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My Daughter Interviews Me About M&A | Holiday Special Episode with Shyla Patel

M&A Science

Release Date: 12/15/2025

How M&A Turns a Chemical Company Into a Tech Business show art How M&A Turns a Chemical Company Into a Tech Business

M&A Science

Chandradev Mehta, SVP Strategy and Business Development at Hexion Inc., breaks down how a commodity chemical company uses M&A to transform into a technology-enabled, chemistry-as-a-service business. He covers the acquisition of an AI and MarTech company, the build vs. buy vs. partner decision framework, integration planning discipline, banker selection, small deal execution, and JV governance. What You'll Learn How to build a genuine build vs. buy vs. partner framework  and when each is right Why buying a commercialized or near-commercialized business changes your risk profile in...

info_outline CPG Exit Strategy: How to Build a Consumer Brand Strategics Will Acquire | Keith Levy Part 2 show art CPG Exit Strategy: How to Build a Consumer Brand Strategics Will Acquire | Keith Levy Part 2

M&A Science

Most consumer brand founders think about exit as an event. Keith Levy thinks about it as a design requirement. In the second of two episodes, Keith walks through what exit-ready actually looks like in CPG: the revenue and EBITDA thresholds that matter, why you have to get beyond the corp dev team to the operators who actually need what you're building, how capital gets wasted at every stage of a brand's lifecycle, and what the investments that produce exits have in common versus the ones that don't. If you missed the first episode, it covers Keith's five-pillar CPG diligence framework and the...

info_outline CPG Due Diligence: The Operator Framework Behind a $1B Exit | Keith Levy Part 1 show art CPG Due Diligence: The Operator Framework Behind a $1B Exit | Keith Levy Part 1

M&A Science

Keith Levy backed an exit of just under $1B  and a $400M exit using the same five-pillar framework, and he starts with the founder every time. Finance comes last. As Operating Partner at Sonoma Brands Capital, Keith has spent six years evaluating consumer brands across food, beverage, pet food, snacks, and cosmetics. Before that he was CMO at Anheuser-Busch through the $52B InBev deal, president of Royal Canin USA for Mars, and the strategic acquirer who led the Kind acquisition at Mars Wrigley. He knows what the data room doesn't show you, and this conversation is built around that gap....

info_outline 400 Acquisitions and a Failed Process: What Happens When You Don't Integrate show art 400 Acquisitions and a Failed Process: What Happens When You Don't Integrate

M&A Science

Roll-up platforms that skipped real integration are getting exposed when they go to market. Buyers want proof of organic growth, clean data, and a platform that actually functions as one. A lot of processes are breaking down because those proof points aren't there. Matt James co-founded Oakbridge Insurance in 2020 and has since closed 60+ acquisitions, integrating 100% from day of close. This conversation covers how he built that system, what went wrong with billion-dollar competitors, and what he would fix first if he walked into a revenue-aggregating roll-up right now.  What You'll...

info_outline M&A Roll-Up Playbook: The IRR Framework That Replaced Budgets at Zayo | Dan Caruso (Part 2) show art M&A Roll-Up Playbook: The IRR Framework That Replaced Budgets at Zayo | Dan Caruso (Part 2)

M&A Science

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Dan Caruso, founder and former CEO of Zayo Group. Be sure to start with Part 1. It covers the Zayo thesis, deal sourcing, structure, and the negotiation playbook, whereas this episode picks up at the execution. Part 2 is about the equity value-creation framework Dan built at Zayo, applying the same IRR math PE firms use for their portfolio companies to daily operating decisions. It replaced budgets and tied every compensation decision to a single equation. It ends with the exit and how Dan put together a competing bid after a buyer consortium locked up...

info_outline M&A Roll-Up Playbook: How Zayo Did 45 Acquisitions and Sold for $14B | Dan Caruso (Part 1) show art M&A Roll-Up Playbook: How Zayo Did 45 Acquisitions and Sold for $14B | Dan Caruso (Part 1)

M&A Science

Dan Caruso built Zayo from a startup into a $14B+ bandwidth infrastructure platform through 45 acquisitions. In Part 1, he walks through the full buyer-led playbook: how the thesis was built on a contrarian bet that everyone else got wrong, how proprietary deals were sourced through early relationship-building, and why fast integration wasn't a reputation problem — it was a competitive advantage.  He also breaks down the metric trap most roll-up operators fall into: mistaking EBITDA growth for true value creation. If your board is tracking acquisitions individually or your deal...

info_outline Cross-Border M&A: Doing Deals in Latin America show art Cross-Border M&A: Doing Deals in Latin America

M&A Science

Most US buyers approach Latin America M&A the same way they do a domestic deal — optimize the process, close fast, move on. That approach gets deals killed. Rodrigo Dominguez Sotomayor, Partner at White & Case LLP, has spent 25 years closing transactions across every major Latin America market. In this episode, he walks through what actually determines outcomes: antitrust consent timelines, labor regimes that make post-close restructuring expensive, and the relationship dynamics that can unwind a billion-dollar deal a week before signing. What You’ll Learn In This Episode:  ...

info_outline Partnering Before Purchasing: How Booz Allen Wins Proprietary Deals Early show art Partnering Before Purchasing: How Booz Allen Wins Proprietary Deals Early

M&A Science

​​Booz Allen Hamilton didn't build one of the most active acquisition programs in federal tech by waiting for banker inbounds. They built it by showing up years before anyone else. Chrissy Cox has built Booz Allen's corporate development function from scratch and done it twice. Her team was named Deal Team of the Year by the Association for Corporate Growth, and under her leadership, roughly 80% of their acquisitions come from companies they already have a relationship with. That's not luck, it's a system. In this episode, she breaks down exactly how that system works — from pipeline...

info_outline Cultural Fit Over EBITDA: How Salas O'Brien Built a 30-Merger Program Without a Single Failure show art Cultural Fit Over EBITDA: How Salas O'Brien Built a 30-Merger Program Without a Single Failure

M&A Science

Salas O'Brien has completed 30+ mergers with a 100% success rate and 93% cumulative leadership retention.  That doesn't happen by accident. Nathan Rust, Senior VP of Corp Dev, explains the system behind those numbers. He shares how they screen bad fits on the first call, why their CEO meets every employee from acquired firms, and how a founder-driven sourcing flywheel attracts inbound deals. In this episode: You’ll learn how they screen 200+ opportunities a year down to the ones worth closing, why their initial diligence list is 10 questions, how reverse due diligence works as a real...

info_outline Cross-Border M&A: How to Do Deals in Italy with Mauro Sambati and Donato Romano show art Cross-Border M&A: How to Do Deals in Italy with Mauro Sambati and Donato Romano

M&A Science

Italy remains one of Europe’s most attractive markets for foreign investment. But cross-border deals in Italy are shaped by regulatory scrutiny, strict labor laws, and unique cultural dynamics that many investors underestimate.  In this episode, Mauro Sambati and Donato Romano, Partners at Gianni & Origoni, explain what it truly takes to structure and close successful transactions in Italy. What You’ll Learn in This Episode Why Golden Power must be structured as a condition precedent before closing How strict Italian labor laws impact asset deals and post-closing restructuring...

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More Episodes

In this special father-daughter episode, My daughter interviews me on my new book on Buyer-Led M&A™. We break down the framework built from over 400 practitioner interviews—covering why traditional M&A is flawed, how to shift from reactive auction-chasing to proactive deal sourcing, and why integration planning must begin during diligence.

Things you will learn:

  • Why integration planning during diligence (not after) determines deal success
  • How the five pillars of buyer-led M&A transform reactive processes into strategic engines
  •  Why proactive deal sourcing beats bank-led auctions every time

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This episode is brought to you by S&P Global.

Today's episode of M&A Science is brought to you by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

If you're in corp dev or PE, you know the pain — good private company data is hard to come by. Everyone's still chasing clean, reliable, up-to-date data. I started out using CapIQ Pro for public comps, but didn't realize until recently how deep their private company coverage has gotten. Over 58 million private companies, global reach, and actually usable for real deal work. 

This isn't surface-level. You get real metrics — ownership, financials, funding rounds, even asset-level insights. So if you're still toggling between a dozen tools trying to piece together the picture, maybe it's time to stop guessing and start sourcing better. 

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Buyer-Led M&A™: The Framework is Now Available

Traditional M&A is broken. Buyers chase auctions. Sellers control the process. It's reactive, inefficient, and exhausting.

After 300+ episodes of M&A Science, I've taken insights from the world's top corp dev leaders and distilled them into a practical framework for taking control of your M&A pipeline—how to source deals directly, build relationships earlier, and stop being auction-chasers.

If you'd like to build a proactive M&A program that founders actually want to engage with, you can grab your copy.
https://dealroom.net/resources/ebooks/buyer-led-m-a-tm-the-framework
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Everything You Need to Learn Modern M&A — In One Membership

Access proven templates, frameworks, and real operator insights — all designed to help you learn faster, make smarter decisions, and run Buyer-Led M&A with confidence.

Sign up now with promo code "FOUNDER" for 50% off at checkout. 
https://www.mascience.com/membership
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Episode Timestamps

[00:00:00] Introduction to Buyer-Led M&A – Kison introduces his new book and the framework for flipping traditional M&A from reactive to proactive deal-making.

[00:05:30] The M&A Science Origin Story

[00:08:30] The Maturity Curve Problem – Why companies make catastrophic mistakes on their first deal and how the buyer-led framework accelerates learning.

[00:12:30] Integration Is Where Value Lives – Understanding that the real work starts after close and why planning integration early prevents people from quitting.

[00:19:00] M&A Has a Design Problem, Not an Execution Problem – Why focusing on closing deals instead of making deals successful creates systemic failure.

[00:25:00] The Five Pillars of Buyer-Led M&A – Breaking down never M&A on impulse, unified tools, synchronized diligence-integration, scalability, and win-win approaches.

[00:37:30] The Three Coats of Conviction – How reactive positioning, integration negligence, and model mirage derail even well-intentioned deals.

[00:49:00] What Elite Buyers Do Differently – Early alignment, clear accountability, defined operating models, and building M&A as an organizational muscle.

[00:54:00] Proprietary Deal Sourcing Beats Auctions – The house-buying analogy that illustrates why doing the hard work of finding your own deals creates better outcomes.

[01:00:30] The Single Most Important Takeaway – Own your assumptions, validate them through rigorous work, and lead the process instead of letting sellers drive it.

Questions, comments, concerns?
Follow Kison Patel for behind-the-scenes insights on modern M&A.