The M&A Lead owns Mission Critical Group’s acquisition process from initiation through close and integration execution. Reporting to the SVP, People and Business Services and partnering closely with the CEO, business unit leaders, and the Board, this role is the deal driver across strategy, finance, legal, HR, IT, HSE, and operations. The M&A Lead validates targets, partners with our Capital Partner and Finance to build the investment case, leads diligence, participates in the negotiation of commercial terms, drives deal structuring with outside advisors, and coordinates the integration with the business ensuring every transaction stays aligned with MCG’s strategic thesis and delivers the value underwritten at signing. This is a high-visibility builder role requiring a blend of financial acumen, commercial judgment, and operational discipline.
Accountabilities:
- Deal sourcing & strategy. Partner with the Executive Leadership Team leadership to identify deal targets and develop the relationship from inception.
- Valuation, structuring & negotiation. Partner closely with our Capital Partners and Finance to develop, validate, and refine all financial analyses supporting potential transactions, including valuation (LBO, DCF, accretion/dilution, working capital, earn-outs, synergy cases); Synthesize financial outputs into clear investment recommendations for executive leadership and the Board, ensuring alignment on key assumptions, risks, and value drivers. Partner with our Capital Partner on the development of LOIs and term sheets with legal counsel. Structure transactions in partnership with Finance and external advisors, incorporating appropriate mechanisms such as working capital adjustments, earn-outs, rollover equity, and other value-sharing constructs.
- Due diligence. Scope, plan and lead end-to-end diligence across all workstreams including financial, legal, tax, HR, IT, EHS, commercial, operational workstreams; Coordinate internal stakeholders and external advisors to ensure a rigorous, efficient, and well-documented diligence process aligned with transaction timelines. Integrate insights across all diligence streams, translating findings into a cohesive view of deal value, key risks, and mitigation strategies. Drive cross-functional alignment on critical issues, ensuring that material risks are escalated early and addressed through pricing adjustments, structuring mechanisms, or contractual protections. Oversee the engagement and performance of external advisors (e.g., financial, legal counsel, tax advisors, benefits, insurance, environmental), ensuring deliverables are high quality, actionable, and delivered on schedule. Ensure all diligence findings are clearly documented and communicated to executive leadership and the Board, with explicit alignment from Finance on financial risks, assumptions, and implications for transaction value and post-close performance.
- Execution & closing. Drive the overall transaction execution process and timeline coordinating parallel workstreams including legal, finance, tax, and external advisors to ensure all closing requirements are met on schedule. Serve as the central point of coordination across internal teams and external counterparties, maintaining momentum and resolving issues to keep the transaction on track. Ensure all assumptions and methodologies are agreed upon in advance and accurately reflected in the purchase agreement and closing documents. Oversee readiness for closing, including satisfaction of conditions precedent, completion of documentation, and alignment across legal, financial, and operational stakeholders. Support Finance in validating closing deliverables and ensuring a clean and controlled close process.
- Integration handoff & value capture. Partner to transition the deal thesis, synergy targets, and 100-day plan to operating leaders; track realized synergies and deal performance against underwriting; report variances and lessons learned; close the books on each transaction. Collaborate closely with Finance (FP&A) to establish baseline financials, synergy targets, and performance tracking mechanisms at close. Ensure all value creation initiatives are clearly quantified, measurable, and aligned with the assumptions presented to executive leadership and the Board. Support operating teams in executing against integration priorities, while maintaining visibility into progress, risks, and interdependencies across functions.
- Corporate development infrastructure. Build and continuously improve MCG’s M&A playbook including diligence checklists, model templates, approval governance, and a central transaction data room; support strategic initiatives adjacent to M&A including joint ventures, minority investments, and divestiture analysis as needed.
Attributes:
- Have Humanity: You treat every counterparty - founders, sellers, and employees of target companies - with respect and honesty throughout the deal process. You recognize that behind every acquisition are people whose livelihoods and legacies are at stake, and you protect that human dimension through culture-fit diligence, thoughtful integration planning, and candid communication.
- Be Transparent: You deliver clear, unvarnished deal analysis to the CEO, CFO, Board, and operating leaders - including bad news. You flag risks, model assumptions, and negotiation trade-offs early rather than defending a preferred outcome. You run diligence and integration planning with open information flow across functions and sponsors.
- Drive Innovation: You pursue non-obvious value creation: novel deal structures (earn-outs, rollover equity, joint ventures, minority stakes), creative financing, and acquisition targets that extend MCG’s capabilities in modular power, controls, software, and services. You challenge the playbook when a better path exists and build the tools and data infrastructure that let MCG move faster than peers.
- Be Resilient: You keep deals on track when diligence surprises, financing markets, or counterparty behavior create setbacks. You re-trade, re-scope, or walk away with equal discipline. You sustain energy and judgment through long diligence sprints and high-pressure closings without losing attention to detail.
- Always Reliable: You own the transaction calendar and hit commitments - to the CEO, Board, sponsors, advisors, and target companies. Your documentation is tight, your models are auditable, your flow of funds is clean, and your integration handoffs leave nothing for operating leaders to discover after close.
- Grit: You do the work that’s hard to delegate: the model rebuild before a Board meeting, the site visit to a rural manufacturing plant, the difficult conversation with a founder about valuation. You finish deals that others would let stall, and you keep pushing on synergy capture long after the champagne is gone.