The #1 Issue Keeping Dealmakers Up at Night / March 2025
By M&A Leadership Council

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have always been a high-stakes game, but March 2025 presents a particularly unique set of challenges for dealmakers. While regulatory shifts, due diligence complexities, and integration risks........

Walk-Around Observations Reveal What Surveys Don’t
By M&A Leadership Council

Carefully curated responses, polished presentations, and scripted employee interviews often paint a misleading picture of company culture. Beneath the surface, the real culture reveals itself........

Survivors & Skeptics: Steady Their Course to Avoid Disaster
By M&A Leadership Council

M&A deals are supposed to create value—but too often, they destroy it by neglecting the very people responsible for making them work. Here’s the hard truth: Employees caught in an M&A transition are not neutral observers.

M&A in Motion: Navigating Inflation, Interest Rates, and Market Turbulence
By M&A Leadership Council

In 2021, dealmakers were in a frenzy—record-low interest rates, cheap debt, and soaring valuations fueled one of the hottest M&A markets in history. Fast-forward to today: inflationary pressure, rising borrowing costs....

HR Isn’t Just a Department—It’s one of the Deal’s Power Centers
By M&A Leadership Council

M&A deals don’t fail because of miscalculated financial models or overlooked cost synergies. They fail because of people—key talent walks out, cultures clash, productivity stalls, and uncertainty fuels disengagement.

The AI Advantage: Deal-Making Revolutionized
By M&A Leadership Council

Imagine being able to review thousands of contracts in hours instead of weeks, predict deal outcomes with over 80% accuracy, or pinpoint cultural clashes before they erupt—all thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

The Invisible Bottleneck in M&A Integration 
By M&A Leadership Council

Every moment spent hesitating in integration planning costs more than time—it costs synergy, trust, and deal success. This is not because of bad intentions, but because of one silent killer: indecision. A study found.......

The Art of M&A® / Negotiating the Letter of Intent and Acquisition Agreement
An excerpt from The Art of M&A, Sixth Edition: A Merger, Acquisition, and Buyout Guide by Alexandra Reed Lajoux

In [the] process of risk allocation, who should bear the risk of loss associated with undisclosed legal defects in the target discovered after the closing—the buyer, the seller, or both? Is there one correct answer?......

A Blueprint for Excellence: Aligning Strategy and Targeting in M&A
By M&A Leadership Council

In M&A, due diligence is often perceived as a forensic exercise — a meticulous review of financials, contracts, and operational details. While these elements are critical, they only tell part of the story.........

With Practical Advice for Stalled Transactions
By M&A Leadership Council

M&A integrations can feel like navigating frozen, treacherous waters—hidden obstacles, sudden storms, and icy relationships threaten to sink progress. Left unchecked, these challenges can freeze momentum, leaving teams.......