M&A Science

Shawn Rodricks, Head of M&A - Independent Consultant
If you scale the deal flow without the operating infrastructure to match it, things break fast. The playbook is a document nobody opens, closing weeks turn into fire drills, and the returns you modeled start to slip.
Shawn Rodricks, Head of M&A - Independent Consultant, built the infrastructure before the volume hit. He closed 220 acquisitions across two organizations, 37 at Rexall in pharmacy and 183 at Amerivet Veterinary Partners, by wiring in the operating system from the start.
What You'll Learn
The five-part operating model behind 220 acquisitions
How to hire for biz dev vs. corp dev roles in a lean M&A team
How to build a closing-week SWAT team and keep finance aligned on timing
Why qualitative diligence feeds directly into your forecast and purchase price
The pre-close vs. post-close integration framework
Why roll-ups that confuse acquisition with strategy fail
What Shawn got wrong in year one and how it shaped every program since

If you're scaling a deal function and want the operating framework behind Shawn's approach, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, has the Buyer-Led M&A™ Certification, built from 400+ practitioner interviews into a framework you can actually run.
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This episode of M&A Science is presented by DealRoom.
DealRoom just automated Pipeline Management with AI so you can spend less time updating deals, and more time working them. Automatically push deal context from Outlook to DealRoom Pipeline and use AI to keep deal target data and tasks updated, so follow-ups never slip through the cracks. No manual logging. No stale pipeline data.
See for yourself: https://hubs.ly/Q045fXp50
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Episode Chapters
[00:00] Intro
[03:33] From Biochemistry to 220 Acquisitions
[06:02] The Operating Model for Serial Acquisitions
[09:40] Hiring: Biz Dev vs. Corp Dev
[13:03] Staffing as Deal Volume Scales
[15:08] What a Playbook Actually Is
[18:43] Managing Ebbs and Flows in Deal Volume
[22:12] Cash Flow and Finance Partnership
[23:44] The Underestimated Side of Diligence
[27:25] Key Person Risk and Pre-Close Retention
[31:41] Post-Close Monitoring and the First 90 Days
[35:17] Pre- vs. Post-Close Integration Priorities
[37:53] What Roll-Ups Mistake for Strategy
[39:21] Integration as the Conversion Engine
[42:48] The Year One Mistake That Bit Us
[44:12] When Deals Get Strange

Jeremy Segal, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS)
Buyers who mistake a high LOI bid for a winning strategy are easy prey for sellers who know the growth equity playbook. Jeremy Segal's position: precision at the LOI stage is a stronger differentiator than price.
Jeremy Segal is EVP of Corporate Development at Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS), a publicly traded software company that has nearly doubled revenue through M&A, from under $400 million to nearly $1 billion. He has closed roughly 50 acquisitions across his career at Progress, LogMeIn, and Akamai.
How do you build a cost-optimization model before LOI for lines you know you can execute? How do you win a competitive process against PE without the highest headline number? When a seller restricts access during the announce-to-close window, how do you decide whether to escalate or walk? And how do you handle a workforce that expected an IPO and got an acquisition instead? Jeremy answers each one.
What You'll Learn
Building a pre-LOI cost optimization model on what you can actually execute
How to use existing infrastructure to outbid PE on price
Escalating diligence friction before it kills a deal
Why a no-retrade commitment builds trust with sellers
Structuring retention pools when a target's IPO falls through
What target profile actually fits a disciplined buyer
Why private valuations haven't caught up to public markets
If you're building deal models before LOI and want a framework for translating those assumptions into an operational plan you can actually execute, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, has Buyer-Led M&A™ frameworks to help you close the gap between what you modeled and what you deliver.
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This episode of M&A Science is presented by DealRoom.
DealRoom just launched the only MCP server built for Buyer-Led M&A™ — so your AI and your deal data finally work together. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot directly to DealRoom and let your AI read your pipeline, analyze due diligence documents, and automatically write findings back. 
See for yourself: dealroom.net/mcp
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Episode Chapters
[00:00] Intro
[05:07] Why M&A has to be the growth engine
[07:36] Deal cadence and financial discipline
[09:42] Pipeline strategy and the five-year roadmap
[12:46] How the synergy model works before LOI
[17:15] The no-retrade commitment
[17:48] Chef: beating PE on a competitive deal
[24:56] ShareFile: carve-out from Cloud Software Group
[28:07] What to look for in a carve-out diligence
[33:48] MarkLogic: when the seller restricts access
[38:48] When seller motivation becomes an orange flag
[40:09] What counts as a material change warranting a retrade
[41:12] How public market cycles affect the deal pipeline
[48:09] Advice for a first-time acquirer
[49:46] The craziest thing in M&A
[53:02] Early Warning Signs in Diligence

Haseeb Jawad, VP and Head of Corporate Development, Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT)

The people who leave post-close are usually the ones the deal depended on. Which means the problem starts with how you read culture before LOI and whether financial incentives are the only retention tool you are building with.
Haseeb Jawad heads corporate development at Commvault, running a lean team with full accountability from sourcing through integration. He has led two to three acquisitions per year across multiple companies, sat on both sides of a transaction, and serves as his own IMO lead.
The signals that tell you a deal will lose people are visible from the first founder conversation, if you know what to look for.
What You'll Learn
The three signals to read in every founder conversation before LOI
How the TRUST framework applies across the full deal lifecycle
Why retention runs heart, brain, pocket and what breaks when you invert it
How to run employee-by-employee diligence without treating people as a cost line
Why owning both deal and integration makes business case assumptions honest
What one payroll timing issue did to months of trust-building after close
If you're managing a post-close retention risk and financial incentives are the only lever you're pulling, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, has Buyer-Led M&A™ frameworks to help you build the full retention model.
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This episode of M&A Science is presented by DealRoom.
DealRoom is the AI-powered operating system for Buyer-Led M&A™ — one connected system for pipeline, diligence, integration, and reporting. No tool-switching, no manual updates, no data gaps.
See how it works: https://hubs.ly/Q04mcGKy0
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Episode Chapters
[00:00] Intro
[03:05] Engineer Turned Corp Dev Leader
[07:45] How to Pick the Right M&A Deals
[10:26] What Most Buyers Miss in Deal Criteria
[15:44] Getting Founders to the Table
[20:18] AI Washing and Valuation Reality
[23:09] The TRUST Framework Explained
[26:19] When Leadership Alignment Breaks Down
[32:03] 3 Tiers of Culture Diligence Before LOI
[35:40] The Retention Framework
[38:31] Why Money Alone Won't Keep Your Key Talent
[41:13] Structuring Retention Plans by Person
[43:02] Why the Deal Team Should Stay
[49:32] Making Minority Investments Work
[51:57] Preserving Culture After Close
[53:02] Early Warning Signs in Diligence
[53:37] What Breaks First at High Deal Volume
[54:02] Walking Away Post-LOI

Matt Arsenault, VP of Corporate Development & Strategic Alliances at Jamf
Venture-backed companies are priced at their future state, not their current revenue. When growth stalls and another fundraising round stops making sense, the gap between VC valuation and what a strategic buyer will pay becomes the hardest conversation in any deal process. Matt Arsenault, VP of Corporate Development & Strategic Alliances at Jamf, has run this play across hundreds of targets. His work starts before the deal does, with the founder relationship, the cap table, and a clear-eyed conversation about risk tolerance that most corp dev teams never have. 
What You'll Learn
Why a $25M offer today can beat a $125M VC exit three years out
How AI is shrinking the moat of wrapper-product startups and changing target screening
The seven stakeholder groups in any acquisition and why most founders miss them
How liquidation preferences and cap table structure change the math behind any offer
Why VC relationships matter as much as founder relationships before a deal starts
How to structure deals for underwater targets without losing the team
What entrepreneurs should know about VC terms before taking their first check
If you're working a deal where the founder's VC valuation is the first thing they said and the last thing they'll let go of, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, gives you the guidance to close the gap without overpaying.
____________________
This episode of M&A Science is presented by DealRoom.
DealRoom just launched the only MCP server built for Buyer-Led M&A™ — so your AI and your deal data finally work together. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot directly to DealRoom and let your AI read your pipeline, analyze due diligence documents, and automatically write findings back. 
See for yourself: dealroom.net/mcp
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Episode Chapters
[00:01:14] Introduction and Kison's overview
[00:03:32] Matt Arsenault's background and path into M&A
[00:05:17] How VCs actually value companies: the two major components
[00:06:52] Where VC and strategic buyer valuations diverge, and why
[00:09:29] The current market for VC-backed acquisition targets
[00:10:39] Rule of 40, profitable growth, and what AI is changing
[00:25:01] The liquidation preference math: $25M today vs. $125M later
[00:31:38] Cap table dynamics, voting power, and co-founder alignment
[00:33:10] How to have the valuation conversation with a founder
[00:35:35] How to structure deals when a company is underwater
[00:36:45] Stakeholder management: severance, retention, and employee equity
[00:44:03] Structural tools for bridging valuation gaps
[00:49:21] What entrepreneurs should know before taking their first VC check
[00:51:03] Due diligence war stories: what a code scan revealed

Nathan Rust, Lutz Lehmann, Troy Pospisil, Jeremy Segal, Patrick Mumman, Tej Brahmbhatt, George Helock, and Angie Astle
Eight deal professionals share the M&A moments that never make the CIM. A birthday cake in a management presentation that confirmed a culture fit and influenced a bid. A buyer who died before close, forcing a nine-month restart from scratch. Eight years of customer revenue data on a 1980s IBM that management claimed did not exist. A target quietly heading toward Chapter 11 while diligence was underway. Unexpected events mid-deal are not exceptions. They are the deal. How you read them is what separates experienced practitioners from everyone else.
What You'll Learn:
How cultural signals in a management presentation can influence a bid decision
What to do when a buyer dies before close and the sell process has to restart
How to find data that management says does not exist
Why late-stage valuation surprises from founders are a signal you could have caught earlier
How to take a bankrupt target through Chapter 11 and still close the deal
Why experienced advisors document every surprise the moment a deal closes
If you're running deals and want pattern recognition built from thousands of real M&A situations to back your judgment, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, gives you the deal guidance and advisor access to know which surprises you push through and which ones mean walk away.
____________________
This episode of M&A Science is presented by DealRoom.
DealRoom just automated Pipeline Management with AI so you can spend less time updating deals, and more time working them.  Automatically push deal context from Outlook to DealRoom Pipeline and use AI to keep deal target data and tasks updated, so follow-ups never slip through the cracks. No manual logging. No stale pipeline data.
See for yourself: https://hubs.ly/Q045fXp50
____________________
Episode Chapters
[00:00] Intro
[04:11] Birthday cake in the management presentation
[07:10] Recruiting bankers from the sell side
[09:04] Culture fit as a bid decision factor
[10:03] When the buyer dies before close
[11:46] Nine-month restart from scratch
[17:04] Management says the data does not exist
[18:39] Finding Susie and the 1980s IBM
[22:25] IP ownership surprise at signing
[24:43] Bootstrap founders and commitment signals
[27:43] When bankers favor PE over strategics
[30:40] 78-year-old seller, a fistfight, and an earn-out
[32:25] The 12-year sales cycle
[35:23] Teaching a CEO to speak like an investor
[43:14] Aviation IPO pulled mid-road show
[45:52] Background check kills the deal a week before close
[50:03] Forever corporation: how Chugach approaches M&A
[54:47] HVAC target heads toward bankruptcy mid-diligence
[55:59] Becoming the secured creditor to save the deal