Five questions for the first board meeting after a merger

Integration plans tend to start with systems, structures and synergies. Those matter. But the first board meeting after completion is the best — and sometimes the only — opportunity to agree something more fundamental.

• What will the combined business do that neither could do alone?
• Which customers matter most in the first year, and who owns them?
• Which three decisions must be made in the first hundred days?
• What will we deliberately not integrate?
• How will we know, in twelve months, that this was worth it?

The answers will be imperfect. Writing them down anyway gives the integration team something to test every later decision against.