John Romeo, CEO of the Oliver Wyman Forum and Head of M&A at Oliver Wyman

We sit down with John Romeo to explore Oliver Wyman’s disciplined, strategic approach to M&A. Romeo shares how his team sources deals through a bespoke pipeline, aligns incentives with founder-led businesses, and plans integrations that prioritize people and long-term value creation. From cultural diligence to pricing discipline, this episode reveals what it really takes to execute successful deals in a high-touch, people-driven industry.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to build and manage a bespoke M&A pipeline

• The difference between banker-led and buyer-led deal processes

• What cultural alignment looks like in professional services deals

• How to structure integration and retention plans to protect long-term value

______________________ This episode is sponsored by DealRoom! Turn your chaos into control. Tired of chasing updates across spreadsheets and email threads? Discover how DealRoom helps corporate development teams bring order to M&A. 👉 Learn how you can run a repeatable, buyer-led process   ___________ Join Kison at the DealMakers Forum in New York City! This event connects the most active players in M&A and corporate finance. Meet top M&A executives, investors, and deal advisors and discover how senior leaders structure and close high-value deals. Register Today! ________________________

Episode Chapters

[00:01:00] – John’s career journey and role at Oliver Wyman [00:04:00] – Purpose of the Oliver Wyman Forum and strategic M&A outlook

[00:09:00] – Oliver Wyman’s M&A philosophy: strategy, culture, math [00:15:00] – Sourcing strategy: bespoke vs. banker-led deals [00:20:00] – How they build a deal pipeline and prioritize targets [00:24:00] – Building long-term relationships with potential targets [00:30:00] – Aligning incentives and structuring fair deal terms [00:34:00] – Real-world example: Oliver Wyman’s acquisition of Avascent [00:39:00] – Integration best practices and measuring success [00:44:00] – Retention strategy for people-based businesses [00:47:00] – Applying lessons from private equity to internal M&A [00:50:00] – Creating an M&A culture across the organization

Questions, comments, concerns? Follow Kison Patel for behind-the-scenes insights on modern M&A.