M&A Science Announces Recipients of Inaugural Leadership Spotlight Awards

    CHICAGO, IL, June 24, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- M&A Science, the leading provider of deal training, community and execution technology, announced the winners of the first ever M&A Science Leadership Spotlight Awards. Created to highlight leadership and commitment to mentorship, the award recipients are leaders who cultivate the next generation of M&A professionals and strengthen the M&A community.

"These awards are an opportunity to honor exceptional M&A practitioners who use their leadership roles to uplift others and make significant contributions to their organizations and to the industry," said Kison Patel, CEO and Founder of DealRoom. "We couldn't think of a better group of professionals to be our inaugural award recipients."

This year's honorees are:
• Toby Tester, Senior Consultant & Project Manager, BTD
• Aaron Whiting, M&A and Strategic Programs, ContinuumCloud
• Klint Kendrick, Director HR Strategic Workforce Initiatives, SC Johnson
• Carlos Cesta, Vice President Corporate Development, Presidio
• PJ Patel, Co-CEO & Senior Managing Director, VRC
• Chris von Bogdandy, Senior Director, Slalom
• John Morada, Senior Director, ICE Mortgage Technology
• James Harris, Principal, Corporate Development Integration, Google
• Christina Amiry, Head of M&A Strategic Operations, Atlassian
• Russ Hartz, Vice President, Corporate Development, Ansys

In addition to the ten honorees, one individual was honored with the M&A Leader of the Year Award. This year's winner is Michael Frankel, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at Deloitte.

"Michael Frankel has demonstrated mastery of the skills necessary to lead in our industry," said Patel. "He has had an outsized impact on many industry professionals through his generous commitment to mentoring and educating others."

The inaugural award recipients were celebrated at the M&A Science Summer Summit happy hour. Winners were selected by the M&A Science Awards Committee who evaluated each individual's merit and commitment to M&A mentorship and education.

About M&A Science
M&A Science provides a wide variety of products and services to mergers & acquisitions professionals, including M&A Academy, a practitioner-led membership group with a year-round program of educational and networking events and on-demand resources; DealRoom, a full-service M&A lifecycle management software platform; FirmRoom, a low-cost, self-service virtual data room and tools suite and; M&A Plays, a free library of checklists, tools and how-to articles for M&A professionals. M&A Science also sponsors, and founder Kison Patel serves as host of, the popular M&A Science podcast, where leading practitioners share their insights with the M&A industry.

# # #