Acquisition on the Horizon? Your Positioning Problem Starts Now

You're in the room negotiating the acquisition. Deal terms, valuation, transition timeline - the big pieces are coming together. Then the conversation shifts to post-acquisition structure. What role will you play in the combined entity?

And suddenly, you realise: they're not seeing you accurately.

They're positioning you for an operational role when you've been thinking strategic leadership. Or they're discussing transition timelines that suggest they see you as temporary, when you've been exploring how you could add value long-term. Or the conversation reveals they view you primarily as the person who built the systems, not the leader who could scale them across a larger organisation.

This isn't about whether you want to stay or exit. This is about negotiating from a position where the acquiring company actually sees your capability and potential - not just your current positioning.

And here's the problem: by the time you're in acquisition conversations, your positioning is already set.

Your LinkedIn profile has been public for years. Your board knows you in a particular way. The acquiring company did their research before approaching you.

The positioning work needed to happen before this conversation started.

When Your Positioning Doesn't Match Your Capability

Most CEOs evolve faster than their positioning catches up. You're navigating investor relations, scaling operations, expanding into new markets, building teams for growth - and somewhere in that intensity, you shift from one type of leader to another.

Perhaps you built your reputation as a Rescuer or Turnaround CEO. You were brought in when companies were struggling. You made the tough decisions, stabilised operations, restored profitability. Your track record is solid. You're known for walking into crisis situations and getting businesses back on track.

But somewhere through that work, you evolved. You realised that what you actually enjoy - and what you're truly exceptional at - isn't rescuing struggling businesses. It's building and scaling them. You've become what's known as a Builder CEO.

The Builder CEO is distinct from the Rescuer or Turnaround CEO. You're not brought in during a crisis to make high-impact decisions and save a failing business. You're focused on taking a solid concept and scaling it. You create systems and processes to manage growth complexity. You build teams and infrastructure. You turn vision into scalable reality. You thrive in dynamic environments, navigating change and disruption to drive transformation. You empower people and create capability as the company expands.

This evolution can happen remarkably fast - especially under the pressure of potential acquisitions, operational expansion, board management, and leadership team development happening simultaneously.

But if your positioning still reflects the Rescuer CEO you used to be - your LinkedIn profile highlighting turnaround achievements, your reputation built on crisis management, your network knowing you as the person to call when there's trouble - then nobody sees you've evolved. Not your board. Not your team. Not the companies evaluating what role you'd play in their organisation.

So when opportunities arise, you keep getting offered struggling businesses that need rescue when what you actually want is a growth-stage company with solid fundamentals where you can build something significant.

The Friction Shows Up Everywhere

The positioning gap doesn't just affect acquisition conversations. It creates friction across every relationship.

Your board meeting starts with growth targets. You're measured on revenue expansion, new market entry, strategic positioning. But within minutes, you're pulled into operational problem-solving, stakeholder management, execution details. Your objectives point one direction. The questions point to another. This isn't poor prioritisation. This is a positioning problem - when the board sees you primarily through an operational lens, they pull you into execution even when they're measuring you on strategy.

This cascades into your team. They escalate decisions to you because you're still positioned as "the person who handles everything." You want to delegate, but your positioning hasn't given them permission to see you differently. When you're not involved, things stall. When you are involved, they move. That's not a team capability issue. That's a positioning problem that prevents them from stepping up.

Then acquisition or merger conversations begin. The acquiring company evaluates you based on your public positioning - your LinkedIn profile emphasising processes and systems, your visibility focused on company execution, your board interactions that position you operationally. Nothing in your external positioning signals who you've actually become.

So when discussions turn to your role in the combined entity, they're responding to how you're currently positioned. And if that positioning doesn't match your actual capability, you're negotiating at a disadvantage - whether you want to stay on in a strategic capacity, exit cleanly with proper valuation, or explore something in between.

What You're Not Sharing Publicly

You have the stories that would reposition you. The moment you prioritised business needs over investor timelines. How you navigated board dynamics when strategic priorities conflicted with shareholder expectations. The decision that looked risky but proved essential for scaling the organisation.

But there's hesitation. Concern about being too vulnerable publicly, revealing too much about the complex reality of leadership, crossing some invisible line between professional and personal.

Here's what's actually happening: your current positioning - heavy on company, light on leadership - means when you do speak publicly, it sounds like corporate communications. Your marketing team could have written it.

The executives who get approached for the strategic roles you'd actually want? They're sharing leadership perspective. Not complaints. Not private details. But abstracted insight: "Here's the strategic decision I made when competing priorities collided, and the thinking behind it."

That's the difference between thought leadership and corporate speak. And it's the difference between being positioned as who you've become versus who your LinkedIn profile suggests you are.

What Changes When Positioning Aligns

When your positioning catches up with your evolved expertise, the friction resolves - and your negotiating position strengthens.

In acquisition or merger conversations, the acquiring company sees your strategic capability, not just your operational execution. This fundamentally changes discussions about your role in the combined entity. Whether you want to stay on in strategic leadership, transition over a defined period, or exit cleanly - your positioning affects your negotiating power, how you're valued in the deal structure, and what options are genuinely available to you.

Your board dynamics shift. The questions change from operational problem-solving to strategic input. They stop pulling you into execution because your positioning finally makes your strategic value visible. The misalignment between what you're measured on and what you're asked to do - that resolves.

Your team steps up. Not because they suddenly became more capable, but because your positioning as a leader who creates capability gives them permission to take ownership. The dependency cycle breaks. Projects move forward when you're not in the room because people see you as the leader who empowers teams, not the operational hero who handles everything.

Future opportunities - whether internal evolution, acquisition retention, or external approaches - come at the level that matches your capability. Your name comes up for the roles you actually want because that's how you're positioned, not because someone had to look past your old positioning to see your potential.

And perhaps most tangibly: you stop working 16-hour days. Not through better time management, but because your positioning creates the structural space for others to step into responsibilities you've been covering.

The positioning work happens before the acquisition conversation heats up. By the time you're negotiating deal terms, your positioning is already set. The acquiring company has already formed their view of your capability and potential role.

This is why CEOs navigating growth, potential exits, or market transitions need to reposition proactively - while they still have time to shift how they're seen, before the conversations that will determine their next chapter begin.

About Elaine Walsh-McGrath

Elaine Walsh-McGrath is an Executive Positioning Strategist and Visibility Expert who helps CEOs, MDs, NEDs, and senior consultants close the gap between who they've become and how they're currently positioned. After 25+ years in media strategy with L'Oréal, Colgate, Volkswagen, and Ryanair, Elaine now works with executives whose expertise has evolved beyond how they're currently described.

Through her Executive Visibility Framework, she helps senior leaders reposition proactively - so when acquisition conversations, board opportunities, or strategic transitions arise, their positioning reflects their actual capability.

Work with Elaine

If you're a CEO navigating growth, potential acquisition, or strategic transition - and you recognise the gap between your evolved expertise and your current positioning - let's talk about closing that gap before it costs you negotiating power.

Book a positioning conversation here, or email [email protected] to discuss your specific situation. I help senior executives close the gap between their evolved expertise and current positioning - so when acquisition conversations, board opportunities, or strategic transitions arise, your name comes up for the right reasons.