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Service 03
Integrations don't fail at signing.
They fail in the ninety days after.
Integration leadership for acquisitions where the deal thesis is at risk in the execution.
Typical duration: 3 – 9 months
What this is
From diligence through Day 100 and beyond.
M&A integration is where the gap between what a deal is supposed to accomplish and what it actually accomplishes gets decided. Not in the LOI. Not at close. In the ninety days after close, when governance is ambiguous, workstreams are misaligned, and the cultural collision begins.
Gilliam Road integration engagements are led by practitioners who have run integrations from the inside, not managed them from a spreadsheet. Our founder has personally led integration on multiple acquisitions, including a nine-figure AI deal, and understands where integrations actually fail and what it takes to get ahead of those failure points before they materialize.
Engagements can begin at diligence, helping assess integration complexity before close, or at Day 1, when the team needs a senior resource to own the integration and drive it to completion.
The problem that this solves
The gap between closing and integrating.
Most deal teams are built for the transaction, not the integration. The skills that close a deal are not the same skills that run one. And the people who ran the due diligence process are often already moving on to the next deal by the time integration starts.
The result: integration leadership gets handed to someone on the internal team who is already running a day job, or to a project manager with a checklist and no authority to make the calls that actually matter. The governance structure is ambiguous. The workstreams drift. The synergies that justified the deal do not materialize on schedule.
Gilliam Road provides experienced integration leadership, with the operating credibility to make decisions and the track record to be trusted by both sides of the deal.
Best for
Who this engagement serves.
Companies completing acquisitions of $25M and above
Where the deal team needs dedicated integration leadership that is not competing with a full-time job.
PE-backed platforms building through acquisition
That need a consistent integration model across multiple deals.
Founders navigating their first material M&A transaction
Who want an experienced operator running the integration, not a project manager with a checklist and no decision rights.
What you get
What every engagement includes.
- Integration leadership from a practitioner who has run acquisitions before, at multiple companies, under real pressure
- Governance design that clarifies who owns what from Day 1
- Workstream management, stakeholder alignment, and operational integration, all in scope
- A senior voice in both executive and sponsor-level conversations throughout the integration
- A defined integration plan with milestones, risk flags, and a clear picture of what a successful integration looks like
- Direct access to our founder throughout, regardless of who is running the day-to-day integration work
"Integrations don't fail at closing. They fail in the ninety days after."
If a deal is closing and integration leadership is the open question, let's talk now.
The earlier we start the conversation, the more we can do before Day 1.
Ready to talk about the work?
If you have a problem that needs an operator's judgment, not another consultant's recommendation, we want to hear about it.