Partnering Before Purchasing: How Booz Allen Wins Proprietary Deals Early

Mar 19, 2026

Chrissy Cox, VP and Head of Corporate Development at Booz Allen Hamilton, who built their corp dev function twice. She explains how they cultivate proprietary pipelines years ahead. Short takes on culture as a deal breaker, partner‑first pre-acquisition strategies, carve‑out complexities, when to spin out versus build, and why founders should still hire bankers.

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INSIGHT

Build A Deep Partner-Driven Pipeline

Build a proprietary pipeline by partnering with market leaders and tracking hundreds of targets aligned to your inorganic priorities.
Booz Allen spends weekly time with market leaders to buy, build, or partner and keeps a deep watch list (e.g., Liberty IT years-long watch).

ADVICE

Make M&A A Leadership Priority And Train Reps

Make M&A a leadership priority and embed deal reps into market leaders' cadence to build the organization's muscle.
Hire external M&A-experienced hires and legal support, then give business leaders repeated diligence reps until it becomes routine.

ANECDOTE

Liberty IT Became A Win After Years Of Watching

Liberty IT was on Booz Allen's watch list for years until scale and product-market fit aligned with Booz Allen's low-code digital strategy.
Long-term market relationships and trust let Booz Allen convert that partnership into a proprietary acquisition.

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Chrissy Cox, VP & Head of Corporate Development, Booz Allen Hamilton

Booz Allen Hamilton didn't build one of the most active acquisition programs in federal tech by waiting for banker inbounds. They built it by showing up years before anyone else.

Chrissy Cox has built Booz Allen's corporate development function from scratch and done it twice. Her team was named Deal Team of the Year by the Association for Corporate Growth, and under her leadership, roughly 80% of their acquisitions come from companies they already have a relationship with. That's not luck, it's a system.

In this episode, she breaks down exactly how that system works — from pipeline development to cultural diligence to integration ownership — and what most corp dev teams get wrong before they ever get to LOI.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

How to build a proprietary pipeline that makes you the preferred buyer before a process starts
The specific cultural fit questions Chrissy asks — and the one answer that ended a deal on the spot
Why she tells founder-led sellers to hire their own banker, even on proprietary deals
How to navigate a carve-out when scope is impossible to fully define upfront
When spinning out a business beats building it internally
The three mistakes that derail most corp dev functions before they find their footing

This episode is sponsored by M&A Science Intelligence Hub

If you're trying to move from cold outreach to genuine relationship-building with targets, the Intelligence Hub has the Partner-First Acquisition Evaluation Playbook — a practitioner-built framework for structuring pre-acquisition partnerships, evaluating targets through the lens of existing relationships, and moving from partner to acquirer with conviction. Become an M&A Scientist at www.mascience.com/membership

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‍This episode is also sponsored by DealRoom‍

The best M&A teams close deals faster...not because they work harder, but because they have better systems. DealRoom helps you manage your entire deal lifecycle from target identification through close. No more hunting for documents or wondering what's blocking progress.

Request a Demo today: https://hubs.ly/Q03ZMvQX0

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Episode Chapters

[00:00:00] Intro

[00:04:20] Chrissy Cox's path into M&A

[00:05:04] Building Booz Allen's corp dev function

[00:10:32] How Booz Allen builds a proprietary deal pipeline

[00:15:08] The partner-first approach to acquisitions

[00:20:31] When founders should consider selling

[00:23:49] Why culture can kill a great deal

[00:29:40] Carve-out lessons from the PAR Government deal

[00:33:24] Why founders should hire bankers

[00:43:43] Integration: protect the secret sauce

[00:48:01] The biggest mistakes in corporate development

[00:49:33] The craziest thing about M&A