From zero revenue to a billion-dollar market capitalization, Upland Software has exponentially grown its business through acquisitions. How did Upland Software do it?
In this episode of the M&A Science podcast, Austin Woody, Senior Vice President of M&A and Corporate Development at Upland Software, explains how to grow purely on acquisitions.
You will also learn:
- How Upland Software source deals
- Standing up an M&A function
- What their integration process looks like
- How they look at culture
- Biggest lessons learned
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
With so many companies out there, how do you know who to approach as a potential M&A target? Having a solid origination process helps teams save time and money by enabling them to target the right entities. In this episode of the M&A science podcast, Scott Hile, Senior Director, Corporate Strategy & Development at Enviva, talks about how to tie deal origination to strategy development.
Things you will learn in this episode:
- How to funnel a target list
- Importance of trust during outreach
- Tools that can help source deals
- How to do cold outreach
- Effective messaging during first interactions with a target company
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
An M&A transaction can be an expensive mistake, and you can waste a lot of time and money if you pursue a transaction without a solid M&A strategy.
On the other hand, a solid strategy allows you to pick the right targets and pursue them proactively.
In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Sreepathy Viswanathan, Chief Corporate Development Officer, HGS Healthcare, who has 25 years of experience in Corp Dev, talks about how to build a great M&A strategy.
Things you will learn in this episode:
- The Importance of M&A strategy
- How to shape your M&A strategy
- The difference between M&A strategy and corporate strategy
- The integration’s role in strategy
- How relationships affect M&A deals
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
Roll-ups are one of the fastest ways to grow a business in a fragmented industry. But combining several entities with different cultures can be challenging and may lead to inefficiencies.
In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Daniel Burseth, Vice President at Eckhart, talks about the opportunities and challenges of rolling up small manufacturing companies.
Things you will learn in this episode:
- The great wealth transfer
- Challenges in buying a business
- How to grow technical leadership talent
- The significant trends of automation
- Change management challenge
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
In this episode of the M&A Science podcast, John Morada, COO at M&A Science, will be sharing how to pivot into an M&A integration career, and the essential skills needed for the role.
Things you will learn in this episode:
- How to transition to an M&A integration role
- Attributes of a good integration leader
- Primary role of an integration leader
- Future of M&A integration
- Importance and function of an IMO
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
It's no secret that M&A transactions require negotiations. But what most people don't realize is how you approach negotiations can determine the success of the overall transaction and your future relationship with the other party.
In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Larry Forman, Senior Manager at Deloitte, helps us understand how to approach M&A negotiations to increase deal success.
Things you will learn in this episode:
- The three pillars of negotiating
- How to negotiate an LOI
- Negotiating sensitive information during diligence
- How to handle limitations of liability
- Things to watch out for in non-compete clauses
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
Naomi O'Brien, Head of M&A Integration at Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON)
Is your company's M&A process out of date? M&A has dramatically changed over the past few years, and practitioners have realized that there are better ways to go about acquisitions.
In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Naomi O'Brien, Head of M&A Integration at Honeywell, talks about modernizing a process-based company.
- Things you will learn in this episode:
- The biggest challenge in a process-based company
- How to train people for M&A
- Ensuring integration success
- Selecting integration leaders
- The effect of the great resignation to M&A
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Kerry Perez, Head of Diligence and Integration Management Office (M&A) at AMN Healthcare, talks about the benefits of involving integration earlier and how to stand up a diligence and integration management office.
Things you will learn in this episode:
-The difference between DIMO and IMO
-How they pick the integration lead
-What their diligence team looks like
-Kerry's role in every deal
-How to build a steering committee
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
Henry Schuck, CEO & Founder at Zoominfo (NASDAQ: ZI)
Acquiring capabilities is one of the most effective ways to do M&A. Not only will acquiring capabilities improve your existing offerings but it can also expand your market. In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Henry Schuck, co-founder and CEO of Zoominfo, shares his experience on how to acquire capabilities.
Things you will learn in this episode:
-What it means to acquire capabilities
-Zoominfo’s M&A process from start to finish
-His role as CEO during acquisitions
-How to effectively drive change management
-Lessons learned on failed acquisitions
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
Tomer Stavitsky, Corporate Development, Partnerships and M&A Lead, Digital & Data Business Unit at Intuitive Surgical.
In this episode of the M&A Science podcast, Tomer Stavitsky, Corporate Development, M&A Lead at Intuitive Surgical, talks about creating the proper governance structure in M&A deals.
Things you will learn in this episode:
-How to solidify your corporate strategy
-Creating the right deal team
-Keeping your deal team aligned
-How to lead an M&A deal from diligence to integration
-Setting up your governance structure
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
Tim Wentworth, CEO of Evernorth, a Cigna Corporation company (NYSE: CI)
In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Tim Wentworth, CEO of Evernorth, (the CEO of Express Scripts at that time of sale), will share his experiences on the deal and how leadership and culture made this transaction successful.
What you will learn in this episode:
-Keys to successful acquisitions
-How to focus on culture and values
-The role of the CEO on M&A deals
-Why focusing on customers is crucial
-Common mistakes that people make regarding culture
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
Noah Waisberg, Co-Founder & CEO - Zuva; Author of "AI for Lawyers"
In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Noah Waisberg, Co-Founder & CEO - Zuva shares his experience and top learnings after he creatively decided to sell his own company, Kira to Litera in 2021.
Things you will learn in this episode:
-What made Noah sell his company even though he was reluctant at first
-How empathy and creativity helped Noah create more value to shareholders
-Why they opted out of an auction process
-How easy the TSA was for both companies
-Noah’s biggest lessons learned from selling his company
-Advice for founders looking for an exit
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com
Charles Breed, VP Corporate Development at Corel Corporation (NASDAQ: CREL)
In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Charles Breed, VP of Corporate Development at Corel Corporation, talks about how to hire a corporate development team that fits into your M&A strategy.
When you’re building a corporate development function, the first thing you need to do is hire a head of corporate development, but hiring is not as simple as it sounds. The head of corporate development needs to fit into the overall strategy.
Things you will learn in this episode:
-What to look for in when hiring a head of corporate development
-The role of the head of corporate development
-Skills required for a corporate development leader
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Klint Kendrick, Chair of the HR M&A Round Table
After over 100 podcast interviews, we have collected more than 40 lessons learned from top practitioners worldwide. In those lessons, we saw a recurring theme: creating a better people experience in M&A is key to a successful transaction.
The biggest value leak after a deal closes is losing key employees and people. In this episode, HR expert Klint Kendrick, Chair of the HR M&A Round Table, is going to share with us best practices on how to retain key employees.
Listen in and learn about:
-The biggest shift in the M&A industry
-Best practices for successful integration
-The importance of empathy
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Gwen Pope, Head of Global Product M&A at eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)
Creating a go-to-market plan is one of the first things to do during an acquisition. In this interview, Gwen Pope, Head of Global Product M&A at eBay, will be sharing how to make M&A GTM successful.
Listen in and learn about:
- The importance of getting your house in order
- How to pressure test your deal rationale
- Steps to building your GTM plan
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter, go to mascience.com.
Kunal Jain, Director at William Blair, Health Care Investment Banking
The M&A market is not what it used to be. Markets change all the time, and the M&A industry is no exception. Especially with COVID-19, the M&A market has been crazy the past couple of years. Helping us understand M&A market trends from a banker's perspective is Kunal Jain, Director at William Blair, Health Care Investment Banking.
Listen in and learn about:
- The biggest changes in the M&A market
- How strategic buyers and PE firms fair in this new environment
- How bankers are thriving in this new landscape of M&A
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Harry Kraemer Jr, Professor of Management and Strategy at Kellogg School of Management
Change management is the tilting point of every M&A deal. Preserving the value that you just acquired is dependent on how you retain key employees. In this episode of the M&A science podcast, Harry Kraemer, Jr, Professor of Management and Strategy at Kellogg School of Management, talks about how effective leadership helps overcome change management challenges. Listen in and learn about:
- how leaders can help retention
- the importance of feedback mechanisms
- how to create an environment where your people can thrive
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Jim Buckley, Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions Integration at VMware (NYSE: VMW)
M&A deals are bound to get complicated. The key to success is keeping it as simple as possible, for as long as possible. In this continuation of last week’s interview, Jim Buckley, Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions Integration at VMware talks about how to update your M&A Management Approach. Listen in and learn all about:
- the 5x5 framework that you can use to keep your process simple
- what to focus on during change management
- how to ensure team alignment
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Jim Buckley, Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions Integration at VMware (NYSE: VMW)
Integration can be difficult but it’s, without a doubt, the most important part of M&A. In this episode of the M&A Science podcast, Kison interviews Jim Buckley, Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions Integration at VMware as he talks about how to create a successful integration plan. Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why working backwards is best in integration planning
- What makes a successful integration leader
- How to measure success
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com
Ken Bond, Head of Corporate Development at Cetera Financial Group
Building M&A teams require different considerations based on your growth strategy. In this episode of the M&A Science podcast, Kison interviews Ken Bond, Head of Corporate Development at Cetera Financial Group on how he structures teams approaching diligence. Here’s what you’ll learn:
- The three functions you need to build your M&A team
- How to determine the ideal M&A team size for your strategy
- The role of the project manager in the M&A team
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Mark Khavkin, CFO of Pantheon Platform
NDAs are often overlooked as people tend to fall into the trap of thinking they can be templated. In this episode of the M&A Science podcast, Kison interviews Mark Khavkin, CFO of Pantheon Platform about NDAs, how to negotiate them, and their structures. Here’s what you’ll learn:
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Cameron Weiner, VP of Strategic Development, Head of M&A at Shopko Optical
To buy or build, that is the question! In this interview with Cameron Weiner, VP of Strategic Development, Head of M&A at Shopko Optical, he shares how his team determines whether to buy or build a business. Here's what you'll learn:
- How to approach targets
- Considerations when buying or building a business
- Resources for deal origination
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Punit Micocha, Executive Vice President, Business and Corporate Development at Zscaler (NASDAQ: ZS)
M&A deals are never easy and require rigorous planning. In this interview, Punit Micocha, Executive Vice President, Business and Corporate Development at Zscaler, shares how to execute successful deals by planning the end game. Learn about:
- Creating the deal vision pre-LOI
- Why planning for integration early is crucial
- The 3 elements of negotiating with employees
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Pragnya Kashinath, M&A Consultant at Deloitte
A go-to-market strategy is one of the most important things in an acquisition. In this week's podcast, we're featuring Kison's interview with Pragnya Kashinath. At the time of this interview, she was the Director of M&A, Corporate Strategy at Cognizant. Now, she's an M&A Consultant at Deloitte. Pragnya shares how to create a successful GTM strategy from the very beginning of a transaction and the challenges you need to watch out for. Learn about:
- Pragnya's unique role on the business side versus on the corporate development team
- How not to overestimate synergy models
- Customizing the customer journey
To join our network of M&A practitioners and sign up for our newsletter go to mascience.com.
Sabeeh Khan, Director, Corporate Strategy & Development at Syniti
Aaron Whiting, M&A Integration and Strategic Programs at ContinuumCloud
Managing a deal can be complicated, especially on larger deals. You need experienced leaders from both ends of the spectrum. In this interview, we talk about how to manage sourcing, diligence, and integration from a project manager's perspective featuring Sabeeh Khan, Director, Corporate Strategy & Development at Syniti, and Aaron Whiting, M&A Integration and Strategic Programs at ContinuumCloud. Here's what you'll learn:
- Why you should use pipeline management tools other than Excel
- The importance of having a go to market strategy before closing the deal
- How to gather intelligence aside from industry conferences
This episode is sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Access the most up-to-date and accurate data on private companies in a single web-based platform so you can get all the resources you need to create a winning pitch.