In this fascinating interview, Kevin Jones, the CEO of Celero Commerce that provides payment processing services, business management software, and data intelligence to small and medium-sized businesses in one holistic platform, discusses the leadership challenges and the solutions of leading high growth through M&As.
Celero’s leadership team has completed 6 acquisitions since its inception. That’s untypical for a young company. Among Kevin’s insights:
- The need to have a strong core leadership team
- Culture fit as a prerequisite for an acquisition
- How culture evolves as the company absorbs new cultures
- The shift from culture-fit to culture-blend
- Transparent communication as a key leadership style
- How to run business-as-usual concurrently with M&A activity
- The importance of leveraging efficiencies to scale up quickly
Kevin founded Celero in 2018 and 2.5 years later it’s the 16th largest non-bank payment processor in the United States, serving more than 25,000 businesses.
He began his fin-tech career at Chase Paymentech. He is the former President of SignaPay, and former CEO of Anovia Payments, which he led to a successful exit.
