My guest on this episode is Roland Lessard, former Co-CEO of Morningside with his partner Tom Klein, a language translation services business that served over 4,000 clients in 55 countries. A core piece of their thesis revolved around M&A, and Tom and Roland through that experience acquired deep domain expertise in creating value through a methodological M&A and, more importantly, integration process. This episode is all about M&A and corporate development, both for companies doing occasional M&A and those with more programmatic strategies, which is where Roland is spending most of his town now as an advisor to CEOs. Today Roland and I talk about the “why” of M&A, how M&A most often destroys value and how to avoid this, getting the team right prior to beginning M&A, assembling and leading an integration team, planning for integration and pitfalls to avoid, and the role of debt. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn.  Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/ I want to tell you about the audience survey we are currently running. These surveys help us create the best content for listeners and better understand your needs and interests. Thank you in advance for sharing your feedback, we greatly appreciate it.  Take the survey here: https://bit.ly/3QLBB1N Links: Roland on LinkedIn Morningside Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:04:34) - Catching up (00:06:45) - Categorizing M&A (00:09:45) - Why should someone consider pursuing M&A? (00:16:22) - Horizontal deals  (00:21:48) - Building Integration Teams (00:33:44) - Having a 12-month outlook, maximum (00:41:03) - Creating a dealbook (00:47:31) - Benchmarks for processes and projects (00:55:07) - Categories of integrations (00:59:56) - Metrics to track in order to make sure you’re staying on goal (01:04:23) - The role of debt (01:08:31) - Key Takeaways