies in the last few years. In this article, he will be sharing how they roll-up small manufacturing companies.
Importance of An Earnout
During any M&A transaction, disagreements between the buyer and the seller are quite common, especially regarding the purchase price. The seller usually expects a higher price with their best interest in mind, and the buyer normally wants to pay a lower price.
Agile Integration Planning
Integration is arguably the most important part of any acquisition. The ROI of your deal is purely based on how well you integrate the acquired company into your organization. And while that is true, integration is also the most challenging part. You need to combine two different companies and make it into one big company.
How to Pivot to an M&A Integration Career
Are you looking to pivot into an M&A integration career? Over the past decade, the importance of integration has become more prevalent. Practitioners have realized a well-planned integration is how value is achieved. However, the role and the skills needed for integration leaders remain the same. In this article, John Morada, COO at M&A Science, will be sharing how to begin an M&A integration career, and the essential skills needed for the role.
Negotiation Fundamentals
How you approach negotiations can determine the success of the overall transaction and your future relationship with the other party. In this article, Larry Forman, Senior Manager at Deloitte, helps us understand how to approach M&A negotiations to increase deal success.
Modernizing a Process-Based Company
Is your company’s M&A process out of date? Learn from Naomi O’Brien, Head of M&A Integration at Honeywell, as she talks about modernizing a process-based company.
Standing up a Diligence and Integration Management Office
The majority of Corporate Development involves their integration team a couple of weeks before closing the deal. And while this is good practice, it’s not the best. According to Kerry Perez, Head of M&A at AMN Healthcare, there is a real benefit in involving your integration team earlier than that.
How to Acquire for Capabilities
Acquiring additional capabilities is one of the best ways to do M&A. You can improve your existing offers to your customers and gain access to new markets and demographics. Zoominfo is the go-to-market intelligence platform that helps organizations identify and connect with consumers. In this article, Zoominfo’s founder and CEO Henry Schuck, will help us learn how to acquire additional capabilities.
Creating the Right Governance Structure in an M&A Deal
In a typical M&A transaction, two different people are leading the deal team and the integration efforts. But what happens when one person is tasked to do end-to-end M&A? Tomer Stavitsky, Corporate Development, M&A Lead at Intuitive Surgical, leads diligence and integration in his organization. In this article, he discusses how he ensures his acquisitions are successful from start to finish with the right governance structure.
Successful Acquisitions Through Leadership and Culture
In December 2018, Cigna bought Express Script for $67 Billion, ranked as the 35th largest M&A deal of all time. So what made the deal so successful? Let's find out in this interview.
The Complexities of Sell-Side M&A
Selling your business is not always easy. The longer it has been a part of your life, the more attachment you have with it and the people. The decision to pull the trigger comes with a lot of complexities, especially for most entrepreneurs, as it could be the biggest transaction of their lives. Sharing his experience and the intricacies of sell-side M&A is Noah Waisberg, Co-Founder & CEO of Zuva, as Litera just acquired his company Kira Systems.
Hiring Your Head of Corporate Development
More and more companies are starting to look at inorganic growth to ramp up their companies immediately. M&A is a tool to achieve your strategy and it starts with hiring your head of corporate development. With the help of Charles Breed, VP of Corporate Development at Corel Corporation, let's all learn how to hire your corporate development that fits into your M&A strategy.
How to Create Better People Experience in M&A
After over 100 podcast interviews, we have collected over 40 lessons learned from top practitioners worldwide. And in those lessons, we saw a recurring theme , creating a better people experience in M&A is key to a successful transaction. So how do we do it? Let’s all learn from the HR expert, Klint Kendrick, Chair of the HR M&A Round Table.
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Making M&A GTM Successful
Creating a go-to-market plan is one of the first things to do during an acquisition. When you don't have a clear GTM strategy before the deal is closed, you won't know what systems you need in place, and what people skills are required to make your combined product work. In this interview, Gwen Pope, Head of Global Product M&A at eBay, will help us understand how to make an M&A GTM successful.
M&A Market Trends from a Banker’s Perspective
The markets change all the time, and the M&A industry is no exception. Especially with COVID-19, changes in the market have been crazy these past years. Helping us understand the M&A market trends from a banker's perspective is Kunal Jain, Director, at William Blair Health Care Investment Banking.
Overcoming Change Management With Great Leadership
With all the fear and uncertainties in an M&A deal, employees need a strong leader. Harry Kraemer, Jr, Professor of Management and Strategy at Kellogg school of management, believes that effective leadership can overcome change management challenges.
Keeping Integration Simple
M&A practitioners love to go into details. And while that could be beneficial, it doesn’t often help with team alignment. According to Jim Buckley, Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions Integration at VMware, keeping integration simple is the real key to success.
How To Create A Successful Integration Plan
Integration is all about capturing value. In this episode, Jim Buckley, Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions Integration at VMware, talks about creating a successful integration plan and measuring success post-close.
How to Structure Teams Approaching M&A Diligence
Every company that does M&A has varying team sizes and many attributing factors as to how their deal team is currently constructed.
How to Negotiate and Structure NDAs
An NDA is not a routine document in an M&A deal. It is vital in setting up the relationship of both parties as they move forward. Discussing in-depth how to negotiate and structure NDAs in an M&A deal is Mark Khavkin, CFO at Pantheon Platform.
Buy or Build Considerations in M&A
Before you start making any acquisition, buy or build considerations should always be a part of your decision. In this interview, Cameron Weiner, VP of Strategic Development, Head of M&A at Shopko Optical, shares how he determines if you should buy or build.
Engineering Deals for Success
M&A deals are never easy and require rigorous planning. But despite its complexities. There is a way to increase your chances of success. According to Punit Micocha, EVP, Corporate Development at Zscaler, it's all about planning what the end state would look like right from the start.
How to Create a Successful GTM Strategy
A GTM strategy is one of the most critical parts of an integration plan. In this episode, Pragnya Kashinath, Director of M&A at Cognizant, talks about how to create a successful GTM strategy from the very beginning of the transaction and the challenges that go with it.
How to Manage Sourcing Diligence and Integration
Managing an entire acquisition is pretty daunting, especially if you are new to the process. This is probably why two people are leading the charge in any M&A deal; a deal lead and an integration lead. Each has its own roles and responsibilities but are equally important. Let's all learn how to manage sourcing, diligence, and integration from two of the industry's top minds: Sabeeh Khan, Director, Corporate Strategy & Development at Syniti, and Aaron Whiting, M&A Integration and Strategic Programs at ContinuumCloud.
Staying True To Your Culture in M&A
Culture can kill a deal, and Trish Mosconi, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer & Corporate Development at Synchrony, proves it. They walked away from a deal due to massive cultural differences and could not see a way to integrate the business in their organization.
How to Commit to Integration from Start to Finish
Fully committing to integration starts with a deep partnership between corp dev and integration. Learn all about it, featuring Karen Ashley, Vice President of Corporate Development Integration at Cisco.
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Transformative M&A
We all know that M&A can transform a business overnight if the deal is done correctly. However, not everyone knows how to make transformative M&A successful. In this article, Duncan Painter, CEO at Ascential Plc, talks about transformational deals for their company and how they make it successful.
Managing Infrequent Acquisitions
Peter Linas, CPO & EVP Corporate Development at Bullhorn, talks about how his corporate development team looks like in an infrequent acquisition environment and how they hire external consultants to make their deals successful.
Executing a Divestiture without a Bank
Regardless of popular belief, a company can execute divestitures without a bank with the right amount of dedication and resources. Having done it multiple times, Russ Hartz, VP Corp Dev at Ansys, will be helping us understand the process and some of the best practices during this transaction.
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Hunting Deals in M&A
Finding the right deals is hard, especially if you're looking for companies that don't want to be found. In this episode, Dustin Intihar, Director, M&A, and Strategic Alliances at Lubrizol, talks about how to hunt deals in M&A the right way.
How to Preserve Value in M&A Post-Acquisition
Value often gets destroyed in M&A. Jay Dettling, CEO of Ansira, has been on both sides of the deal. In this episode, we're talking about preserving value post-acquisition, and his advice to CEOs getting acquired for the first time.
Buy and Build Strategy
PE firms have a very short term holding period and need to grow businesses fast. Adam Coffey, CEO at CoolSys, Refrigeration and HVAC Systems, is an expert on growing these companies using the buy and build strategy. In this article, he will share what it is and how to create sustainable success.
Evolving Your M&A Integration Function
Transitioning to fully remote M&A transactions is not easy but very doable. With the proper tools and proper techniques to manage your people across these technologies, your M&A process can run smoothly.
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How to Realize Deal Value
Integration is where you realize deal value and you need to focus on it from the very start. In this episode, Michael Devita, Success Strategy Lead at Salesforce, is going to talk about lessons that he learned from executing successful integration and how to successfully realize deal value in M&A.
How to use Multiple Deal Structures to Make Partnerships Successful in India
Reliance Retail is one of the fastest-growing retailers in the world. Learn how they manage multiple deal structures to make their partnerships successful directly from their President and CEO, Darshan Mehta.
Executing Divestitures
Divestiture is not the reverse of an acquisition, and it takes more work and preparation. In this episode, Rhonda Rein, Director, Corporate Development at Thomson Reuters, helps us understand where divestiture starts, how TSA work and what happens after close.
The Truth About Change Management
Preserving the value of the acquired company should be the number one priority in any deal. Of course, any buyer would want to get what they paid for in the first place. But more often than not, value leaks post-close. Even though there are many reasons why this is happening, one could argue that it is mostly about people.
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How to Manage Multi-Vertical Strategies
Managing a multi-vertical M&A strategy requires a high performing team, full of perpetual learners and with a strong appetite for risk taking. In this episode, Ailene Holderness, Head of M&A at IAC, talks about how they manage their multi-vertical strategy and how to build a high performing M&A team.
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Managing M&A on a High Scale
Managing M&A on a high scale takes good governance and clear strategy. In this episode, Jeff Bender, CEO at Harris, explains their entire M&A process on how they are able to do massive volumes of deals every year.
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How To Successfully Execute Deals With a Small Team
You don't need a huge M&A team to do deals successfully. With the right strategy in a specialized industry, you can make your process more efficient. In this episode, Jason Lippert, CEO of LCI Industries, shares how they successfully execute deals with a small team.
Managing Internal Dynamics
One of the most critical roles as head of corporate development is managing your internal team and dynamics. In this episode, Randy Tinsley, Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development at Synopsys, breaks down how to get internal alignment, build your team, and set them up for success.
Why You Need To Ask Less During Diligence
When conducting due diligence, you want to be as thorough as possible. But it can also take a lot of time, money and resources to complete. James Harris, Principal of Corporate Development Integration at Google shares why we need to take a different approach to due diligence and how it can help your company in the long run.
