The Power of Strategic Thinking: Intel from an M&A Professional

When Dr. Emilie Feldman, an expert in mergers and acquisitions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, spoke to Wharton Global Youth students studying in our summer on-campus business programs, she wrapped up her lecture answering questions from the audience.

High school students wanted to better understand strategic rationale, valuation considerations, and the biggest failures that CEOs make when they enter into M&A deals (btw, it’s that they fall in love with the deals and lose their objectivity).

Supporting the AI Scientists

So many questions, so little time. Wharton Global Youth decided to conduct our own Q&A research by delving inside the life of an M&A professional – specifically, a Wharton MBA who manages corporate strategy and development at Amazon, a multinational technology company that sells a wide range of products and services online, in such areas as e-commerce, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

In May 2024, Anomitra Banjeree WG24 graduated from Wharton and a few months later, began his job as senior manager of business and corporate development for Amazon in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

In his role, Banerjee focuses on M&As, investments and strategic partnerships in the area of artificial intelligence. One day he may be talking to Japan and another to the United Arab Emirates. The sheer scale of his work at Amazon is greater than anything he has done in his consulting career.

“A bunch of my time is spent on creating strategic partnerships that will enable us to build our own suite of AI models,” says Banerjee, who has also taught in Wharton Global Youth’s summer programs. “Everything that supports that falls under corporate development. Whether it’s understanding our launch strategy or our go-to-market strategy, whether it’s understanding what acquisition can be done to help those in the organization. I spend a lot of my time thinking about how best to support our scientists who are building AI models.”

Zoom In, Zoom Out

For Banerjee, Amazon’s large footprint in the world as a tech powerhouse requires a different kind of strategic thinking when he is building partnerships. “When you’re creating a strategy for an Amazon company, you’re thinking about the whole of Amazon and how the platform plays with each other,” he observes. “You’re not only just thinking about Amazon Web Services or Amazon Consumer, you’re thinking about how these two intersect. The platform play is very deeply ingrained into how we think about strategy.”

“You zoom in and think about what is good for the niche part of the business, and then you zoom out to think about how that is going to affect the entirety of the organization. It is a really important strategic skill to have.” –Anomitra Banerjee, Corporate Strategy, Amazon

As a result, Banerjee has had to, well, approach his work more like a camera lens. “One of the biggest skill sets I’m developing right now is to zoom in and zoom out,” notes Banerjee, who began his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Co. and EY-Parthenon. “You zoom in and think about what is good for the niche part of the business, and then you zoom out to think about how that is going to affect the entirety of the organization. It is a really important strategic skill to have.” And, he adds, an analytical approach that applies to other areas of life.

What other business muscles must he flex in his new role? Finance first, and then deepening connections with people, both inside the company and across the negotiating table. “Corporate development is a pure numbers game,” says Banerjee. “On a daily basis, we are doing valuations and understanding where money for a deal is coming from, like if we take a loan for doing the deal, how does that play out when we have to pay interest on that loan? But one of the first considerations if you’re interested in Corp Dev, is building great relationships. A lot of times with M&A, we are fighting on terms of the deal. We can’t agree on that term, and will you agree on this other term? If there’s respect between the counterparties and they come to the table with the intent to negotiate and to be good partners, it pays dividends.” His relationship-building strategy? Find what is common between yourself and others and begin to build rapport.

Three months in, Banerjee is embracing all that he is learning at Amazon. So far, his greatest revelation flows from simplicity. “Even a small company, when acquired, can change the trajectory of a huge company,” notes Banerjee. “Even if you think, ‘Hey, that’s a very small deal,’ and you don’t pay much attention to it, you may be surprised. If done the right way and with the right synergies, it can have a massive impact.”

Conversation Starters

Anomitra Banerjee says, “One of the biggest skill sets I’m developing right now is to zoom in and zoom out.” What does he mean by this and why is this an important skill for his work and perhaps for any decisions we must make?

Anomitra also talks about the importance of building relationships. This is a consistent theme across industries and jobs: the power of your network and your ability to make and maintain relationships. Check out this interview with Wharton grad Sachin Rekhi about why relationships are important to business and then discuss what you learned with a group of classmates.

Is it valuable to think about what goes on behind the scenes of a big company like Amazon? How does this change your perspective on a company that you probably just ordered something from yesterday?