The Catalyst for What’s Next
Every deal that closes creates the same make-or-break inflection: a cross-sell and up-sell synergy plan that leadership has committed to — and almost never fully activates. Modern Alchemy exists to activate it.
Why the plan failsThe Thesis
AI is disrupting SaaS. The enterprise software landscape is consolidating. And PE firms are increasingly positioned as the architects of what comes next.
Every acquisition carries a deal thesis — and in nearly every one, cross-sell and up-sell synergy is a number the investment committee has already committed to. Realizing that number is where deals are won or quietly lost.
We are operators who have lived inside more than ten of these integrations. We know exactly where the number goes to die.
The Problem
The reason the synergy plan fails is structural — and it surfaces in a way no one anticipates. Leaders invest in training sellers on the combined portfolio. Then, a few weeks in, they start hearing the same complaint on every pipeline call:
“The reps are fighting over whose paper the deal gets booked on.”
— Every post-merger portfolio call, eventually
Two companies with two different order-to-cash processes have been brought together, and no one has integrated the back end. Sellers are not cross-selling because they cannot — the process that turns a closed deal into booked revenue does not work across the combined entity.
The synergy plan assumed the back office would figure itself out. It does not.
Order-to-cash processes are poorly documented, reliant on tacit knowledge held by workers who are frequently the first casualties of a cost-synergy plan, and invisible to leadership until the synergy number is already failing.
By the time the problem surfaces, the institutional knowledge is gone.
The Outcome We Deliver
A PE-backed platform closes a deal. Modern Alchemy activates the cross-sell synergy plan — and the number leadership committed to in the deal thesis becomes a number they actually hit.
How We Get There
Activating a synergy plan requires solving both sides of the same problem: the sellers who generate the revenue, and the process that turns it into cash. We are building both — in active development, with operators and researchers working at the frontier.
An agentic approach to cross-sell and up-sell activation we have designed, deployed, and proven more effective than traditional training methods.
Sellers learn the combined portfolio and begin generating pipeline while everything else is still in transition — operational before the integration is complete.
An AI-driven capability to reconstruct tacit order-to-cash process knowledge before it disappears post-merger. The hypothesis: the same inferential methodology used to reconstruct complex software systems from indirect signals can be redirected toward organizational process discovery — capturing workflow structure, exception logic, and institutional knowledge from the signals that remain even after the people who carried it are gone.
If it holds, the result is an agentic order-to-cash capability deployable inside the integration window — running without the headcount it replaces.
Two capabilities we’re building for one use case — the model extends across any GTM or revenue function
Our Approach
We don’t write strategy decks and disappear. Modern Alchemy engages as operating partners — embedded inside the integration window, with accountability for the synergy number, not just recommendations. The goal is always a proven capability running in your organization before we leave.
The Team
Enterprise technology executive with 20+ years building and transforming global customer-facing organizations at EMC, Dell EMC, VMware, and Nutanix. Led 800+ professionals across presales, field sales, specialty sales, and enablement.
Track record of four global transformation initiatives, P&Ls exceeding $200M, and M&A integration at scale — including the $67B Dell-EMC merger. MIT Sloan MBA. U.S. Navy veteran.
GTM strategy and revenue enablement executive with deep experience building the operational infrastructure behind high-performing customer-facing organizations at EMC, Dell EMC, VMware, and Nutanix. Most recently VP, Worldwide Solutions Strategy & Revenue Enablement at Nutanix.
Specializes in translating strategic vision into field execution — and has led the deployment of AI-native sales training at scale, moving global sales organizations from traditional enablement models to adaptive, AI-driven platforms. Cornell University, B.S. | MIT Sloan MBA.
Get In Touch
We are operators building at the frontier of what AI makes possible — and we work with a small number of partners at any given time, by design.
If you’re a PE firm, a portfolio operator, or a technology collaborator who has watched a synergy plan stall for reasons no one could quite name — join our community.
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