Building Corporate Development Muscle

Kyle Price, Chief of Staff & Corporate Development at Roblox Creating a dedicated M&A function can be daunting for non-acquisitive companies. It’s a big commitment that could take away valuable time and resources from top level management. However, when done right, corporate development muscle can be built slowly, and organically.  In this episode of the M&A Science Podcast, Kyle Price, Chief of Staff & Corporate Development at Roblox, shares his experience on how to start an M&A function slowly and successfully from scratch.  Things you will learn in this episode: • When to build an M&A function • Importance of the people side in M&A • Working with business leaders • Evolution of corporate development • Handling biases in the M&A process This episode is sponsored by FirmRoom. FirmRoom provides 80% cost savings over VDRs that bill by page and delivers a far better user experience to boot. Sign up in under 2 minutes by going to https://firmroom.com ****************** Episode Bookmarks 00:00 Intro 04:10 When to build an M&A function 07:40 Challenges of a high-growth company doing M&A 08:45 Lessons learned along the way 10:39 Importance of the people side in M&A 12:57 Integration planning 14:39 Working with business leaders 16:42 Deal sourcing 17:24 Overcoming anti-M&A culture 22:04 Team alignment from functional leads 24:02 M&A surprises 25:59 Setting up new leaders for success 28:07 Evolution of corporate development 33:15 Measuring corporate development activity 34:20 Incentivizing the team 35:03 Handling biases in the M&A process 43:33 Craziest thing in M&A