Anthony Webb on Building Great Workplaces and the Secrets of Successful Acquisitions

Fearless Growth with Amanda Setili

Today’s guest highlights the importance of trust, empathy, and understanding in fostering meaningful experiences in the workplace. He also discusses the keys to successful acquisitions, how to avoid common mistakes by acquirers, and how to create post-acquisition strategy.

Anthony Webb is a mergers & acquisitions lifer, licensed lawyer, venture capital investor, servant leader, and engaged father.

Currently, he works in Corporate Development and M&A Integration for Adobe.

Anthony shares what makes work most meaningful to him, from being given the opportunity to solve complex problems, to building great team environments, to driving tangible results by empathizing with others, understanding their objectives, and providing supportive leadership.

Through a personal experience, Anthony illustrates how creating safe spaces allows trust to be built, in turn paving the way for effective communication. To empower your organization’s “culture carriers,” it is vital to create a space where ideas from both sides can come to the table, promoting innovation and better decision-making.

Asked what goes into a successful M&A, Anthony unpacks the concept of excellent end-to-end execution. It starts with creating a crisp corporate strategy, followed by homing into the target space, then getting the right people to the table for diligence, and, finally, building an integration strategy and approach.

Anthony explains that divesting businesses gave him a new perspective that allowed him to understand what to look for in an acquisition. Drawing from these experiences, he provides insight into the often unpleasant surprises that occur during acquisitions and offers strategies on how to avoid them, chief among them being the consequences of being overly optimistic and simplistic in a deal.

Anthony discusses the importance of knowledge retention and being sensitive to the motivations of the target company's employees. Building trust and openness, according to him, leads to better acquisition outcomes.

Anthony shares how simply attending routine meetings of the acquired company during a several-month "stabilization period"—allowing all voices to bring ideas to the table—allows acquirers to learn and gain more value from the acquisition for the long-term.

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Connect with Anthony Webb:

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