Finish 2018 Strong
By Jim Jeffries, Chairman of the M&A Leadership Council

The M&A Leadership Council has enjoyed a stellar year, enabling us to reach the milestone of 3,000 attendees to our training events. We’ve already posted the training calendar for next year and opened registrations for a few select courses, including The Art of M&A Divestitures and Carve-Outs. This event is designed to equip C-level executives for the unique complication of divestitures. It will only be offered once next year so don’t miss out on this opportunity.

Digital Transformation: The journey to integrate people, technologies and new ways of working.
Presented by Willis Towers Watson, a Partner of the M&A Leadership Council

We are pleased to invite you to the second edition of Willis Towers Watson’s M&A Forum which will be held in Toronto on October 4. This full-day conference will be dedicated to human capital challenges faced within digital transformation and will provide an opportunity for participants to share experiences among peers.

A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Jobs
Submitted by Willis Towers Watson, a partner of M&A Leadership Council

We’re delighted to announce the September publication of Reinventing Jobs, A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Jobs by work and human capital experts Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau. Reinventing Jobs explores our vision of what the future of work will really look like, and how it will impact organizations as they seek growth and success in an era of change and digital transformation. More importantly, it reveals how leaders can guide this change within their own organizations.

Investigative Due Diligence
By Joann Arweiler and Peter Woglom with BDO, a partner of the M&A Leadership Council

Access to information is one of the keys to managing risk in an M&A transaction. Investigative due diligence (IDD) should be placed alongside legal and financial diligence as a critical component of a buyer’s diligence process.

Charting Your Path – Let Your Experience Lead the Way
By Jim Jeffries, Chairman of the M&A Leadership Council

2018 is turning into a banner year for our M&A certification program. More and more companies are determined to garner success from their acquisitions, and they realize that – just like other capabilities in their organization – M&A’s require skills and expertise.

The Good Keep Getting Better
By Jack Prouty, President of the M&A Leadership Council

Jim Jeffries and I founded the M&A Leadership Council eight years ago with the mission of helping companies grow their in-house M&A competencies and get better at M&A. At the time, we thought our target audience would be mid-size companies largely new to M&A. Instead we have found that most of our program attendees are from large, publicly traded companies that are serial acquirers. They are good at M&A, but they know that good is not good enough. If they are going to continue to be successful serial acquirers, then they need to be best of class.

Balancing Competing Initiatives
By Bruce Fleming, EVP Strategy at Calumet Specialty Products and Member of the Board of M&A Standards

I’ve sometimes been asked what percentage of the deal price should be budgeted for diligence costs. Many deal costs do have a quick rule of thumb, but with respect to Due Diligence it’s safe to say “It depends.” Do you want the diligence to be good, fast, or cheap?

Protect M&A with R&W Insurance
​By Michael Williams with BDO, a partner of the M&A Leadership Council

The use of representations and warranties (R&W) insurance in mergers and acquisitions has grown significantly over the past several years and has become an increasingly integral component of the transaction process. This article focuses on how buyers and sellers use R&W insurance for both strategic and risk management purposes to improve deal execution by accelerating the parties’ ability to reach agreement, thereby expediting the close of a transaction.   
 

Retaining and Engaging Digital Talent
By Ken Kuk with Willis Towers Watson, a partner of M&A Leadership Council

An increasing number of companies use corporate transactions as a means to acquire the talent they need for digital transformation, in hopes of leveraging assets (e.g., data) to create new sources of value for customers and shareholders. They’re seeking new ways of engaging with customers, more customized products and solutions, and the use of automation and machine learning to increase operating efficiency.

Balancing Competing Initiatives     
By William Blandford, Managing Director at Blandford Associates and Member of The Board of M&A Standards

"Speed Dating" is defined as an organized process in which participants have one-on-one conversations, typically limited to less than ten minutes, for the purpose of getting to know others. I have used this "Speed Dating" process to identify and address the complex relationships among competing initiatives (referred to as interdependencies) with functional integration teams for acquisitions, especially in more complicated cases.