Martin Hartley of emagine explains the human side of M&A

Martin Hartley started his career in sales before founding his own consultancy, Ampersand, at just 26, onboarding clients such as the BBC and HSBC. Now group chief commercial officer at international business and IT consultancy emagine, he speaks to Consultancy.UK on what acquirers often get wrong, why integration is at the nub of successful acquisitions, and how culture has become the defining advantage in modern M&A processes.

Global M&A activity jumped dramatically in 2025, yet most deals still fail to deliver. Why is that?

The data is sobering. Global M&A activity bounced back in 2025 and since 2023, the value of global M&A activity has risen by 60%. However, Harvard Business Review still puts the failure rate at 70% to 90%. The reason so many deals underperform is often simple: culture.

You can integrate systems and structures, but if you don’t integrate people; their identity, their values, their sense of belonging, then the deal will never reach its full potential. Culture is the real differentiator. Especially, in the consulting industry.

Acquirers often focus on operational integration. What gets overlooked?

The human experience. During rapid growth, organisations naturally prioritise systems, reporting lines, and technology. Those things matter, but they’re not what people worry about. Employees want to know whether they’re still valued, whether leadership will remain visible, and whether the company they joined will still feel like the same place.

If you ignore those questions, disengagement follows and you risk losing the very talent that made the acquisition attractive in the first place.

So where should the integration journey begin?

It needs to start with a mutual culture audit, and it needs to happen before the deal is signed. Gallup reinforces this as a crucial aspect of M&A due diligence, and we’ve seen it ourselves. It is critical to understand how people work, what motivates them, and what they value. You can’t integrate what you don’t understand. And not just on the top level, at every level in the organisation.

emagine has completed eleven acquisitions across Europe in the past six years. What has that taught you about integration?

That every integration must be bespoke. There’s no universal playbook. But there are principles that hold true:

Listen before changing anything. Respect what made the acquired business successful. Be transparent, even when you don’t have all the answers. Unite people under a shared purpose.

We are headquartered in Denmark and our Nordic roots have shaped a non‑hierarchical, open‑door culture, which we refer to as ‘one emagine’. Protecting that, whilst welcoming new perspectives, has been central to our growth.

How do you maintain culture while scaling internationally?

By designing growth around people. Culture is lived daily, in leadership behaviour, progression opportunities, team dynamics, and how decisions are communicated. When we enter a new market, our goal isn’t to impose “the emagine way”. It’s to bring businesses together while honouring what made them strong. Trust has to come before change. When people feel heard and respected, they buy into the journey.

You’ve said retention is one of the most important metrics during integration. Why?

In pure business terms, as a high-end IT and business consultancy working in an environment where tech skills are increasingly in high demand and short supply, retaining our best people is crucial.

Sustainable growth depends on people feeling connected to a shared purpose. During integration, employees need honesty, visibility from leadership, and reassurance that growth will create opportunities for them, not instability.

For international organisations, there’s an added challenge: people must feel empowered locally while still connected globally. Striking that balance is one of the hardest parts of integration, which we have been learning first hand with our acquisitions spread across multiple European markets.

What are the most common mistakes acquirers make during post‑merger integration?

Four stand out to me:

1. Over‑focusing on systems and under‑focusing on people.
2. Assuming cultures will blend naturally, when experience teaches us that they won’t.
3. Communicating too late or too little. Silence creates anxiety, and anxiety drives attrition.
4. Not enough face time.

Another big mistake is trying to standardise everything too quickly. Integration should be paced, not rushed, and whilst hybrid working is something we fully subscribe to, in-person interaction is also critical here.

If you had to summarise your top ‘don’ts’ for acquirers to be wary of, what would they be?

My top five list of mistakes that acquiring businesses need to work carefully and strategically to avoid include:

1. Don’t assume your culture is automatically the “right” one.
2. Don’t underestimate the emotional impact of change.
3. Don’t rush to standardise, respect local strengths.
4. Don’t ignore early signs of disengagement.
5. Don’t treat integration as a checklist. It’s a human transition.

Looking ahead, what will define successful growth in the next decade?

The future belongs to organisations that grow while keeping their people engaged, motivated, and aligned whilst augmenting with AI. Culture is no longer just an internal differentiator; it’s part of your external reputation. Clients want stability. Employees want trust and meaningful work.

Businesses that treat culture as a performance driver will be the ones that navigate change successfully over the long term.