As former VP at Huron Capital, Mark Miller is very familiar with the start-to-finish private equity process. He’s responsible for transaction teams involved in all aspects of deal sourcing, execution, and portfolio management. Mark has a wealth of experience executing deals on the buy side – managing due diligence, negotiating legal documents, setting the ultimate capital structure, and lining up financial documentation.   0:00 – 2:18 Summary of Mark’s background 2:19 – 5:18 Worse thing that could happen during a deal 5:19 – 7:24 Steps to first start planning for an exit 7:25 – 11:14 Setting up strategic initiatives from Day 1 11:15 – 18:49 Selecting advisors for the deal 18:50 – 25:24 Sanity checking valuations 25:25 – 28:02 Where advisors differentiate themselves / customizing their process & outreach 28:03 – 32:45 The important of valuations and certainty to close 32:46 – 35:33 Buyer engagement and deal rooms 35:34 – 37:07 Post-closing transactual obligations 37:08 – 39:43 Biggest challenges of process 39:44 – 42:25 Unburdening management team 42:26 - 46:50 Most important lessons learned 46:51 - 51:43 Tackling deal hiccups, touch decisions, and sell vs. hold scenarios 51:44 – 52:56 Considerations for future process improvements     M&A Science by Kison Patel (kison@dealroom.net) DealRoom: Data Science and AI for M&A (www.dealroom.net)