Welcome to Climate CEOs — where climate tech leaders navigate growth, capital, and quiet doubts. Built from work with 300+ climate CEOs and 25 years of meditation. Read by 40,000+ climate operators and investors annually.
One of our EFI Climate CEO Fellows recently asked:
“For this potential M&A deal, how do we ensure the slides and spreadsheet become reality versus another case study about why mergers often fail?”
Most acquisitions don’t fail because the deal thesis was wrong.
They fail because integration breaks exactly what made the company valuable.
The top chemical engineer leaves.
The utility customer who trusted the founder stops returning calls.
The EV startup that moved in days now needs approval from a committee with an acronym no one remembers.
And competitors whisper, “Thanks for getting greedy. I’m going to eat your lunch now.”
Market share has a funny habit of moving toward the least distracted team.
Before approving a deal, ask four questions:
Which customers might leave?
Which team members might leave?
Which sources of value have an identified owner, budget, timeline, and incentives to drive behavior change?
Which parts of this company should not be integrated?
Often, CEOs spend more time negotiating the purchase price than planning the first 100 days after closing.
That’s backward.
The deal creates the possibility of value. Execution determines whether it ever shows up.
Or…
The press release gets written once. Integration gets written every day for the next two years.
14 Reasons Mergers Fail (and How to Mitigate Risks Before Closing)
Send it to a friend who’d also benefit.
Make it a great week. It’s usually a choice.
Climate CEO Coach, Founder, Investor, Board Member, Professor
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P.S. The Zen Zone: “Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.” ~ MLK Jr.
P.P.S. Climate CEOs podcast: The $60M Bet on Battery-Powered Stoves | Sam Calisch, CEO of Copper
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