Big beauty's 2025 to-do list
Strategic priorities for major beauty companies navigating a transforming market landscape.
Desswood Advisors
I work with founders, CEOs, boards and investors on growth strategy, liquidity planning, M&A, and post-merger integration. My focus is building brands worth acquiring and making sure acquirers don't destroy what they bought. I draw on 30 years at the Estée Lauder Companies, ConAgra Foods, and McKinsey & Company—where I learned from successes, and expensive mistakes, on both sides of transactions.
HUGGED TO DEATH
A Practitioner's Guide to M&A Integration
Hugged to Death
A Practitioner's Guide to M&A Integration
Seventy percent of M&A fails to create value. Boards commission expensive post-mortems to understand what went wrong. But they won't invest the same time upfront pressure-testing whether the integration approach will protect what makes the asset valuable—or hug it to death.
Available June 2026
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