Consulting M&A Trends for 2026 w/ Ramone Param

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In this episode of The Professional Services Pursuit, Brent is joined once again by Ramone Param, Managing Director at Kennedy M&A, to kick off a new series focused on mergers and acquisitions in professional services. Together, they reflect on the 2025 M&A landscape and look ahead to what 2026 holds for consulting firms navigating economic uncertainty, AI-driven disruption, and shifting buyer expectations. Ramone shares firsthand insights from the deal market, offering a clear view of where momentum is building, what buyers are prioritizing, and how firms can position themselves for stronger valuations in the year ahead.

Key topics covered in this episode:

What changed in 2025—and why optimism is returning in 2026
Where buyer demand is strongest
The shift from buying headcount to acquiring AI-enabled consultants, proprietary data, and differentiated intellectual property
New value drivers in consulting valuations
Ramone’s outlook on a potential transformational, cross-functional deal that could redefine the professional services landscape

You can find Ramone’s newsletter by visiting: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramoneparam/

Learn more about Kennedy M&A here: https://www.k2consultingresearch.com/ma-advisory

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Banoo Behboodi

Vice President, Success Engineering

Banoo Behboodi is a 20+ year software and services leader with extensive experience executing change initiatives with oversight of Customer Success, Professional Services and Delivery and Consulting functions. Banoo’s earlier experiences with AT&T Mobility, Coca-Cola Company and Ernst & Young leading key transformational and compliance projects, provided the foundation needed to be an effective leader and a change agent with a customer first mindset. Banoo is passionate about driving continuous improvement through sharing best practices and empowering resources through technology and analytics to optimize performance and job satisfaction while driving business outcomes.

Brent Trimble

Vice President, Value Engineering

Brent brings more than 15+ year’s of leadership experience in Management Consulting, Strategic Delivery, Marketing services and product development firms to his technology role at Kantata. As the VP of Value Engineering and the Managing Director of Marketing Service & Agency Vertical, he specializes in identifying process improvement potential, business optimization and key health metrics for alignment and orientation.

With deep business understanding through an operator lens - Brent works with Kantata partner firms to refine intrinsic and extrinsic value drivers - giving firm principals the focus required for adoption, mobilization, value realization and ultimately - success.

Prior to joining Kantata, Brent was a client of the platform and held positions at Interpublic Group, Accenture, WPP, and independent marketing consulting firms.