Selling a company is one of the most challenging phases of the business lifecycle. In this program, a panel of entrepreneurs who have been through it before will discuss the basics and common pitfalls of the M&A process. Topics will include:

• When to sell, how to prepare
• Finding the Right Buyer
• Navigating the negotiation and arriving at a Price
• After the deal: integration and what to consider

Panelists:

• Aaron Abend (www.linkedin.com/in/aaronabend) – After stints in Washington DC, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley, Aaron started his first company, CallBack Software, in 1985.  CallBack developed the first Customer Relationship Management systems. Through a series of pivots, the company entered the healthcare data warehousing space in 1999 and changed its name to Recombinant Data in 2006.  The demand for its expertise led Recombinant to double digit growth from 2007 to 2012.  Recombinant was sold to Deloitte Consulting in October 2012.  Aaron retired from Deloitte in 2013.
• Jim Alvarez (www.linkedin.com/pub/james-alvarez/32/67a/81) – Jim Alvarez has worked with high tech companies for over 30 years, first as an employee and entrepreneur and more recently as an angel investor and advisor. Jim founded Marketing Information & Technology, Inc. (MITI) in his basement in 1992, and grew it to 100 employees without the use of venture capital funding.  MITI was an early pioneer in “Big Data”  for marketing systems and delivered ultra-large scale Customer Acquisition systems to major banks, insurance and telecommunication companies, including Wells Fargo, Wachovia Bank and Nationwide Insurance. Jim sold MITI to ChoicePoint, now Lexus-Nexus, in 2001, and will readily admit to having made almost all of the big mistakes an entrepreneur can make in the process! Since 2002, he has been an avid fisherman and skier, as well as an investor and advisor to startups. Jim looks for big ideas and great leaders for his investments.   He also has mentored in the BC Venture Capital Competition and at Northeastern’s IDEA programs.
• Mimi Evans (www.linkedin.com/in/crushreports) – Mimi Evans co-founded Salesquest in 2003 and served as the company’s Chief Executive Officer from its inception until the company was sold to OneSource Information Services on January 1, 2014.  Mimi and her team utilized the “Lean Start-Up” methodology to build a sustainable, profitable and streamlined business with customers that included Dell, IBM and Microsoft.  Prior to Salesquest, Mimi worked in sales, marketing and operations at several high tech companies and successful startups.
• Mark Johanson (www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-johanson/19/6b5/837) – Mark Johanson has served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Audax Medical, Inc., a developer of orthopedic regenerative biomaterials, since founding the company in April, 2009. Since founding Audax he has raised over $4.5 million in early-stage funding, supporting the company through its current pre-clinical development stage. Prior to founding Audax, Mark founded Scandius BioMedical, Inc., a developer of minimally invasive orthopedic sports medicine surgical products for knee arthroscopy and served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman until the company’s acquisition by Covidien in 2007.  During the company’s growth stages he raised more than $20 million in capital funding from early-stage individual investors and leading venture capital firms. Mark’s prior experience includes engineering and management positions at Innovasive Devices, Inc., acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2000, and Medtronic Interventional Vascular. Mark holds a BSIT from the University of Lowell School of Engineering. He serves on the University of Massachusetts-Lowell Manning School of Management Advisory Board and is an Advisor to the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Moderator:

Jim Coffey (http://www.mccarter.com/James-F-Coffey/) – Jim Coffey is a partner in McCarter’s Corporate, Securities and Financial Institutions Practice Group.  Jim’s practice focuses on complex transactional and general business matters for both public and private companies, including mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and strategic alliances, and venture capital and angel financing.

Doors will open for networking at 9:30am.  

This program is part of McCarter & English’s ongoing series at CIC on legal and business topics for entrepreneurs and emerging companies.  Programs are held once or twice each month and are open to members of the CIC and their guests, as well as to the greater Boston entrepreneurial community.  Contact: Benjamin Hron, 617-449-6584, bhron@mccarter.com, @HronEsq

About the McCarter & English Emerging Companies Group

McCarter’s Emerging Companies Group is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build and finance their businesses. The group is composed of tech-savvy lawyers who have helped build, grow, sell and take public companies across the full spectrum of businesses, including Internet, software, medical devices, new media, life sciences, cleantech, healthcare, consumer products, biotechnology, retail, e-commerce, entertainment, financial services, insurance and telecom.