M&A Science

June 28, 2017

“This is the first time I’ve been acquired by a company that felt like it had a soul.”That’s what John Derusso was told after leading an integration. John is the Director of Corporate Development Integration with Cisco Systems and has been for the past four years.

June 13, 2017

So, how do you decide what to outsource and what to keep in-house?

June 8, 2017

Traditional due diligence is completed through virtual data rooms, spreadsheets, and emails. These outdated and clunky processes waste thousands of hours because each tool works independently. The lack of cohesion and absence of automation leads to poor diligence. This can be disastrous. Good news. There’s a solution to these inefficiencies.

May 30, 2017

Artificial intelligence (AI) is valuable because it captures intellectual capital. Intellectual capital is defined as the “collective knowledge of the individuals in an organization”. Traditionally, it is the intangible value of a business.

May 23, 2017

As VP at Huron Capital, Mark Miller is very familiar with the start-to-finish private equity process. He’s responsible for transaction teams involved in all aspects of deal sourcing, execution, and portfolio management. Mark has a wealth of experience executing deals on the buy side – managing due diligence, negotiating legal documents, setting the ultimate capital structure, and lining up financial documentation.

May 16, 2017

Sean Peace has a captivating story to tell about selling and exiting an unprofitable business in a unique niche: a fintech startup dealing with entertainment in the Southeast. In 2013, he founded Royalty Exchange, an auction marketplace selling music royalty streams as memorabilia to the highest bidding fans. After two years and $100K in revenue, the company landed $2 million in venture capital financing to accelerate their growth – or so they thought.

May 9, 2017

As a professional with 29 years’ experience in M&A corporate development, financial operations, and management, Paul Tennola, CFO of Paynet, is an expert when it comes to M&A. In addition to his experience with Paynet, Paul has worked with TransUnion, Wolters Kluwer, and SunGard. He has looked at over 1000 companies, successfully leading and closing more than 50 transactions. He believes M&A is a great way to augment growth.

May 2, 2017

April 24, 2017

As technology changes the way complex transactions are managed, some advisors are keeping up, while others are trailing behind. While traditional advisors struggle to keep their feet under them, present-day advisors are closing deals faster than ever.

April 18, 2017

Greg DellaFranco is currently a Senior Manager of Corporate Development at Deloitte Consulting. Prior to joining Deloitte, he served as Director of Corporate Development at KPMG. When combined with 16 years in corporate development, corporate strategy, new venture creation, and alliance roles at Accenture, Greg has valuable M&A insight to share.

March 29, 2017

Jeremie Bacon is a long-time Chicago resident with 13 years’ experience building SaaS companies. One of his success stories is Synap Software Labs, where he is the Co-Founder and CEO.

March 14, 2017

Matt Gambs is very familiar with the community banking realm — he’s been in it for more than 23 years and has worked every angle of the business, starting as a teller and working his way up to President and CEO of two different community banks in the Chicago metro area: BB&T Bancorp and Diamond Bank.

February 28, 2017

Andrew Jordan is a Principal at Riveron Consulting where he provides transaction advisory services. He’s had his hand in mergers and acquisitions for the last 8 years and has incredible insight regarding quality of earnings (Q of E) and M&A deals.

February 16, 2017

When asked what he would teach a younger version of himself, Scott Kaeser had a surprising answer…