Brand resilience is built before the integration begins

As I pulled my Halloween costume together this year, I kept thinking about Helen Mirren in the 2005 miniseries "Elizabeth I." I remember the weight. The red wig. The white powdered face. Layer upon layer of clothing, each piece heavy enough to change the way she moved. The jewels. The crown.

My version of the queen arrived in boxes from all over. A replica necklace modeled on the Rainbow Portrait, painted when Elizabeth was nearly 70. An exaggerated ruff from a costume shop in London, a collar so dramatic I look like I'm gearing up for my portrait painting session. An ivory and gold gown. A handcrafted dome ring inspired by buttons made for Charles IX of Sweden, who took his throne the year after she died. Pearls on a crown that came from a listing titled "gold Baroque imperial religious queen emperor headwear Renaissance." And a claret red wig sold as "Victorian court," more than two centuries too late for the woman I'm dressing as.

On paper, my queen is a mess. By Oct. 30 she'll pass for Elizabeth, and Elizabeth deserves every bit of the credit.

The real queen chose every stitch. The pearls signaled purity, the foundation of the Virgin Queen identity she built over decades. The red hair marked her as her father's daughter when plenty of people doubted her right to the throne. The white face held her at an ageless prime long after time had moved on. In the Rainbow Portrait, her cloak is embroidered with eyes and ears, telling every courtier and ambassador who saw it that she knew what was said in her kingdom. Each piece was chosen to say one thing, and together they said it loudly. She defined the image so completely that it survives me, a dozen online listings and a Victorian wig.

Assembling versus selecting is the difference I watch play out with clients. Today I see companies complete several acquisitions in a single year. Each deal arrives with its own culture and its own promises: to employees about what kind of place they work for, to customers about what they can count on, to investors about why the combination is worth what they paid. The next deal lands before the last one settles, and stakeholders want concrete answers in the meantime. Is my job safe? What does this company stand for now? The brands that come through that pressure stronger decided what the combined company promises before the deals arrived. Then they kept, rebuilt or retired every inherited piece based on whether it kept that promise.

Elizabeth had the same problem, plus the occasional armed rebellion. She came to the throne in 1558, after two monarchs in a row had promised the country two different churches. Her settlement the following year declared no winner. She took the title "Supreme Governor" of the

church in place of her father's "Supreme Head," a deliberate softening for those uneasy with the claim. Her prayer book took the words of communion from two rival versions and joined them in a single sentence both sides could say. Her Act of Uniformity required everyone to attend the same church, and for much of her early reign she showed little appetite for policing what people privately believed. She kept the promises she inherited by making a larger one that could hold them all.

I lived a version of this at JPMorgan Chase. For years after J.P. Morgan and Chase came together, the conversation about two visibly different cultures came down to suits versus chinos. The leadership merged slowly. For extended stretches, business after business ran under co-heads, one from each legacy firm, carrying both brands at once. No one knew who would ultimately win the reigning seat, so the smart move was to learn from both. I watched people grow because they had two very different leaders to study and no safe way to bet on just one.

Then I moved to Hong Kong, where I was dealing with a patchwork quilt. We had a new chairman, charged with rebuilding the JPMorgan kingdom across 18 countries, and quickly. Our equity and bond teams across Asia had to be rebuilt, and so did M&A. Chase had a reputation for coming and going in the region, so in parts of Asia we were viewed with suspicion, and we were not always the first U.S. bank called into a deal.

The integration in front of us brought four legacy firms together across Asia and Australia under the J.P. Morgan name: Chase, J.P. Morgan, Jardine Fleming and the Australian broker Ord Minnett. The Jardine Fleming bankers had deep roots in the region and relationships to match, and those roots gave them a confidence that could make a deal feel sealed with a handshake. It never replaced the contract at the end of the day, but the swagger showed. They wore pegged trousers with a touch of David Bowie, and long hair slicked straight back was all the rage. Nobody would have mistaken them for the bankers they were joining.

Nobody was asked to cut their hair. The bank kept what each culture did well, issued no uniforms and insisted on one set of policies for everyone. The handshake stayed, and so did the contract, the same one for all of us.

My chairman's vision was tremendously clear, and so was the way he communicated it, and he carried himself across that expansive region with the dignity and respect of a king. When he walked me through it, I told him that if he did what he said, I could take us from No. 5 to No. 1 in the region. The condition was that he had to unify, fire fast and hire fast to pull the right team together. We both knew it would be tumultuous for a while, and that I would have to explain to reporters why people were being let go while we were also hiring. I held my ground in those conversations with confidence, because the plan was clear and so were the goals. He did what he said, and my team and I kept our promise. The firm rose in the rankings across every area, and leadership earned back trust in the region that had wavered for years.

Kinective, which serves banks and credit unions, lived the modern version of this pace in 2025. The company acquired five businesses in eight months: Datava for data intelligence, Epic River for eSignature and eNotary, Janusea for connecting core banking systems to fintech

applications, ESQ Data Solutions for ATM management and Compuflex for cash automation. That works out to roughly one acquisition every eight weeks, a pace even Henry VIII never attempted.

We saw the line of acquisitions forming on the horizon alongside Michael Ball, Kinective's executive vice president of marketing, and we both recognized the brand narrative had to grow before the company did. So we expanded it ahead of the deals. Kinective's promise to financial institutions became the banking operations platform, one story broad enough for every acquisition to find its place inside. Janusea strengthened the platform's connectivity, and Compuflex extended its cash automation. Each announcement told the same story from a new angle, and the acquired teams could see exactly where they belonged.

When Halloween is over, my costume goes back into its boxes: a ruff from London, a ring for a Swedish king, a Victorian wig. Elizabeth's image has held for more than 400 years because she chose every piece of it on purpose. A combined company's story can hold through the next acquisition, and the one after that, when someone decides early what it promises and builds every piece to keep it.

If you're in Austin on Oct. 30, I hope you'll join us for the Red-aissance Fair at our headquarters, the Helms House. The house was built in 1892, and Halloween was a tradition here long before we started our own in 2011. Come by and see if you recognize the queen. Bowing is optional. RSVP here.

P.S. If your company announced another acquisition tomorrow, could you say in one sentence what the combined company promises? Do you have a clear communications plan for internal and external stakeholders? If you'd need to check three decks first, your patchwork quilt is showing. We can help get this sorted!