Richard Preston

Operations and M&A Leader

Having begun my career in the British institution of Royal Mail entering in to an Operational Graduate Scheme I was quickly exposed to the good and the bad of people management, operational controls, and affective leadership.
I spent my time there across the front-line operations, fleet management and ultimately the continuous improvement function. It was here I was tutored by some fantastic individuals and found my identity in a professional setting.
Moving into the world of acquisition and M&A integration when I moved to Intersnack, the ability to assess every element of an organisation and identify the points at which a business may have opportunity to improve, and most importantly how to to deliver that improvement in a sustainable way.
leaving Intersnack after 5 years I moved into my own buy-and-build, covering engineering manufacturing and transport. Deploying the tools and techniques learned and ultimately exiting after Covid.
The sourcing of opportunities, identification of synergy opportunities, funding requirements and completion are now well routed in my skill set, always being able to pull on the World Class Manufacturing processes to streamline cost improvement, operational or cultural improvement, budget planning and execution or simply see the business through a transition and provide continuity during that period of Due Dilligence, across the first 100 days of new ownership.
My Most recent assignments have covered multi-million pounds acquisitions within the food industry, writing the playbook on integration for the business, and conversely a sub £1m deal, with a mandate to identify and add a third business for the owners, whilst leading the day-to-day business activities.