Sometimes, business structures and models endure through generations; occasionally, they fight to stay relevant. For as long as anyone can remember, the reliable internal ownership transition, in all its subtle nuances and variations, has served as both…
Executive Corner: Takeaways on 2024 A/E M&A Activity: The Supercycle Era
As 2024 concluded, many A/E leaders were basking in another year of strong growth and profitability. Record performance continues to be driven by…
Executive Corner: Five Key Factors To Perfecting an A/E Exit Strategy
An enormous A/E generation that kicked off their careers in the 1980s and subsequently started firms or became owners in the 1990s and 2000s is plotting…
Executive Corner: Five Takeaways on 2023 A/E M&A Activity
Despite an overall slump in M&A deal volume globally, the A/E industry wrapped up 2023 with yet another busy year of elevated activity. Shrugging off recession worries and higher interest rates, confident strategic and financial buyers showed no signs…
Executive Corner: Has Rampant Consolidation Been Good for the A/E Industry?
If you’ve noticed a lot of M&A deals announced recently, you’re not alone. Almost every, day we read another press release that touts a new and promising combination between two A/E organizations. Mega deals and ENR 500 recapitalizations as well as…
Executive Corner: What’s My Legacy? An A/E Generation Transitions Out
Growing up, my father was fond of sharing various quips and quotes. Some were motivational, others just corny, and I’m confident most of them went in one ear and out the other. But one that always stuck with me was the famous Maya Angelou line: “People…
Executive Corner: Five Takeaways on 2022 A/E M&A Activity
Looking back over the last twelve months, you have to give credit to industry leaders navigating increasingly stormy seas. Generational talent shortages and elevated backlogs (“more work than we can handle”) marked 2022 as substantial federal infrastructure…
Executive Corner: A New Age of A/E Entrepreneurship Is Here
With industry headlines everywhere addressing severe talent shortages, rampant consolidation, record backlogs, digital transformation, inflation and private-equity involvement, one intriguing development has quietly gone under the radar. During the last…
Executive Corner: Five Takeaways on 2021 A/E M&A Activity
The Great Consolidation? The Great Realignment? Whatever term you want to call it, by all accounts 2021 was a record-breaking year for A/E M&A activity. Emboldened leaders embraced and adapted all that was thrown at them—from mobilizing staff back…
Executive Corner: How Private Equity Is Quietly Transforming the A/E Industry
Whether in nature, design, health or business, lasting and significant changes seldom occur quickly, but often steadily through time. You open your eyes years later to a new paradigm or landscape that has unfolded, which ultimately requires recognition and…
