A $400M acquisition that retained ninety-two percent of identified leaders

The acquisition was strategically sound. The acquired business brought a brand portfolio and a direct-to-consumer capability the acquirer needed; the acquirer brought the scale and operational backbone the acquired business needed. The risk, identified in diligence and confirmed in the first weeks after close, was that the acquired company's leadership and organizational design were materially different from the acquirer's, and that a heavy-handed integration would lose the people and the cultural attributes that explained the acquired business's commercial performance.

Halverson Reed was retained to design and accompany the integration of the two organizations, with particular focus on the organizational design, the leadership transitions, and the early decisions that would set the cultural pattern.

The first ninety days of the engagement focused on three things. The first was an honest read of the acquired organization: who actually ran what, how decisions were made informally, and which of the acquired leaders the commercial performance most depended on. The second was the design of the combined organization — not the org chart on paper, which had been drafted before close, but the working version, which required several quiet revisions in light of what we found in the diagnostic. The third was the cadence of the integration itself — the rhythm of meetings, decisions, and communications that would determine whether the integration felt deliberate or chaotic to the people inside it.

Across the following fifteen months, the engagement narrowed in scope but lengthened in duration. The principal worked closely with the integration leader and the executive team on the leadership transitions, the harmonization of incentives and performance management, and the cultural decisions that had outsized signaling effects — the location of the combined commercial team, the brand of the new leadership-development program, the office practices that differed between the two companies.

Eighteen months after close, retention of the leaders identified in the first ninety days as critical to commercial performance was ninety-two percent. The acquired brands' direct-to-consumer revenue grew 27% in the first full year post-close, against an underwriting plan of 14%. The integration was completed on schedule and within budget; the integration leader was promoted to a broader role at the close of the program.

The acquirer has retained the firm on subsequent organizational engagements.