M&A Science
The People You Lose in M&A: Key Talent Retention Before Close
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Haseeb Jawad, VP and Head of Corporate Development, Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT)
Most acquirers build retention around the bonus. Haseeb Jawad puts money third. His order is heart, brain, then pocket: win people through your actions from Day 1, convince them with a better-together story you actually believe, then get the financial package right. Even that can backfire. He shares how a delayed retention payment, caught up in payroll processing, undercut the goodwill his team had built.
Haseeb runs a lean corp dev team at Commvault that owns deals from sourcing through integration, and he leads the IMO himself. That keeps the business case honest: if he models an IT or headcount synergy, he has to deliver it. He also makes the case for employee-by-employee diligence after LOI instead of treating people as an Excel line item.
Haseeb's rule is that every business case assumption needs an operational plan behind it. DealRoom's Synergy Tracker is built for that: define each synergy, tie it to an owner, a value, and a date, and link it to the integration plan so you can track what gets realized after close. Click here to learn more.