Roberta Carter

From M&A strategy and planning through to integration, value creation and benefit realisation, I work with clients to maximise deal value. While the primary focus of my career has been health and life sciences, I work across a range of sectors. I lead our Value Creation team at PwC and am also proud to serve as our global network leader for our DDV (Deal Operations/Delivering Deal Value) business - it is a real privilege to be part of this amazing group of experienced value creation and deal strategy & operations practitioners, working on every type and size of deal all around the world!

25 years of working in M&A has taught me that the more you really know about the target business and the earlier you start strategy, analysis and operational planning for the deal, the more value you can deliver. With more uncertainty than ever, the need for investment returns and higher multiples versus increased cost of borrowing have raised the bar for the value delivery needed to make deals pay. A strong value creation plan, a well informed and proactive approach have never been more important.

A key part of my support for clients is identifying and developing upfront plans for handling the integration issues that will be critical in realising the full value of the deal – both hurdles to overcome and upsides to be maximised. Throughout the deal cycle, understanding and addressing the people and change elements is critical - 'culture' is often cited as a key reason for failure, and getting it right is essential to the success of any deal.

In what little spare time I have, I maintain my career-long interest in Health technology and watch with increasing interest the advances that are finally starting to take hold in this space. The impact of COVID-19 and acceleration of AI have meant that we are now seeing more interest in the opportunities presented by healthcare technologies and I am more optimistic than ever that we will see substantial acceleration!