Acquisition Entrepreneurs
For self-funded buyers and ETA operators who want operational leadership from the day the deal closes.
The Lieutenant Seat: Built for ETA Operators
You closed the deal. Now you have to run the company, earn the team's trust, and think like an owner — often without a single person in your corner who has done this before. I fill that seat as sounding board, advisor, and doer. Acquisition integration demands someone who's been through it. I handle that work so you can lead the business. If you're still in process, pre-close preparation is available and builds a stronger starting point for day one.
Post-Close Stabilization
- ✓Stand up a leadership rhythm from Day 1
- ✓Reduce staff uncertainty with consistent presence and clear communication
- ✓Stabilize operations while you build the full picture of what you own
- ✓Establish accountability so decisions stop routing through you alone
Building to Durability
- ✓Develop self-managing teams with clear seats and decision rights
- ✓Implement EOS® if the org is ready: Rocks, Scorecard, Level 10 meetings
- ✓Scale the engagement as headcount and complexity grow
- ✓Free you for growth, a second acquisition, or a planned exit
Pre-Buy Preparation
- ✓Operational due diligence: how the business runs, beyond the financials
- ✓Map key-person concentration and owner-dependent decision points
- ✓Assess leadership bench and identify retention risk before close
- ✓Build the day-one communication plan before the keys change hands
Most engagements begin at or after close. This phase is available for buyers still in process.
Operational Leadership From Letter of Intent to Self-Managing Company
The operational work starts before the deal closes. Buyers who step in with a day-one plan and a clear picture of how the business runs give themselves a different starting position than those who figure it out after the keys change hands. The transition period is short. What gets established in the first 90 days sets the company's trajectory for years.
The ETA path presents a specific operational challenge. You are acquiring an existing company with an existing team, existing habits, and operational practices built around a different leader. The business has been running through the previous owner's judgment, relationships, and institutional knowledge. Transferring that into a company that runs through a defined leadership structure takes deliberate, sequenced work.
Before close, the right preparation covers how the business operates day to day: where the key-person concentration lives, which decisions route through the owner, which customer relationships are personal and which are institutional, and how the team should hear the ownership transition communicated. A buyer who maps these before closing steps in on day one with clarity about what needs to happen first.
After close, the first 90 days set the trajectory. The team is watching and assessing what ownership change means for them. The work at that stage is establishing leadership credibility through consistency, defining accountability so the business stops routing everything through the new owner, and building the management habits that carry the company forward. My background here is direct: I recommended acquisition targets to management at two companies, owned P&L across two post-acquisition operations and product sets, and integrated a non-US product P&L into US headquarters systems. I know what post-close operations look like from the inside.
Which SCI service fits depends on the size of the acquisition. For companies with fewer than 25 employees, Founder's Right Hand is the right starting point: a practical engagement sized to the company's stage that starts building management structure and delegation habits before the business is large enough to need a full Fractional COO. Companies at 25 or more employees fit the Fractional COO engagement. Companies already running EOS® fit the Fractional EOS® Integrator seat.
EOS® and Entrepreneurial Operating System® are registered trademarks of EOS Worldwide, LLC. Scenic City Integrators is not affiliated with or endorsed by EOS Worldwide, LLC.