In this episode of the M&A Launchpad Podcast, hosts Casey Minshew and Feras Moussa sit down with Betsy Kauffman, Founder & CEO of Cross Impact, a Charlotte-based leadership coaching and organizational development firm, and author of the new book The Fix. Betsy has spent two decades coaching leadership teams through acquisitions, integrations, and everyday dysfunction — and she's also lived the buyer's side of the table herself. She walks through the near-acquisition of a $50M commercial design firm that collapsed on a $14M deal just before closing, the systems-and-process blind spots she sees over and over in newly acquired businesses, and why “the person's not a fit” is usually the wrong diagnosis.
In this episode, we discuss:
Betsy's path from corporate program manager to founding Cross Impact in 2014, and the TED Talk (“4 Tips to Kickstart Honest Conversations at Work”) that grew out of her coaching work How her practice evolved from agile/technology team coaching into full leadership development after clients kept asking for help with alignment, not just execution Why she wrote The Fix, a business fable built around a core idea: people usually aren't broken — the systems and processes around them are The common pitfalls she sees in newly acquired businesses: no real decision-making process, and no shared language for what basic terms even mean Her own near-acquisition: partnering to buy a $50M commercial design firm for roughly $14M, and getting “a little over our skis” on a first deal The red flag that should have ended it sooner — missed monthly forecasts — and the 11th-hour collapse when the valuation dropped and the sellers wouldn't renegotiate What she'd have fixed post-close: no go-to-market strategy, an earmarked new leader ready to run it, and plans to divest a “shiny object” division The leadership nugget she repeats in every session: alignment does not always equal agreement Why a good coach exists partly to force the tough, lingering decision that everyone already knows needs to be made Guest Contact Information
Founder & CEO, Cross Impact
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsykauffman
Website: https://crossimpact.co
Book: The Fix — available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Spotify Audiobooks
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Contact Casey Minshew and Feras Moussa: [email protected]
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