David Boyd, Ben de Haldevang and Abhay Pande from The Agile Gorilla collective talk to Alastair Campbell, author of Healthy Money and a senior leader with a career spanning Standard Chartered, HSBC, NatWest, China Trust, Singtel and GLH Hotels.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Alastair reflects on his journey from strategy and digital roles inside major financial institutions to articulating a critique of modern banking. Drawing on more than a decade of thinking on financial health, he challenges the industry’s narrow definition of “customer centricity” and argues that banks have focused on improving customers’ relationship with the bank, rather than their relationship with money itself.
30 Aug 2024
#18 The challenges of serial acquisition
David Boyd, Ben de Haldevang and Abhay Pande from The Agile Gorilla collective talk to Ian Wakeford an expert on acquisitions, integrations and organisation change. Over his career, Ian has advised some of the largest UK and global organisations on how to deliver mergers, acquisitions and integrations. In the podcast we talk about his career, moving from a consulting role to the internal leader in London Stock Exchange Group, and the challenges of serial acquisition.
6 May 2024
#17 Designing an organisation and leadership team
David Boyd, Ben de Haldevang and Abhay Pande from The Agile Gorilla collective talk to Marijke Cazemier, an expert in organisation design and leadership development. Over her career, Marijke has advised some of the largest UK and global organisations on how to build and develop their teams. In the podcast we talk about how curiosity is an important leadership quality, and organisation design is more like gardening than architecture.
9 Feb 2024
#16 Helping founders exit through M&A
David Boyd, Ben de Haldevang and Paul Siegenthaler from The Agile Gorilla collective talk to Joe Hine from SI Partners. SI Partners provide sell-side advice for company founders, helping them prepare for sale and achieve a successful exit. We talk to Joe about how founders can make the deal a successful both in the value they achieve and cultural fit for the organisation they've built.
30 Dec 2023
#15 The world of M&A in 2023
David Boyd, Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande and Paul Siegenthaler from The Agile Gorilla collective discuss the world of mergers, acquisitions and integrations in 2023. We talk about the various impacts on acquisitions and integrations from AI (and OpenAI in particular), newly assertive regulators and changes in interest rates.
20 Oct 2023
#14 Customer experience and deals
Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande and David Boyd and Paul Siegenthaler from The Agile Gorilla collective are joined by David Cox, a business transformation professional with a passion for Customer Experience. For over 15 years, David Cox has worked around Europe, South America and the Middle East helping clients drive revenue growth and customer loyalty.. We talk about who owns customer experience in an organisation, the challenge of keeping an external focus through an M&A deal, and the importance of metrics.
6 Oct 2023
#13 The mother of all disruptions
Climate change and the decarbonisation of transportation and industry are having a profound impact on fossil fuel companies. Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande and David Boyd and Paul Siegenthaler from The Agile Gorilla collective talk about how this affects M&A both in terms of strategic thinking and the successful delivery of deals.
15 Sept 2023
#12 Style vs substance at EssilorLuxottica
The merger of Essilor and Luxottica in 2018 was the combination of a French and Italian champions in lenses and frames. Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande, David Boyd and Paul Siegenthaler from The Agile Gorilla collective talk about the merger, evaluate success given hindsight, and how the Italian-side Leonardo Del Vecchio prevailed in a fight for control.
20 Jul 2023
#11 Recommended reading
Text books on M&A tend to be dry and, in our view, a little ‘out of date’. Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande and David Boyd from The Agile Gorilla collective talk about the books they would recommend to a CEO undertaking his/her first deal. What book(s) would you give them to read this summer on the beach?….
22 Jun 2023
#10 A merger of convenience
The merger of law firms Allen & Overy from the UK and Shearman & Sterling from the US in a $3.4bn deal will not be easy to complete or deliver. Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande, David Boyd and Paul Siegenthaler from The Agile Gorilla collective talk about the challenges of merging professional services firms, especially those with a large number of partners. We talk about what the benefits of the deal look like, and how to achieve them.
15 Jun 2023
#9 Mittelstand mergers
ollowing a rare acquisition of a Mittelstand company by a foreign buyer, Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande, David Boyd and Paul Siegenthaler from The Agile Gorilla collective talk about the “Mittelstand” grouping of companies in Germany. How they differ in leadership and governance from typical companies in the Western hemisphere, and what that means for M&A.
19 May 2023
#8 Buying out the banks
Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande and Paul Siegenthaler from The Agile Gorilla collective, talk about the wave of mergers hitting the banking sector, and how we have learned or evolved from previous banking crashes.
9 May 2023
#7 Deep thinking about DeepMind
Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande and David Boyd from The Agile Gorilla collective, talk about the challenges of integrating two firms long after the acquisition has completed. In the news recently has been Google’s integration of the DeepMind acquisition into their internal “Google Brain” team. The team ask what are the challenges, and how do you deal with them?
21 Apr 2023
#6 The Divorce Episode
Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande, Paul Siegenthaler and David Boyd from The Agile Gorilla collective, talk about the separation of Worldpay from FIS (so soon after the acquisition), and the latest news from the EY separation.
17 Mar 2023
#5 A Naked Conglomerate
Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande and David Boyd from The Agile Gorilla collective, talk about the continued growth of Broadcom through acquisition and where that might lead.
21 Feb 2023
#4 The separation of EY consulting
Ben de Haldevang, Abhay Pande, Paul Siegenthaler and David Boyd from The Agile Gorilla collective, talk about the separation of EY’s global consulting business and what it means for partners, staff and the wider industry.
16 Jan 2023
#3 Bolt-on takeovers beat betting the ranch
Ben de Haldevang and David Boyd from the collective behind The Agile Gorilla, talk to us about the differences between small bolt-on takeovers and large transformative mergers and acquisitions. Large deals may hit the press headlines when they don’t work, but is share price a fair way to define success? And small deals have their challenges too.
5 Apr 2022
#2 Semantic diplomacy
Abhay Pande and David Boyd from the collective behind The Agile Gorilla, talks to us about how integration is more or less relevant in M&A depending on the type of deal. There’s a type of deal where Abhay likes to call integration ‘semantic diplomacy’… you just want the assets not the people, and the acquirer uses the semantics of integration to be diplomatic to the people no longer needed.
25 Mar 2022
#1 Emergent strategies
David Bryant, Ben de Haldevang and Abhay Pande from the collective behind The Agile Gorilla, talks to us about how all the M&A deals he’s worked on over the last two decades have been ‘emergent strategies’.
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