Emma Robertson’s approach to mergers and acquisitions extends far beyond traditional growth strategies. As CEO of Transform UK, she has orchestrated one of the most thoughtful integrations in the consultancy sector, combining her organisation’s data and technology expertise with Cadence Innova’s management consultancy capabilities. In this exclusive interview with The Executive Magazine, Robertson reveals the strategic thinking behind what she calls the “one plus one equals three” philosophy, a methodology that transforms acquisitions from mere scale exercises into value-creation engines.
With over 25 years of experience guiding blue-chip organisations including Tesco, BT, and Hammerson through complex transformations, Robertson brings a unique perspective to corporate integration. Her leadership of Transform UK’s acquisition strategy demonstrates how purpose-driven M&A can create competitive advantages while maintaining cultural integrity. The recent Cadence Innova acquisition represents more than expansion; it exemplifies Robertson’s belief that successful integration requires viewing organisations as interconnected ecosystems rather than isolated business units. Her insights offer a masterclass in strategic thinking for leaders navigating the complexities of modern business transformation.
Transform UK recently completed its acquisition of Cadence Innova, marking a significant milestone in your growth strategy. What drove the decision to pursue this particular acquisition, and how does it align with your vision for creating comprehensive transformation solutions for clients?
“Like any business, growth strategies can come from only a couple of areas, and acquisition is one of them for accelerated growth. To secure a competitive advantage in the marketplace and guarantee our organic growth, we knew we needed an injection of something new. Transform as a business has always been adaptive to what our clients and the market need. Recognising that what we do today won’t be what’s needed in five years’ time is an important part of our story, and therefore mergers and acquisitions come into that.”
“When we looked at where Transform’s capability was, we were a technology and data consultancy with a real breadth of capability across design and delivery, but we lacked the depth of experience in management consultancy. Our philosophy has always been absolute depth of expertise. Recognising the difference between generic consultancy and the pure specialism of being a management consultant—that was something Transform had as an adjacent capability, but we lacked the depth and scale to take on bigger client challenges.
“When we first met with Cadence Innova, it was a piece of the jigsaw, because that is what they live and breathe and have done for 15-plus years. The inverse was true for them. Cadence approached us with an amazing management consultancy capability, but one of the limiting factors of that space is that you often stop at good advice. They were looking for the other part of their jigsaw piece: the depth of delivery needed to advise, plan, deliver, design, research, and work with data. We were, in the style of Tetris, two really nice shapes fitting where our depth met their shallowness, and their depth met our shallowness. Putting the two pieces together has given us a really robust end-to-end solution.”
You’ve described your approach to M&A as “one plus one equals three” philosophy. Can you elaborate on this concept and explain how you’ve structured the integration process to ensure that the combined entity delivers exponentially greater value than the sum of its parts?
“This was a key part of our acquisition journey and a strategic decision. When we looked at the fundamentals of this acquisition, Cadence was a good, growing business, and Transform is a good, growing business. There was almost no point in us making an acquisition to just continue growing both on the same track. We had to look at where we would create value. M&A often creates value from cost-saving or through revenue growth, and we were excited about the revenue growth potential. For us, it was about creating a combined offer that genuinely provides something the market and our clients need and want.
“Through doing that, we are not just going to secure Cadence doing more of Cadence and Transform doing more of Transform, that is 1+1=2. Our goal of 1+1=3 was a real challenge to the combined executive teams from day one. We had to believe in and put a model together that activates the genuine belief that we wouldn’t be achieving this otherwise. It is because of what we have created: the alchemy of the two businesses coming together.
“We wanted the ability to go for bigger opportunities together and to service our clients more thoroughly. One of the points of commonality is that Transform describes itself as solving ‘knotty problems’ and when we met Cadence, they were talking about solving ‘gnarly problems’. That is really at the heart of our belief: you can’t solve these complex issues through just one lens.”
Having guided major corporations like Tesco, BT, and Hammerson through complex transformations over your 25-year career, what unique insights did you apply to managing your own organisation’s transformation through this acquisition?
“Communication is the most critical element, without a doubt. The constant communicating of what we’re doing – even if we’re doing nothing – is vital for filling the vacuum and outlining the “why.” From my experience with client organisations, it’s the internal silos that make these things difficult, creating the feeling of there being winners and losers. Recognising that saying nothing always allows people to lean into their worst fears is a big part of it.
“Another learning is that you can just get locked in. You become so invested, and the vision for how you want the deal to be becomes quite seductive. My learning from client work, and also from our own experience, is that you have got to always be prepared to walk away if the way you think it’s going to go and the way it’s actually going start to misalign.
“Acquisitions take months and months. It’s very much like dating: at first, you’re both trying to make a great impression, and then you transition into the due diligence phase where it can almost flip and become more combative. At any point, you have to constantly ask yourselves if the deal will deliver the ambition (having set the criteria upfront) and constantly give yourself permission to walk away if it’s not right.”
The consultancy landscape has become increasingly competitive, with many firms offering similar services. How does the combined expertise of Transform UK and Cadence Innova position you to differentiate in the market, particularly in data and technology-led transformation?
“I think there’s a ‘what’ and a ‘how’ in what we do. In terms of the ‘what’, we bring a depth of expertise across a breadth of capability. This means clients can genuinely, at quite a small scale, get a real breadth of focus on a project. For example, we can put together a team of four people with a strategic commercial brain, a data brain, an architecture brain, and a service design brain. There’s a real agility to that. The way we differentiate more is in our ‘how’. Bringing together these diverse lenses without internal competition or P&L pressures definitely marks us out, which means we are always able to be in service of doing the right thing for the client.
“Culturally, we extend that to our clients’ teams. We work very collaboratively with them, focusing on up-skilling and knowledge transfer as we go, and on co-creation, particularly with stakeholders who might need to come on a journey. We also genuinely bring our whole selves to work. Our ambition to be a net-positive organisation is part of that. We are conscious of our impact from a sustainability point of view, particularly in the field of tech and data, and know the biggest impact we can have is through the work we do. This means implementing sustainable-first philosophies, planet-centred design, and green engineering, and that’s an exciting part of our mission.”
Your end-to-end service model spans data, technology, change delivery, research, service design, and strategy. How has the Cadence Innova acquisition enhanced each of these capabilities, and where do you see the most significant synergies emerging?
“Without a doubt, the presence of skilled management consultants as a discipline has absolutely got the other practices thinking about what consultancy looks like in their area and vice versa. For instance, with data strategy and the advent of artificial intelligence, we are thinking about the data and technology implications, but also the impact on operating models, future of work and commercial operations. The same is true for product and delivery, with product strategy becoming an increasingly important part of any organisational roadmap, applying the ecosystem lens of culture, tech, data, strategy and design to product questions. Strategic thinking is a muscle that’s really important for us to flex across all practices.
“The influence has also come back the other way. Particularly in a world of artificial intelligence, we are asking what AI and data look like through the consultancy lens. How do we need to adapt what we do in management consultancy in a world where we’re going to be increasingly co-working with AI solutions? There is a definite cross-fertilisation taking place and it’s a really good sharpening of everybody’s skills.”
Many transformation consultancies focus primarily on digital innovation, yet you emphasise the importance of aligning culture, operations, and infrastructure. How does this holistic approach influence your M&A strategy and the types of companies you consider for future acquisitions?
“We’ve always believed that an ecosystem is the right approach. You have to understand what you’re trying to achieve and identify all the input elements and dependencies. Even if you have a technology solution, it fails if you don’t take people with you, leaving an expensive system gathering dust and a disaffected team. Likewise, if the people are on board but the system is unusable for customers, they will simply find their own way to interact with you in a way that is most useful to them. You have to build the customer experience into the core of the design. You have to consider the full ecosystem and the full life-cycle, not point solutions for specific problems.
“Ultimately, everything is tied to data. None of this works if every interaction is single use, forcing the customer to start over every time. We’ve all had that public and private sector experience where we can’t believe we are telling an organisation the same information again.”
What strategies have you employed to maintain stakeholder confidence throughout the integration process, and how do you measure progress against your original acquisition objectives?
“Clarity of plan is really important. Because we sit within a group structure, it was critical for everybody to be eyes wide open about what the acquisition was and what it wasn’t. There is an opportunity cost to any acquisition, a leadership distraction where every hour spent on the deal is an hour not spent on the current business. Setting and agreeing to that expectation with our boards was an important part of creating the right framework within which to communicate.
“We invested a lot of time in the operating model, challenging ourselves to set a strategy and vision, and to understand the goals that underpinned them.”
What are the three most critical factors you believe determine whether an acquisition creates genuine value rather than merely increasing scale?
“First, be clear on where an acquisition sits within your strategy. If the growth ambition is for both businesses to feed each other, then you must seriously question a bolt-on approach versus full integration. If you’re avoiding integration simply because it’s hard, that’s the wrong reason. If the way to create value is through an integrated offer, then commit to it. Get it done, rather than hoping you’ll get the benefits of an integrated offer without actually doing the hard yards.
“Second, communication. You cannot over-communicate. We did a lot of it, and we still could have done more. This is particularly true in that vacuum space. Communicate three times as often just to keep everybody reassured.
“Third, remember that this is a people-based business, focused on teams, clients and the citizens our work ultimately serves. This is about making sure that people go on the journey with you, so being sensitive to how the process feels, as well as how it works, is critically important. If you see it only through the lens of integration efficiency, you will make a certain set of decisions. When you overlay that with the ultimate objective – to retain and attract brilliant talent in order to serve brilliant clients – you make a different set of decisions.”