Vice President, M&A Origination

Job description

CSC Generation is the AI-native holding company re-engineering omnichannel retail. We acquire iconic brands and transform them with Genesis, our operating platform combining a Data Fabric, Automation Engine, proprietary tools, and shared services to modernize operations, elevate customer experience, and expand margins. With $1B+ in revenue across 13 brands, our portfolio includes Sur La Table, Backcountry, One Kings Lane, and others that serve as real-world innovation labs. **Reports to:** Executive Leadership **Location:** Los Angeles, California; Austin, Texas, or Salt Lake City, UT - Hybrid Required ### About the Role Acquisitions are how CSC Generation grows, making the front end of the deal pipeline one of the most consequential functions in the company. As **Vice President, M&A Origination**, you will set the strategy for where we look and why, build the relationships that produce proprietary opportunities, and surface businesses we would never have seen through a standard process. Within your first year, success means a fully built origination engine—defined coverage markets, a growing proprietary pipeline, a systematized intermediary network, and qualified opportunities advancing through the investment process. You will work on a small, senior team where the person who found the deal is in the room when we decide to pursue it. This is a lean team. You will own a lot, move fast, and make decisions with full end-to-end responsibility. ### What You'll Do #### **Origination Strategy & Market Coverage** - Own the origination strategy end to end—size each market, map the universe of companies that fit CSC's acquisition criteria, identify new categories for expansion, and set the bolt-on strategy for existing platforms. - Develop and defend a clear point of view on your sectors, including market trends, consolidation dynamics, buyer landscape, and clearing multiples. - Scale the acquisition funnel by maintaining a current, comprehensive picture of target markets so no relevant business transacts without CSC knowing about it. - Shape how coverage is divided across the origination team and how the function is structured, resourced, and measured as it grows. #### **Deal Sourcing & Relationship Management** - Source proprietary opportunities directly from owners, founders, and management teams before a formal process exists. - Build and systematize the intermediary network—investment banks, corporate development teams, brokers, lenders, specialty-finance firms, and restructuring advisors—so CSC is the first call when an asset comes to market. - Represent CSC credibly in conversations with owners, boards, and advisors, articulating what we would do with the business, what happens to their team, and why our offer will hold. #### **Qualification, Execution & Pipeline Discipline** - Screen opportunities against investment criteria, build the initial commercial case, and present a clear recommendation to the investment team with market context, seller motivation, valuation, and risk. - Stay with your deals through close—remain the relationship owner, step into the deal process wherever you add leverage, and contribute to deal documents as they take shape. - Maintain pipeline discipline and reporting—coverage, conversion, activity, and relationship status—using modern sourcing, CRM, and AI tooling to extend reach. #### **Team & Network Building** - Design and run referral and external advisor programs so sourcing capacity scales faster than headcount. - Develop junior origination talent and set the standard for how origination is executed across CSC. ### Required Qualifications - 10–15 years in private equity, investment banking, or a comparable principal-investing environment with business development or deal origination as a major component of the role. - Track record of sourcing transactions that closed at volume—proprietary or limited-process deals you personally found, cultivated, and advanced. - Deep, current network across bankers, brokers, corporate development teams, lenders, and advisors in the middle market, with the standing to open doors on your own name. - Investing judgment sufficient to evaluate whether an opportunity is worth pursuing and to defend that view to an investment committee. - Proven ability to build a funnel from scratch—constructing the target universe, segmenting it, running outreach cadence, and sustaining relationships across multi-year cultivation cycles. - Fluency with sourcing and CRM platforms (DealCloud, Grata, Sourcescrub, Affinity, Apollo, or equivalents) and genuine comfort using AI tooling to extend coverage. - Comfort managing a pipeline quantitatively—coverage, conversion, and activity—and setting the targets the team is held to. - Willingness to travel regularly to targets, lenders, advisors, and key industry events. ### Preferred Qualifications - Experience in consumer, retail, ecommerce, or multi-unit businesses. - Exposure to carve-outs, distressed, and special-situations transactions. - Familiarity with deal financing—a working sense of how transactions get funded and structured, enough to talk credibly with owners and lenders about how a deal comes together. - Experience building or leading a sourcing effort or origination team. ### Why Join The people who do best here are builders. They take ownership, move fast, and want to see the direct impact of their work. - **Executive Access:** Work directly with C-suite leadership and brand CEOs—you will be in the room when acquisition decisions are made and your sourcing work will have visible impact on what CSC buys next. - **Portfolio-Wide Leadership:** Shape the origination strategy for a growing holding company with 13+ brands rather than operating within a single business unit—high performers are entrusted with greater responsibility and leadership opportunities across the portfolio. - **Build the Function:** Define how CSC Generation finds and wins its next acquisitions. You are not inheriting a playbook; you are writing it, with AI-first tooling and the autonomy to design processes from the ground up. - **Competitive Benefits:** Paid time off policies, 401(k) match, medical/dental/vision and a variety of supplemental policies, and employee discounts across our portfolio of brands. ### Interview Process 1. **Recruiter Screen** - A 30-minute conversation with our recruiting team to align on the role, your background, and what you are looking for. 2. **Hiring Manager Interview** - Conversation with Corporate Development leadership focused on your sourcing track record, network depth, and how you approach building a pipeline. 3. **Sourcing Challenge** - A short take-home exercise so we can understand how you build a funnel and approach execution. 4. **Executive Interview** - Deep-dive session with CSC senior leadership covering deal origination history, relationship network, and strategic fit. 5. **In-Person Interview** - We'd like to meet you at our nearest office (Los Angeles, Austin, or Salt Lake City). Details and logistics will be arranged with your recruiter. 6. **Reference Checks** - Conducted in parallel with the final stages where possible. 7. **Offer** - We move quickly for the right candidate. *Interview process is subject to change. Any updates will be communicated promptly and clearly.*