Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Acquisition Sales Executive

🎯 Role Definition

The Business Acquisition Sales Executive is a revenue- and growth-driven leader who originates, qualifies and closes acquisition opportunities and strategic partnerships that align with corporate M&A strategy. This role blends market sourcing, deal structuring, financial valuation, cross-functional coordination and consultative selling to execute transactions from initial outreach through closing and post-acquisition transition. The person in this role will manage a high-volume pipeline, cultivate senior relationships, perform rigorous diligence and negotiate commercial and legal deal terms in collaboration with legal, finance and executive stakeholders.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

M&A Analyst / Corporate Development Analyst
Senior Business Development Manager or Enterprise Account Executive
Investment Banking Analyst / Associate
Private Equity Associate or Deal Origination Specialist

Advancement To:

Head of Acquisitions / Director of Corporate Development
VP, Corporate Development or VP, Strategic Transactions
Chief Growth Officer / Chief Strategy Officer
Partner / Principal in a PE firm or corporate strategy advisory practice

Lateral Moves:

Strategic Partnerships Lead
Corporate Development Manager
Private Equity or Venture Capital Deal Professional
Head of Business Development (industry-specific)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Proactively source, prospect and qualify acquisition targets and strategic partnership opportunities across defined sectors using a combination of outbound outreach, targeted research, broker/intermediary networks, and industry relationships to build a robust deal pipeline.
Lead deal origination and relationship management with business owners, founders and C-level executives to assess strategic fit, readiness to sell, and acquisition rationale while maintaining strict confidentiality and professional discretion.
Develop and present tailored acquisition pitches and investment theses that articulate strategic rationale, synergies, revenue accretion opportunities, and cultural fit to internal leadership and external stakeholders.
Create, maintain and prioritize a dynamic acquisition pipeline and forecast with detailed stages, probability-weighted values and timing to enable accurate executive reporting and resource allocation.
Conduct initial commercial and operational due diligence, including customer and market analysis, competitor mapping, go-to-market synergies, and integration risk identification to assess feasibility and value drivers.
Build and maintain detailed financial models (DCF, LBO, accretion/dilution, pro forma, sensitivity analyses) to value targets, evaluate transaction structures, and support pricing and negotiation strategy.
Draft and negotiate non-binding offers and letters of intent (LOIs) in partnership with legal and finance teams, clearly defining key commercial terms, closing conditions, timelines and exclusivity provisions.
Lead cross-functional deal teams through due diligence, coordinating legal, tax, HR, IT, operations and finance resources to ensure timely completion of diligence checklists and mitigation of identified risks.
Manage relationship with external advisors (investment bankers, M&A brokers, legal counsel, tax advisers, accounting firms) and direct their workstreams to maintain deal momentum and cost efficiency.
Negotiate purchase agreements, commercial terms, earn-outs, employment/retention arrangements and escrow structures to achieve mutually acceptable outcomes while protecting organizational value.
Execute closing processes, manage documentation flow, confirm fulfillment of closing conditions, and coordinate escrow and fund transfer logistics to ensure smooth, on-time closings.
Drive post-close integration planning and handoff to integration leads—identifying quick-win synergies, retention incentives, customer migration plans and operational consolidation opportunities to capture expected value.
Track and analyze transaction KPIs and post-acquisition performance vs. business case (revenue, cost synergies, retention, integration milestones) and provide structured learning to improve future acquisition processes.
Develop market maps and targeted lists of acquisition candidates by segment, geography and strategic priority to support a repeatable, scalable acquisitions engine.
Maintain CRM and transaction management systems (e.g., Salesforce, DealCloud, Navatar) with up-to-date notes, documents and next steps to preserve institutional knowledge and ensure transparent pipeline reporting.
Work closely with finance and accounting to coordinate working capital, purchase price allocations, tax structuring considerations and capitalization table impacts throughout the deal lifecycle.
Present acquisition opportunities, valuations, risk assessments and recommended deal terms to the executive team and board-level sponsors to secure approval to proceed.
Drive continuous improvement of acquisition playbooks, checklists, standard templates (LOIs, NDAs, TM decks) and negotiation playbooks to accelerate cycle time and reduce transaction execution risk.
Mentor and train junior acquisition or BD staff on sourcing tactics, outreach cadences, valuation fundamentals and negotiation best practices to build bench strength.
Maintain up-to-date knowledge of sector trends, consolidation activity, regulatory changes and competitive dynamics to proactively identify timing and strategy opportunities for M&A.
Balance multiple simultaneous transactions and prioritization trade-offs while maintaining high attention to detail, confidentiality and responsiveness to seller timelines.
Structure creative deal constructs (seller financing, earn-outs, equity rollovers, joint ventures) tailored to seller motivations and buyer risk tolerance to increase close probability.
Drive seller engagement and relationship continuity through transition periods, including CEO/management continuity negotiations, key employee retention plans and cultural alignment initiatives.
Monitor competitor M&A activity and strategic moves to identify threats and opportunistic acquisition windows that support corporate growth strategy.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Prepare and update investor and executive-ready presentations summarizing target rationale, financial impact and integration strategy.
Represent the company at industry conferences, broker events and networking functions to raise deal-facing profile and cultivate intermediary relationships.
Assist in pricing, structuring and modeling partnership offers outside of outright M&A where strategic investment or joint ventures are appropriate.
Maintain a repository of standard contractual clauses, NDA templates and term sheet exemplars for rapid deployment during early-stage negotiations.
Contribute to the development and tracking of KPIs for the corporate development function, including pipeline velocity, close rate, time-to-close, and post-close value realization.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Deal Origination & Pipeline Management — proven experience sourcing and managing acquisition pipelines end-to-end using CRM/Deal Management tools (e.g., Salesforce, DealCloud, Navatar).
Financial Modeling & Valuation — advanced Excel skills for DCF, LBO, accretion/dilution, pro forma modeling and sensitivity analysis.
Transaction Structuring — experience designing complex deals including stock vs. asset purchases, earn-outs, rollover equity, seller financing and contingent consideration.
Due Diligence Management — ability to lead commercial, operational and financial diligence and to coordinate external advisors and internal subject matter experts.
Contract Negotiation — practical experience negotiating LOIs, purchase agreements, employment agreements and confidentiality provisions.
Market & Competitive Analysis — capability to build market maps, size TAM/SAM, and perform competitor benchmarking to inform valuation and strategy.
Legal & Regulatory Awareness — working knowledge of key legal, tax and regulatory issues that impact M&A transactions and transaction timing.
CRM & Sales Tools — proficiency in Salesforce (or equivalent), outreach platforms, data-room tools (e.g., Datasite, Firmex) and project management tools (Asana, Monday, Jira).
Presentation & Storytelling — strong PowerPoint skills to build executive-level decks that clearly communicate deal rationale, synergies and financial impacts.
Data Analysis — ability to interrogate revenue streams, customer cohorts and retention metrics to validate commercial assumptions during diligence.

Soft Skills

Executive Presence — confidence presenting to C-suite and board members and influencing strategic decisions.
Negotiation & Persuasion — tactful negotiator able to balance assertiveness with empathy to close complex deals.
Strategic Thinking — ability to align acquisition opportunities with long-term corporate strategy and growth objectives.
Relationship Management — strong networking skills with brokers, investors, owners and industry leaders to generate warm leads.
Project Management — excellent organization to manage multi-party timelines, deliverables and closing milestones under pressure.
Communication — clear verbal and written communications to maintain trust and momentum with sellers, counsel and internal stakeholders.
Resilience & Adaptability — thrives in ambiguous, fast-moving deal situations and responds well to setbacks or changing seller demands.
Confidentiality & Discretion — demonstrated judgment maintaining confidentiality, ethical standards and sensitive negotiations.
Collaborative Leadership — proven skill leading cross-functional teams and integrating diverse stakeholder feedback into transaction decisions.
Problem Solving — identifies creative, pragmatic transaction structures and integration solutions to align incentives and de-risk deals.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Accounting or a relevant discipline.

Preferred Education:

MBA, MSc Finance, or other advanced degree; CFA, CPA or similar professional credentials are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Corporate Finance and Valuation
Business Administration / Strategy
Economics
Accounting / Financial Reporting

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

5–12 years of progressive experience in M&A, corporate development, investment banking, private equity, strategic business development or enterprise sales focused on company acquisitions.

Preferred:

7+ years leading or significantly contributing to mid-market acquisitions (or other relevant deal sizes), with a track record of closed transactions and measurable post-close value realization.
Demonstrated experience working with C-level executives and negotiating commercial/legal terms.
Prior experience in the industry vertical(s) the acquiring company targets is strongly preferred (SaaS, healthcare, industrial, fintech, consumer, etc.).