Master Your Merger Podcast

Most M&A failures are not strategy failures. The deal thesis was sound, the target made sense, and the diligence cleared. What breaks is execution: culture assessed in one deck slide, integration leadership named too late, synergies built to win approval rather than reflect reality, and a leadership team that never settled who makes which decisions. Mark Guidi is Managing Director of Operation...

Communication in M&A is often treated as something to finalize after the deal team has made the big decisions. That is a costly mistake. Employees, managers, clients, suppliers, and leaders all experience the transaction differently, and the way the message is planned, delivered, repeated, and reinforced can shape whether trust transfers or breaks down. In this episode of Master Your Merger ,...

When a deal is moving fast, “more communication” often creates less clarity. HR, IT, and Comms ship messages in parallel, employees get overwhelmed, and critical integration actions slip. This episode gets practical on what M&A communications looks like when the plan changes midstream and execution pressure is real. Klint is joined by Margo Diewald (name spelling needs final confirmation), Man...

Most integrations do not derail because leaders lack strategy. They derail because execution gets buried under miscommunication, unclear ownership, and self-inflicted complexity that multiplies over time. In this episode, Klint Kendrick talks with Cris Casey , an M&A execution and integration practitioner and the creator of the CRISP method , about what actually breaks post-close and how opera...

Most M&A integrations do not fail because the strategy is wrong. They fail because leaders underestimate what it takes for people to adopt new ways of working. A communication plan is not the same thing as change management, and moving fast can destroy trust faster than teams can rebuild it. In this episode, Klint Kendrick is joined by Mariam Huss, founder of Axxum Consulting, a human capital...

Most deals do not drift off track because the values sound different. They drift because behaviors do not match, decision-making slows down, and uncertainty creates integration debt: duplicated work, stalled commitments, and quiet value leakage. In this episode, Klint talks with Simone Vascotto, founder of Humanaq , about reading culture through observable behaviors and using early signals to spot...

Most integration plans fail in the same place: they assume the organization will behave rationally after close. But once you combine teams, reporting lines, and decision-making, the real operating patterns show up fast, and the deal thesis gets tested in the messy middle. In this episode, Klint Kendrick is joined by Miles Overholt , Founder and CEO of Strategia Analytics, who has spent decades wor...

Mergers succeed or fail based on more than strategy and financial engineering. The people capabilities inside an organization often determine whether integration creates momentum or friction. In this episode, Klint Kendrick speaks with Maureen Berkner-Boyt , Founder and CEO of C2IQ , about the human capabilities that shape how organizations navigate change. Mo has spent more than 30 years helping...

Many companies treat M&A as an occasional event. For companies that acquire frequently, it quickly becomes a capability. In this episode of the Master Your Merger Podcast , Klint Kendrick speaks with Anna Wilson , a senior HR leader at Uber who focuses on mergers and acquisitions and leads the HR business partner team for the delivery organization. Anna shares how her experience leading the Po...

Most deal teams can model the financials. Far fewer can explain—early and credibly—whether the leadership team can actually deliver the value creation plan. In this episode of the Master Your Merger Podcast , Klint Kendrick sits down with Dr. Marc Prine of MIP Consulting , an industrial-organizational psychologist known for talent and leadership assessment work in the private equity space. Marc sh...

Most integration teams can explain synergies, savings, and EBITDA targets on paper. Far fewer can quantify what is actually happening on the people side of the business after close. In this episode of the Master Your Merger Podcast , Klint Kendrick sits down with Tom Bradbury , Founder and CEO of Broad-Gauge , to explore how workforce data can move beyond reporting and become a true driver of inte...

Most leaders know change is hard. Very few know why people resist, when to communicate, or how to move teams forward without burning trust. In this episode of the Master Your Merger Podcast , Klint Kendrick is joined by Liz Lance and Suzanne Rudnitzki , co-authors of The Change Cheat Code . Together, they unpack a simple, practical framework for leading people through change: Hear, Fear, Near, and...

In post-merger integration, most teams can run the checklist. The hard part is getting people aligned, working together, and executing the strategy fast enough to capture value. In this episode of the Master Your Merger Podcast, Klint Kendrick talks with Alex Amsden and Tom Gaunt from BTS about how simulations can accelerate integration, reduce misalignment, and turn culture from an abstract idea...

In M&A, few mistakes damage trust faster than payroll problems. In this episode of the Master Your Merger Podcast, Klint Kendrick talks with Melissa Madi, a seasoned HR and payroll leader who has supported hundreds of transactions over the past decade. Melissa spent more than eight years at AssuredPartners, most recently as Director of Employee M&A, and now serves as Director of Payroll an...

Roll-ups do not fail because the spreadsheet is wrong. They fail when seller psychology, team readiness, and platform gaps turn integration into a slow bleed. In this episode of the Master Your Merger Podcast, Klint Kendrick talks with Eiron Roffey , an M&A integration leader based in Canada who has led the integration of more than 80 founder-led businesses across healthcare, technology, and p...

What happens when HR is asked to integrate a global acquisition without complete data? In this episode of the Master Your Merger Podcast , Klint Kendrick speaks with Naveen Nagpal, a global HR M&A strategist with more than 25 years of experience supporting cross-border transactions. Naveen shares lessons from more than 40 global deals and walks through a real example where missing benefits dat...

What separates the 10 percent of deals that deliver real value from the 90 percent that don’t? In this Season 2 premiere, Master Your Merger Podcast host Klint Kendrick talks with Al Ansari , founder of M&A Alliance and author of Unraveling the Mystery of M&A Integration and Divestiture Success . With more than 100 deals and $25 billion in value under his belt, Al explains how to: • Apply...

AI is reshaping M&A—but technology alone doesn’t create deal value. People, leadership, and integration discipline do. In this HR M&A Roundtable session, host Klint Kendrick, PhD, SPHR convenes senior practitioners to explore how AI is being applied responsibly and effectively across M&A—particularly in HR due diligence, post-merger integration, culture, communication, and retention. T...