When Champions Speakers acquired SpeakOut in September 2025, its director Jack Hayes wanted the founder, Kenny Donaldson, to stay. Donaldson had spent nearly 40 years building one of the UK’s oldest speaker bureaus, and Hayes worried that his departure would strip the acquisition of its real value.
SpeakOut had its own name in the market, particularly in Scotland, and long-standing relationships across the events industry. Kenny knew how those relationships had been built and maintained. Had he left, much of that knowledge would have gone with him.
Keeping knowledge inside the business
Champions Speakers had grown strongly through its own brands. SpeakOut gave the company an established Scottish operation and more experience in the entertainment market. It would’ve taken years to build that from scratch.
After completion, the team had to decide what to integrate, what to leave alone, and what Donaldson’s responsibilities would be inside a business he no longer owned. Some of their early assumptions turned out to be wrong.
SpeakOut and Champions handled talent relationships, contracts and enquiries differently. The expectation was that more of that work would follow one common process. Once they saw how SpeakOut operated day to day, they realised they had got some of it wrong.
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A process might appear inefficient from the outside, but it could be tied to how a long-standing client worked with the agency. Replacing it with a new system would’ve damaged the relationship. The team slowed down, asked why things were done differently, and changed parts of the plan. The integration became more selective than expected.
Questioning the bigger company’s habits
Champions Speakers was the larger company, but that didn’t make every process of Champions better. SpeakOut had survived for nearly four decades, so its way of working deserved proper scrutiny before anything was replaced.
The decision was made to keep the SpeakOut name and its Scottish identity. Existing clients already knew the agency and trusted its people. The infrastructure could support growth without erasing what clients recognised. That choice gave the integration a practical line to follow.
Back-office systems could be reviewed centrally. Anything affecting how clients booked talent or dealt with the agency needed more caution. Client-facing decisions took longer. Before making a change, Hayes began asking what would be lost. Client and speaker relationships set the pace.
This kind of restraint is unusual in acquisitions, where the pressure to standardise often overrides local knowledge. But the logic here was simple: a business that has survived four decades has habits worth understanding before they are discarded.
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Giving the founder real authority
Donaldson was appointed head of entertainment. His experience remained available to SpeakOut and the wider Champs group.
A vague advisory position could have left staff taking difficult decisions back to the person who used to own the company, with nobody entirely sure whose answer was final. Donaldson was given enough authority for his judgement to count, with clear boundaries around decisions held elsewhere in the group.
His involvement meant a proposed change could be questioned before it affected a relationship the team did not fully understand. He could explain the history behind a client, speaker or working practice that looked minor to outsiders.
His knowledge needed to spread beyond him. A handover document could never capture 40 years of context. Retaining Donaldson gave the company time to share it across the group. That knowledge was passed on through live work rather than trying to record everything in writing. If all of it stayed with him, the same problem would surface when he eventually left.
What the next acquisition would do differently
On another acquisition, Hayes said he would trace an enquiry through to a completed booking before setting the integration timetable. He would establish who really owns each client relationship and where personal judgement changes the outcome.
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The team knew SpeakOut’s relationships mattered. They did not grasp how many everyday decisions rested on them. Hayes said he would test assumptions earlier and start transferring knowledge before changing systems. He would also agree the founder’s remit at the start, so people know which decisions remain with the founder and how disagreements will be handled. That cannot wait until both teams are working under new ownership.
Due diligence gave them the contracts, revenue and liabilities. It did not explain why a client called one person first, or why an old process still earned trust. That only became visible once the business was doing real work.
Enquiries have risen by 87 per cent against the equivalent period before the acquisition. SpeakOut has also handled more than 350 briefs through the wider Champions network. Of the clients active before the deal, 72 per cent have since made another enquiry or booking.
The deal is less than a year old. Its proper test will take several years. SpeakOut must retain the clients and knowledge that made it attractive as its work through the Champions network grows. Before removing a founder after an acquisition, ask what will leave with them. When trust, market knowledge and years of judgement sit with that person, their departure carries a cost that will never appear in the sale agreement.