Advice needed: I’ve been working in change management for 6 years and want to jump to industry working in mergers and acquisitions. However I have a very limited working experience within that space. Has anyone made this jump before? How did you navigate it? I’d like to talk to a few people if possible for advice / guidance. I know there are a lot of change management skillsets that would transfer over.

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One area for you to potentially dig into—integration management. This is on the ops side of M&A, but effectively what happens on mergers is that the companies set up what’s called an Integration Management Office (IMO).

It’s exactly what it sounds like. Program management for the merger. Break down all different workstreams and the tasks that need to be done in order to bring the companies together on a specific timeline.

Fundamentally, this is change management. It’s a lot of working cross functionally to identify potential risks to the merger and working with both the portco and PE leadership (usually the operating partner) to ensure that things go as smoothly as possible to bring the two companies together, achieve synergies as quickly as possible, and minimize time to positive ROI.

Some people don’t like this work and prefer deals/due diligence. Personally, I really enjoyed the opportunity to work with portcos. It can be quite strategic, too, if they view you as a SME. Often, I was helping design and build new processes across the two companies. Also got to work with vendors to negotiate new rates for the combined entity, etc. and in general, focused on smoothing over bumps from a change management perspective and ensure strong communication throughout the merger.

My guess is your skills set would align nicely with this type of work.

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Reading this months later while considering a possible jump to this space...this is so helpful! Thank you for your thoughtful response.

likesmart

PwC, Deloitte and EY all have established practices / dedicated people that do change management, comms and culture work in deals. I know you want to go to industry, but getting some experience in the deals space will set you up well for transformation office / IMO work in industry.

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... and KPMG...

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Interesting. Any of these you recommend?

Is ddv focused more on integration vs. Change and culture.

OP did you end up making the jump? In a similar position considering a jump to M&A for a competiting offer but second guessing myself that my MC skills won't be transferrable.

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