M&A is Messy: The Impact of Company Culture Pre and Post Sale

Jennifer Fondrevay is the founder of Day One Ready, a consulting firm for business owners going through mergers and acquisitions. Jennifer specializes in keeping the human element of selling businesses in the forefront.

Today, she tells me about her experiences with M&A and how she has met a need that many businesses don’t think about until after the fact. That need, of course, is keeping your employees and more importantly middle managers in the loop about their future with your company once it is sold.

Jennifer is in the process of writing a book for these middle managers and other team leaders who may find themselves working for a merged company. It’s called Now What? A Survival Guide for Navigating and Thriving Through Acquisition.

You will learn about:

• Jennifer’s background in advertising and marketing.
• How she got into M&A.
• Who her book is for and why she launched Day One Ready.
• Why M&A is important to a business.
• Why incorrect valuation is the main reason businesses fail the first year after a merger.
• The culture clashes that happen after a sale.
• Painting a clear picture of a company’s future is critical.
• How Jennifer provides transparency to the M&A process.
• The types of leaders you need to include in this process.
• Emphasizing how the employee fits into the new system.
• The stats of failure for an M&A business during the first year.
• The steps to considering people first.
• The importance of respect.
• Jennifer’s parting advice.

Takeaways:

The fact is your company will change after a merger. You need to ask the right questions and include the right people in your company to create a uniform and clear representation of how the business will change for the employees just looking for marching orders. If you show respect to your employees it will go a long way.

Links and Resources:

GEXP Collaborative
Jennifer’s website
Now What? A Survival Guide for Navigating and Thriving Through Acquisition

About Jennifer:

From working with a wide variety of Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, and small businesses, Jennifer has seen countless growth strategies fall short because a workforce cannot pivot to adapt to change as effectively as leadership anticipated. In hindsight, it’s easy to see why people strategies broke down, but by then it’s too late to intervene.

Jennifer Fondrevay is the organizational transformation guru companies need to keep their growth strategies on track. While data is increasingly used to guide business decisions, Jennifer helps ensure the human component of a company’s plan, such as culture, productivity, and retention remains a cornerstone of success during times of change rather than an inhibitor. Serving as an advisor to senior leadership and a liaison to middle managers, she is a much-needed resource who guides companies safely through unfamiliar waters.