Navigating Mergers And Acquisitions

The real work begins after the ink dries – my M&A learnings. According to most studies, between 70-90% of M&A transaction do not deliver the targeted goals. Experienced M&A practitioners identify problems in the integration as a primary cause. Over the past years, I have had the privilege of being involved in several M&A transactions at HDI International – from strategic evaluation to post-merger integration. Each deal brought its own dynamics, but one truth remained constant: the most challenging time begins after the signing. Here are my top personal learnings from post-merger integrations: 1️⃣ Start integration early and move fast – Integration planning should begin very early on, even before signing. A clear roadmap for the following months sets expectations and creates transparency thus reducing the uncertainty each integration phase will inevitably bring. Moving diligently, but fast through the integration phases and defining the leadership teams early on also helps to reduce the uncertainty. 2️⃣ Define clear targets and keep a business focus – We defined for the integration financial and operational goals overall and for each area top-down and bottom-up. This created clarity and commitment. We also continuously tracked the progress made. This helped to keep a clear focus on the market and our business momentum while also achieving the targeted synergies. 3️⃣ Culture is not a soft factor – It’s often the hardest and most decisive element. Our teams made it a priority to establish a common culture that fits both companies. True to the motto: listening, adjusting, and moving forward together. Our overall values of transparency, engagement and collaboration are at the basis of the new common culture and were critical in each integration process. 4️⃣ Embrace feedback – A healthy error culture and open feedback loops are essential. When moving fast in such a complex integration process, surprises and mistakes will happen. It is thus key to identify and address them quickly and to learn from them. 5️⃣ It’s a team effort – Integration success very much depends on the team you have on the ground, not only in our decentral organization. We have leaders who know the market, their business operation and their teams deeply. In addition, quite a number of leaders already have vast experience in post-merger management. On top, it wasn’t just our leadership teams who made the difference – it was every colleague who embraced the integration as an opportunity to build a leading business in their market, adapting and supporting each other, going the extra mile while maintaining the business momentum. 🙏 I’m grateful to everybody who has made the integrations of the past years successful – with dedication, resilience, openness, and a shared vision. The results and progress we achieved so far would not be possible without you. I would love to hear from you: What are your key learnings from post-merger integrations? What worked – and what didn’t?

CEO: The board wants our new system live in 2 months. Can we do it? CFO: Marketing's pushing hard. They need those analytics. FP&A Manager: Original timeline was 6 months. For good reason. CEO: What's the hold up? We have budget. FP&A Manager: Money isn't the blocker. We need proper testing, data validation, user training. CFO: Can't we fast-track those? FP&A Manager: Last time we rushed, we spent 8 months fixing errors. Cost us $2.3M in corrections. CEO: That was different. We're better prepared now. FP&A Manager: Are we? Our data shows 67% of our departments still use manual workarounds from the last rush job. CFO: What's the real cost difference? FP&A Manager: 2-month rush: $1.2M upfront, but $3.6M in likely fixes within a year. 6-month proper launch: $1.8M all-in, stable system. CEO: The board won't like that timeline. FP&A Manager: They'll like a failed system less. Remember ProjectX? Rushed launch, looked great for one quarter. Then came the restatements. CFO: That audit was... painful. FP&A Manager: Every rushed system I've seen in 15 years needed rescue. Average rescue cost? 3x original budget. CEO: But our competitors— FP&A Manager: Are spending 8 months on similar rollouts. I checked. CFO: Hold on. Are we actually saving anything by rushing? FP&A Manager: No. We're buying speed with future debt. Technical debt, training debt, accuracy debt. CEO: What's your real timeline? FP&A Manager: 5 months. Not 6. I built in buffers we can trim safely. But that's the line. CFO: That's... actually cheaper than the rush job plus fixes. FP&A Manager: Exactly. Stable systems mean clean audits, reliable forecasts, and trained teams. CEO: Draft a revised plan. But make it airtight. FP&A Manager: It's ready. With cost comparisons and risk assessments. Bottom line: Speed isn't savings. It's borrowed time with interest. Proper launches look good on balance sheets. Rush jobs become liabilities. 73% of rushed systems need rescue within 18 months. Each rescue costs 3x the original budget. Fast feels good. Right feels profitable. Quality systems drive clean books. Clean books drive growth. The cheapest launch is the one you do once.

The last few weeks I have been discussing with different Boards how to take their home-grown GCC business abroad. One will open operations in Asia. The other is pursuing M&A in Europe. The same question came up with both: How do we keep the culture and values we built in the GCC as we grow abroad? They asked for my view, having led teams across Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East. Culture is often underestimated as we go international. It is what holds a company together. The numbers back it:   • 88% of employees say culture shapes where they choose to work   • High-trust cultures keep turnover under half the average (Great Place to Work, 2025)   • Walmart lost over $1 billion in Germany forcing its US culture: staged smiling, morning chants on local staff. It failed. ✅ 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿   • Put your core values in plain words so employee can repeat   • Separate the "what" (values, ethics) from the "how" (local ways of working)   • IKEA keeps the same values in every market and adapts only the store ✅ 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀   • Hire and promote for values fit, not only track record   • Send early people from your HQ to transfer the culture/values, then hand over   • Toyota taught the Toyota Way at its US Kentucky plant, then handed it to local managers ✅ 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝗵𝗼𝘄", 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁"   • Be flexible on local habits and customer tastes. Adapt products and services.   • Hold firm on values, ethics and standards   • McDonald's drops beef and pork in India for the McAloo Tikki, with the same service standards worldwide ✅ 𝗣𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮   • Develop a culture dashboard per country: engagement, turnover, exit reasons   • Add culture fit to the M&A due diligence: many deals fail on misfit   • A 2025 study of 1,249 cross-border deals found big culture gaps lower performance. Culture does not travel easily. You focus on building it by design, in every country. 💡 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽, 𝗻𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀? #CorporateGovernance #BoardDirectors #Leadership #CompanyCulture #FamilyBusiness #GlobalBusiness

Everyone loves to talk about the strategy behind M&A deals. But the thing I’ve learned watching FMCG leaders up close? Deals don’t fail because of bad strategy. They fail because of people. It’s never the financial model that breaks first — it’s leadership misalignment. I see it happen all the time in FMCG — especially in Private Equity backed environments. The model looks perfect on paper: → Acquire a few fast-growing brands → Roll them into a global portfolio → Drive efficiencies, cost synergies, market expansion But then the integration starts — and suddenly things look very different. Because what the spreadsheet doesn’t tell you is: → The founder isn’t used to quarterly board meetings with EBITDA pressure → The CMO is still running a startup playbook in a scaled organization → The CEO doesn’t align with the go-to-market model in a new geography → The commercial leaders can’t navigate two different company cultures merging overnight And this happens more than most will admit. In fact — Bain & Company data shows 70% of M&A deals underperform expectations. And culture is one of the top 3 reasons. In the FMCG space — where brands carry legacy pride and deeply embedded ways of working — leadership integration is no longer “important.” It’s non-negotiable. Great M&A outcomes today don’t just come from smart strategy. They come from: → Leadership teams that trust each other faster than the market moves → Leaders who can flex between entrepreneurial scrappiness and corporate discipline → People who know when to protect brand identity — and when to evolve it And here’s what I tell my clients: If leadership alignment is not your #1 risk mitigation strategy in M&A — you’re not just betting on growth. You’re betting on luck. The smartest investors I work with in FMCG? They’ve learned this the hard way. They’re doing culture diligence as seriously as financial diligence. They’re assessing leadership “integration readiness” before the deal closes. They’re hiring talent not just for operational excellence — but for the ability to navigate ambiguity, pressure, and transformation. Because the future of FMCG M&A won’t be won by the best strategy. It will be won by the best people. Drop me a message — I’m always up for a conversation on building high performing teams. #FMCG #ExecutiveSearch #PrivateEquity #MergersAndAcquisitions #Leadership #CultureIntegration #ConsumerGoods #HiringStrategy

Inclusion isn’t a one-time initiative or a single program—it’s a continuous commitment that must be embedded across every stage of the employee lifecycle. By taking deliberate steps, organizations can create workplaces where all employees feel valued, respected, and empowered to succeed. Here’s how we can make a meaningful impact at each stage: 1. Attract Build inclusive employer branding and equitable hiring practices. Ensure job postings use inclusive language and focus on skills rather than unnecessary credentials. Broaden recruitment pipelines by partnering with diverse professional organizations, schools, and networks. Showcase your commitment to inclusion in external messaging with employee stories that reflect diversity. 2. Recruit Eliminate bias and promote fair candidate evaluation. Use structured interviews and standardized evaluation rubrics to reduce bias. Train recruiters and hiring managers on unconscious bias and inclusive hiring practices. Implement blind resume reviews or AI tools to focus on qualifications, not identifiers. 3. Onboard Create an inclusive onboarding experience. Design onboarding materials that reflect a diverse workplace culture. Pair new hires with mentors or buddies from Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) to foster belonging. Offer inclusion training early to set the tone for inclusivity from day one. 4. Develop Provide equitable opportunities for growth. Ensure leadership programs and career development resources are accessible to underrepresented employees. Regularly review training, mentorship, and promotion programs to address any disparities. Offer specific development opportunities, such as allyship training or workshops on cultural competency. 5. Engage Foster a culture of inclusion. Actively listen to employee feedback through pulse surveys, focus groups, and open forums. Support ERGs and create platforms for marginalized voices to influence organizational policies. Recognize and celebrate diverse perspectives, cultures, and contributions in the workplace. 6. Retain Address barriers to equity and belonging. Conduct pay equity audits and address discrepancies to ensure fairness. Create flexible policies that accommodate diverse needs, including caregiving responsibilities, religious practices, and accessibility. Provide regular inclusion updates to build trust and demonstrate progress. 7. Offboard Learn and grow from employee transitions. Use exit interviews to uncover potential inequities and areas for improvement. Analyze trends in attrition to identify and address any patterns of exclusion or bias. Maintain relationships with alumni and invite them to stay engaged through inclusive networks. Embedding inclusion across the employee lifecycle is not just the right thing to do—it’s a strategic imperative that drives innovation, engagement, and organizational success. By making these steps intentional, companies can create environments where everyone can thrive.

If you work in any shape or form associated with change, you have almost certainly encountered the Kübler-Ross model. The curve. The stages. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. It shows up in change management decks, leadership development programmes and HR toolkits across every industry on the planet. What is less often mentioned is where it comes from. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a Swiss-American psychiatrist working in the 1960s with terminally ill patients. She developed her five stages by sitting with people who were dying, or watching someone they loved die. The framework describes the emotional journey of confronting an irreversible, non-negotiable loss. Death does not ask for your input. It does not run a consultation process. It does not care about your concerns or your ideas for how things could be done differently. The only dignified response available to you is, eventually, to accept it. And yet here we are, applying it to office reorganisations. Think about what this tells you. If your change methodology is built on the assumption that people will move through grief stages, you have already decided something important: that this is happening to them. That they have no meaningful say. That their job is not to shape the change but to survive it. The framework doesn't just describe the experience, it legitimises it. It tells leaders: of course there will be denial and anger, that's just the curve, give it time. It turns resistance into a stage to be managed rather than intelligence to be heard. Here is the radical alternative: talk to your people before you decide. Not a survey. Not a town hall where the decision has already been made and you are managing the announcement. Actually talk to them. Understand whether there is a tangible need for change in the first place. Find out what they see from where they sit, because they see things you don't. Ask what their concerns are, what they would protect, what they think would actually work. Then, if change is genuinely needed, build the plan with them rather than for them. What you will find, almost without exception, is that people are not resistant to change. They are resistant to being changed. They are resistant to having things decided about their working lives by people who did not think to ask. They are resistant to being handed a vision poster and told to process their feelings about it on the curve. Co-created change does not produce denial and anger and bargaining and depression on the way to acceptance. It produces ownership. People defend what they helped build. They troubleshoot it honestly because they understand why it exists. They trust it because they were trusted first. No Kübler-Ross needed. No grief to manage. No pit to sit in. Just the radical, time-consuming, entirely unsexy act of treating people as the authors of their working lives rather than the subjects of someone else's vision. Problem solved :) Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, source Wikipedia

"Culture change" is the biggest lie in organizational transformation. Here's what actually happens: You run workshops. You print posters. You train people on new values. Six months later, behavior looks exactly the same. Why? Because you've got the causality backwards. Culture follows structure. Not the other way around. Craig Larman captured this in his Laws of Organizational Behavior. The first law: Organizations are implicitly optimized to avoid changing the status quo of middle- and first-level manager positions and power structures. Read that again. Your organization isn't resisting change because people are difficult. It's resisting change because it's designed to resist change. The structure, rewards, and processes are all optimized to preserve existing power. Want to change culture? Change the structure. Want people to collaborate? Remove the structural barriers that make collaboration expensive. Want innovation? Create Product Groups with real P&L ownership and decision-making authority. Want customer focus? Merge customer-facing and product development units so everyone shares the same measures of success. Jay Galbraith's Star Model shows this clearly: Strategy, Structure, Processes, Rewards, and People practices must be in harmony. Change one without the others, and the system snaps back. Stop running culture workshops. Start redesigning your organization. The culture you want will emerge from the structure you create. #SimplificationOfficers #OrganizationalChange

Mergers and acquisitions often fail to deliver the value anticipated. I have been involved in several during my career, not just as a deal-maker but as part of the post-merger team. At a high level, there are five success criteria for ensuring successful integrations: 1) Deal Alignment 2) Operational Precision 3) Value Creation 4) Cultural Alignment 5) Repeatability and Scalability Typically, Deal Alignment and Operational Precision are successful. Adrenalin is rushing, everyone is working towards a fixed deadline with set scripts to execute according to a plan. But after the headlines, when the lawyers and deal makers have packed up, the work becomes less academic and more practical. Many integrations get lost in the tactical aspects of the deal and miss out on the deeper, more complex goals: creating new value and uniting cultures. While M&A is often focused on efficiencies, a more important challenge is making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Too often, value is lost because the focus turns to efficiency targets rather than empowering people to deliver positive impact to customers. In 2005, I was part of the turnaround team for a company called Energis which was acquired by Cable & Wireless for almost a $1 billion. It was hailed by the FT as the "greatest turnaround in corporate British history". The management team of Energis took over at C&W and great value creation was promised to C&W's shareholders. It was intended to strengthen C&W's position in the UK telecoms market by expanding its customer base and service offerings. Instead, the focus shifted to relentless cost-cutting, but the financial and operational hurdles persisted. C&W ultimately split into two separate entities, and in 2012, Vodafone acquired its UK and global enterprise business for $1.6 billion, a clear sign that the Energis acquisition hadn’t delivered the expected value. Integrations like these reveal a hard truth: capturing true value in M&A requires more than just initial alignment and cost efficiencies; it demands a long-term focus on culture and shared purpose. How can companies ensure that value creation and cultural alignment remain priorities beyond the initial deal? And what would it take for leaders to measure M&A success not just by efficiency gains but by the real impact on customers and employees? Look out for tomorrow's post where I explore these questions. #Mergers #value #Integration #Acquistion Enjoyed this? ♻️ Share it and follow Holly Joint for insights on strategy, leadership, culture, and women in a tech-driven future. 🙌🏻 All views are my own.

TRUTH bomb of the day: People connect with people, not faceless corporations on social. This insight helped two merging health systems successfully rebrand without losing their employees' trust. When Beaumont Health and Spectrum Health merged into Corewell Health, they were up against: - 21 hospitals becoming one brand - 300+ outpatient locations needing alignment - 65,000 employees wondering "what's next?" The typical thing to do is to blast out corporate memos and hope for the best. (Spoiler: that never works) Instead, Corewell Health's social team did something different: They turned their EMPLOYEES into the voice of the brand. They leveraged 65,000+ people in their organization and empowered them to drive results! Using Hootsuite Enterprise they were able to: - Create one central hub for brand content (keeping 65,000 people across 300+ locations on-brand) - Make sharing authentic stories effortless (busy healthcare workers could share pre-approved content in seconds) - Monitor conversations in real-time (it became easy to spot negative sentiment early and adjust their content accordingly) And I’m still shocked by the results they generated: → 3M+ MORE impressions from employee-shared content →  2.5x HIGHER engagement than healthcare industry average (4.76% to 1.8%) → 50% DROP in negative sentiment since the merger went into effect (14% to 7%) The big lesson? 👇🏻 Your most powerful brand ambassadors aren't your ads or announcements. They're your people. When you empower employees to share their authentic experiences on social media, you build trust in ways traditional corporate communications never could.

Last year, I stood at a crossroad. Leaving the familiar warmth of Kenya for the unknown chill of Canada was a daunting change. Fear gnawed at me, but there was also a thrilling sense of possibility. I had to learn to navigate a new culture and build everything from scratch. This experience taught me a powerful lesson: change, though disruptive, is often the catalyst for incredible growth. And as leaders, guiding our teams through change can feel just as unsettling. Mergers, new technologies – the business world throws curveballs. It's easy to feel like you're clinging to a life raft in a storm, just trying to stay afloat. But what if, instead, you could be the lighthouse, illuminating the path forward? Here are some strategies I've learned to navigate change and keep my team inspired: • 𝗕𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝗪𝗵𝘆" 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲: People crave purpose. Clearly communicate the "why" behind the change, the vision for the future, and most importantly, your team's crucial role in achieving it. This fosters psychological safety – a space where your team feels comfortable taking risks and voicing concerns. • 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 (𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘆): We all crave predictability, but sometimes, the only constant is change. Be honest about what you know, what you don't, and the potential challenges ahead. This builds trust and allows your team to adapt alongside you. • 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀: Stories resonate with us on a human level. Share personal experiences or relevant industry examples to illustrate the benefits of the change. This emotional connection helps increase acceptance. • 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘆: Change can be tough. Acknowledge the emotional impact on your team. Be a listening ear and address concerns with empathy. Building emotional intelligence (EQ) allows you to connect with your team and celebrate small wins along the way. Change is inevitable. But with the right approach, it can be an opportunity for incredible growth. #leadership #changemanagement #communication #motivation #emotionalintelligence #EQ #NLP