www.acquisition-international.com • October 2026 Sreejeeth S. Menon 18 Years of Leadership in the Making
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Contents 4 News - MoonPay to Acquire North Capital and Expand into Onchain Capital Markets - Workers Need to Learn How to Question AI, Not Just How to Use It, Says Skills Expert 6 ‘Incredibly Powerful, but Also Invasive’: Richard Yonck on Bringing Emotion AI into the Workplace 9 18 Years of Leadership in the Making 10 PRIMEX: A Long Legacy of Growth, Development, and Resilience 12 Keeping People at the Heart of Employee Engagement 13 Alexander Paykin: Making New York’s Complex Transactions Simple 14 Driving Operational Success Across Global Markets 15 Specialist Expert Witness Services for Financial Markets 16 Spear Sales Consulting: Sales Transformation Consultancy of the Year 2026 – UK 14 12 16
NEWS MoonPay to Acquire North Capital and Expand into Onchain Capital Markets The deal would combine North Capital’s private securities markets technology and regulated financial services capabilities with MoonPay’s onchain financial infrastructure platform MoonPay Inc, the global financial technology company powering the movement of value across fiat and digital assets, has announced that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire North Capital Investment Technology, Inc., a leading private-markets infrastructure platform that combines API-first technology with regulated brokerage services. Upon completion of the transaction, North Capital will become a wholly owned subsidiary of MoonPay. The acquisition is expected to add North Capital’s securities brokerage and investment advisory businesses to MoonPay’s global financial infrastructure platform. North Capital provides technology and services to private securities issuers, professional intermediaries, fund managers, and investors, supporting capital raising, asset management, clearing, custody and secondary trading for exempt securities, including tokenized securities. Its capabilities include investoronboarding technology, transaction processing, subscription escrow, custody, and secondary trading through PPEX ATS, its registered alternative trading system. Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and Founder of MoonPay, commented: “All financial markets are becoming more technology-driven, but the infrastructure supporting them is still fragmented across different tech stacks, providers, and workflows. This is especially true in securities markets, where North Capital has developed a differentiated combination of technology, regulatory capabilities and market infrastructure. At MoonPay, we’re building the regulatory foundation to support mass adoption of tokenized real-world assets. We believe bringing those capabilities into the MoonPay ecosystem can help connect different parts of the financial system through modern, programmable infrastructure.” James P. Dowd, Founder and CEO of North Capital, remarked: “North Capital was founded with the mission to bring access, liquidity and transparency to private markets, and these goals are best accomplished through better technology, resilient infrastructure and a more seamless experience for issuers, intermediaries and investors. MoonPay has built a global financial technology platform with significant reach and has articulated an ambitious vision for the future of value transfers across financial markets. We see a compelling opportunity to combine our teams and capabilities while continuing to support the clients and partners who have helped build North Capital.” North Capital’s platform has supported more than $8.7 billion in primary and secondary transaction volume, and PPEX has more than 1,250 approved assets available for secondary-market trading. North Capital’s operating businesses include SEC-registered broker-dealers, a SEC-registered alternative trading system, a SEC-registered transfer agent, and a SECregistered investment adviser, together with technology and other regulated financial-services entities. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of MoonPay and North Capital. Completion of the transaction is subject to the receipt of required regulatory approvals and satisfaction or waiver of other customary closing conditions.
NEWS Gray’s comments come after NCFE launched two new Level 2 qualifications in Artificial Intelligence for the Workplace, designed around AI literacy, practical workplace use, ethics and responsible use, and critical evaluation. The focus on critical evaluation also reflects how workplace AI skills are being defined more widely. Skills England’s 2026 AI foundation skills for work benchmark includes responsible and ethical AI use, with workers expected to understand the risks of the technology, check AI-generated outputs for accuracy and know when to rely on their own judgement. Gray says AI is already changing work, often at the level of individual tasks rather than whole jobs. Organisations are using the technology to automate routine work and improve productivity, while new roles are emerging around areas such as AI strategy, governance and implementation. He also points to concerns that entry-level opportunities could be affected as AI takes on more foundational tasks, making the ability to adapt and keep developing new skills increasingly important. According to Gray, the challenge for employers and the skills system is preparing people for a workplace that is likely to keep changing, rather than trying to predict exactly what individual jobs will look like in future. He said: “We’re unlikely to predict exactly how every job will change. What we can do is make sure people have the skills to adapt as AI changes tasks and ways of working. “Curiosity, problem solving, critical thinking and adaptability are already important skills, but AI is making them even more important. People will need to keep learning and adjusting as the technology develops.” Rather than focusing solely on technical AI knowledge, Gray argues that workers need the human skills to make decisions about how and when the technology should be used. Gray added: “Formal training is important, but people also need the chance to explore AI tools, test ideas and learn from using them. “That practical experience can help build confidence while also showing where human judgement is still needed. As AI becomes part of more everyday tasks, that balance will become increasingly important.” More information on NCFE’s AI in the Workforce Level 2 qualifications is available here: https://www.ncfe.org.uk/adult-education-andtraining/digital/ai-in-the-workplace-level-2-qualifications/ Workers Need to Learn How to Question AI, Not Just How to Use It, Says Skills Expert Workers need to learn how to question and check AI-generated information rather than simply how to use AI tools, as new figures show AI use is becoming increasingly common across UK workplaces. Office for National Statistics figures show the proportion of UK businesses with 10 or more employees using AI has almost tripled since late 2023, rising from around 12% to 35%. The ONS also found that 55% of employed and self-employed people reported using AI for work or education. Just 11% of businesses with 10 or more employees reported that more than half of their workforce had received AI-related training. Gray Mytton, Assessment Innovation Manager at education charity NCFE, says knowing how to use AI will only be part of what workers need as the technology becomes more common across different jobs and industries. He says employees will also need the judgement to challenge AIgenerated information, recognise when something may be wrong and decide whether an output is appropriate to use. Gray said: “AI can process information at speed and scale, but it still relies on people to provide judgement, context and oversight. “Workers need to be able to challenge what AI gives them, interpret the information and decide whether it is accurate and appropriate. “That means technical familiarity with AI needs to sit alongside skills such as critical thinking and judgement. We need to develop those skills together rather than treating them as separate things.”
Feature 6 | Acquisition International, September 2025 ‘Incredibly Powerful, but Also Invasive’: Richard Yonck on Bringing Emotion AI into the Workplace Richard Yonck has spent decades examining how emerging technologies change business, work and human behaviour. The Founder and Lead Futurist of Intelligent Future Consulting, he is a bestselling author, former Computing and Artificial Intelligence Contributing Editor for The Futurist and an international technology speaker specialising in AI, strategic foresight and Emotion AI. His 2017 book, Heart of the Machine, examined the development and implications of artificial emotional intelligence. He later published Future Minds, tracing the evolution of intelligence and its possible future forms. In this exclusive interview with the AI Speakers Agency, Richard explains why businesses should use AI to augment employees, how spatial intelligence could change robotics and physical workplaces, and where Emotion AI creates serious privacy questions. He also sets out what leaders must change if AI adoption is to produce genuine transformation. Question 1. What must leaders understand before shifting from AI as a tool to AI as a collaborative partner? Richard Yonck: “My belief is that when it comes to any transformational technology, anything that’s really new and disruptive, invariably there’s a transition time. “It takes time for us to develop the new rules, the new playbook by which we utilise it. Whether we’re talking about the printing press, assembly lines or the computer, we tend to initially want to do things the way that we used to do it for an old process. “In fact, there are so many new ways and better ways to utilise the new technology to our benefit. “One of the biggest things when it comes to the new era of AI that we still have to get our head around is that we shouldn’t be using it to replace employees so much as to help augment them, make them able to work in a synergistic way that helps benefit both themselves and the business.” Question 2. How should leaders redesign work around AI to achieve transformation rather than incremental efficiency? Richard Yonck: “When we talk about how business and leadership are going to utilise and incorporate AI into their businesses, into their world, it’s, in my mind, less about a replacement technology. “This is much more of an augmentation engine. It’s something that we can utilise to move our processes forward in so many new ways in terms of how we are creative, how we develop strategy and how we collaborate. “Rather than thinking in the old terms, utilise it to make our businesses not just more efficient, but actually leap forward, to be able to transform and ideally get ahead of the rest of the competition.” Question 3. What is spatial intelligence, and how could it change the way AI and robotics operate in physical workplaces? Richard Yonck: “Spatial intelligence is something that is just coming online. Many people aren’t familiar with the term. It’s been referred to in a range of different ways: embodied intelligence and experiential intelligence. “We’ve had, for many years now, AI that has incrementally been getting better at being able to work with information, work with data. “This is a transformation from a system, a form of intelligence that not only interacts with our information, but actually understands our world. This is a big transition. “We’ve been moving through a period of generative AI that’s been based on text, on information that we’ve been pouring onto the internet for 30 years or more. “Many people believe that we’re coming to a ceiling for how far that can go. Others believe that it’s just a matter of keep scaling. “But when you talk to people like Fei-Fei Li of Stanford, who recently started World Labs, or Yann LeCun, who left Facebook AI Research to start AMI Labs, these are basically working towards building a form of spatial intelligence, having systems and AI be able to learn much more like human beings do. “When we are born, we don’t suddenly have information poured into us. We go out and explore the world. We learn how physics works. We learn how causality works, what we bump into and how we navigate through a space. “This could change how technology works with business. Rather than seeing our workflows, workspaces and processes in informational terms, we can actually visualise it and incorporate it much more the way that people do. “That’s powerful and essential if things like robots and cobots are going to work with employees in both a safe and efficient way.” Question 4. Where could emotion AI improve customer and employee experiences, and what privacy boundaries must leaders protect? Richard Yonck: “Emotion AI is a broad field, and it has so much potential for altering how we work and experience our environment and the world. “But it’s a mixed bag because, in many respects, this is technology that touches on the core aspect of what human beings are. Our emotions are one of the most central aspects of our experience. “Being able to recognise, understand and respond, utilising that information as an interface, is incredibly powerful, but it is also invasive. “When the initial research was being done, it was fascinating. There was so much potential. But then we start coming into an era where sensors and cameras in the environment and our information and data start becoming something that we have to be careful about, something we want to be held private in many respects. This exclusive interview with Richard Yonck was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.
September 2025, Acquisition International | 7 “It’s a real interesting edge that we have to walk in order to ensure that people are protected, but at the same time that we utilise this technology to benefit how we respond in the workplace, in all kinds of environments and in terms of marketing.” Question 5. How do you design a keynote so its insights translate into lasting value for the audience? Richard Yonck: “When I’m on stage, the thing that I want most is for the audience to have the outcome that the organisers initially wanted. “When I’m starting off with a project, I work with the clients and the organisers to co-create the space, the idea and the messages that we want to get across in order to fulfil what their planned outcomes are. “Many times, I’ll push it back a little and give them some other ideas from where they thought they were wanting to go, but ultimately this is their show. “What I want to come off that stage feeling is that people feel inspired. They feel informed. They feel that they have gotten something new that they didn’t have before they walked in there and that, ideally, they’re going to continue to talk about that for weeks or years to come.”
October 2026, Acquisition International | 8 acquisition international the voice of modern business - est. 2010 Delivering modern business content to your inbox Subscribe here to receive our digital magazine and newsletter every month to never miss an update.
October 2026, Acquisition International | 9 He said: “When customers come back to you with their next project, their next challenge, or their next opportunity, that says more than any written testimonial.” Continuous learning has been another constant throughout his career. As markets expand, technology advances, and customer expectations change, Sreejeeth believes leaders must be willing to evolve with them, without losing sight of the fundamentals. The next chapter of access is already taking shape as connected ecosystems, cloud platforms, AI, mobile technologies, and cybersecurity are rapidly changing how people think about physical access. Sreejeeth shared: “Technology will continue to change, but its value comes from solving real customer problems. My focus is to connect innovation with market needs and turn that connection into meaningful business outcomes.” His advice to future leaders is equally simple: keep learning, make decisions, don’t fear difficult periods, value the people around you, and own the outcome. For Sreejeeth, leadership is not measured only by how far you go but also how many people you enable to move forward with you. Recognised as Most Strategic Business Development Leader 2026 (Middle East & Africa) and Integrated Access Solutions Provider of the Year 2026 (Middle East & Africa), Sreejeeth Menon, Business Development Manager & Product Manager – MEA at dormakaba, represents a leadership journey built on technical knowledge, business insight, regional experience, and the determination to keep evolving. After more than 18 years, this recognition marks an important milestone. However, for Sreejeeth, the journey is far from finished. Contact: Sreejeeth Sreedharan Menon, Business Development Manager & Product Manager – MEA Company: dormakaba MEA Website: https://www.dormakaba.com/ Sreejeeth S. Menon | dormakaba MEA For Sreejeeth S. Menon, business development has never been simply about selling. It is about seeing opportunity early, connecting the right people and technology, and turning ideas into sustainable business. That approach has helped him build markets, develop strategic partnerships, and pursue multimillion-dollar opportunities across the MEA region. As Business Development Manager & Product Manager – MEA at dormakaba, a global leader in the access solutions market, Sreejeeth’s role sits at the intersection of technology, people, and opportunity. His journey began with a passion for electronics and a belief that technology should solve real problems. With qualifications in engineering and business management, he went on to work with products from global brands including Bosch, Philips, Tyco, and LG Electronics, before joining Allegion. In 2017, Sreejeeth joined dormakaba, initially focusing on hospitality solutions before expanding into business development for access control across the Middle East and Africa. Today, hospitality remains at the heart of his work, while his focus extends across healthcare, airports, data centres, and critical infrastructure. However, technology and commercial results tell only part of the story. Throughout his career, five values have shaped the way Sreejeeth leads: curiosity, courage, perseverance, gratitude, and accountability. Curiosity keeps him learning, courage helps him make difficult decisions, perseverance keeps him moving when the path gets tough, gratitude keeps him grounded, and accountability means standing behind every commitment and outcome. As Sreejeeth puts it: “Leadership is more than achieving numbers. Stay curious. Have the courage to decide. Persevere when things get difficult. Be grateful for the people who walk the journey with you. And above all, take ownership of what you promise and what you deliver.” Beyond his professional life, Sreejeeth is a cricket enthusiast who plays professional cricket in the UAE. He treasures time with his wife and their two children, a 12-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son. Family and cricket bring energy and perspective to his busy career. That sense of perspective carries into his work with customers, partners, and teams. He believes that being present, listening carefully, and staying involved when challenges arise builds trust, something far more valuable than a transaction. That trust has led to repeat relationships with major hotel chains and continued engagement across hospitality, airports, data centres, and other major institutions. For Sreejeeth, longstanding relationships with loyal customers are one of the strongest measures of success. For more than 18 years, Sreejeeth S. Menon has turned opportunities into growth across the Middle East and Africa. Today, as Business Development Manager & Product Manager – MEA at dormakaba, he has been recognised as Most Strategic Business Development Leader 2026 (Middle East & Africa) and Integrated Access Solutions Provider of the Year 2026 (Middle East & Africa). Behind the recognition is a journey built on technology, relationships, resilience, and a simple belief: real leadership creates value that lasts. 18 Years of Leadership in the Making
10 | Acquisition International, October 2026 PRIMEX: A Long Legacy of Growth, Development, and Resilience ased in Pasig City, Metro Manilla, PRIMEX is a leading international management consulting firm providing world-class technical, advisory, project management, and operational services in international development. The firm was established on 7th August 1989 by Ms. Elvira C. Ablaza, who led its strategic expansion for three decades as its Chief Executive Officer before assuming her current role as Founder and Chief Operating Officer. In its formative years, PRIMEX earned international distinction by administering and managing the Secretariat of the Canadian International Development Agency-funded Western Pacific Fisheries Consultative Committee from 1989 to 1995. This work fostered interregional cooperation between ASEAN and Pacific Island Nations, reinforcing the value of structured project execution and quality management. Over the years, this work has evolved from marine and natural resources management to full-service development consultancy. Today, PRIMEX’s sectoral specialisms span nine core development domains: (i) Agriculture and Natural Resources; (ii) Environment and Climate Change; (iii) Environmental and Social Safeguards; (iv) Coastal and Marine Resource Management; (v) Disaster Risk Reduction Management; (vi) Health, Education, Nutrition, and Social Protection; (viii) Transportation; (ix) Urban Development; Governance and Public Finance. Coastal and Marine Resource Management (CMRM) has become PRIMEX’s core sector, accounting for more than half of the company’s completed projects since its inception. In fact, PRIMEX is recognised as the only developing-country consulting firm to possess a distinct specialisation and strong track record in the planning and management of CMRM and fisheries projects across the Asia-Pacific region, offering essential ecosystem-based management, coastal zone planning, community-based resource management, and habitat protection. In less than four decades, PRIMEX has built a stellar reputation amongst international financing institutions, bilateral organisations, and government agencies in the Philippines and beyond. Globally recognized for its consistently strong performance in the planning, design, management, and evaluation of high-impact development projects, PRIMEX ranks fourth among Philippines-incorporated consulting firms doing business with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in both technical assistance and loan-funded projects from 2021 to 2025. On its 30th anniversary in August 2019, PRIMEX forged a Strategic Partnership with Oriental Consultants Global (OCG), a premier Japanese international engineering consultancy led by Chairman and President Ryohei Ishii. This was a landmark milestone rarely achieved by developing-nation funds, marking its successful entry into international competitive bidding. Today, PRIMEX has completed over 448 project assignments across 37 countries in Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Central and West Asia, and the Pacific Islands. With its proven track record of dependability, technical rigour, and unbroken contract completion record, PRIMEX is held in high regard by clients and peers across the industry. Major international financing institutions including ABD, World Bank, JICA, USAID, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), as well as national ministries across 37 countries, trust the company because it consistently delivers robust engineering designs, rigorous baseline evaluations, and sound project management. PRIMEX has 35 regular, full-time staff with expertise and experience across various sectors and throughout the different stages of the project cycle. This core team is further supported by an active consultant database comprising more than 2,000 registered international and national experts in fields including engineering, economics, public health, environmental safeguards, and financial analysis. The company’s passion for quality has been made possible by the four foundational precepts of client focus, people engagement, process approach, and evidence-based decision making, which govern all levels of the organisation. PRIMEX pairs these values with its ISO 9001:2015-certified Quality Management System, originally certified in August 2010 and recertified periodically ever since. This standard is actively embedded in daily field operations, peer reviews, and deliverable validation across all project locations. Such exceptionally high standards are maintained by dedicated people driving PRIMEX forward. Contact: Ana Celina Baluyut Company: Pacific Rim Innovation and Management Exponents, Inc. Web Address: www.primexinc.org A significant figure in the world of development consulting, Pacific Rim Innovation and Management Exponents (PRIMEX) has played an instrumental role in driving social, economic, and environmental development projects across the Asia-Pacific region. Earning a reputation of excellence among international financing institutions, the firm has 448 ongoing and completed projects for a wide range of public and private sector clients as of September 2026. We took a closer look at these outstanding operations below, as PRIMEX is named in the Leading Advisor Awards 2026. B
PRIMEX: A Long Legacy of Growth, Development, and Resilience
12 | Acquisition International, October 2026 Keeping People at the Heart of Employee Engagement Multiple award-winning Protostar Surveys and Development continues to impress with its highly personalised approach to employee engagement and 360-degree feedback. Alongside the excellent reviews it receives from clients, this year we were particularly interested in how Protostar is responding to the rapid rise of artificial intelligence – and why it believes some things are still better left to humans. We take a closer look as Protostar Surveys and Development is awarded the title of Leading Employee Engagement Consultancy of the Year 2026. Company: Protostar Surveys and Development Contact: Michael Coates Email: michael@protostar-uk.com Website: www.protostar-uk.com/employee-surveys LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/protostar-surveys-development Telephone: +44 (0) 191 3855455 While many competitors have embraced AI throughout their services, Protostar has taken a more considered approach. AI streamlines back-office systems, but when it comes to understanding what employees actually think and feel, humans remain firmly at the centre of the process. Quantitative survey data is analysed using tried-and-tested statistical software, while experienced consultants read and interpret employees’ free-text comments. Managing Director Michael Coates explains: “AI has its uses, and maybe one day it will be able to understand the full facets of human emotion, perception and behaviours that influence how engaged employees feel – but not yet.” We were impressed by the reasoning behind this approach. An employee writing, “It was great to hear about mass redundancies just before Christmas,” clearly means something very different from the literal words. Equally, an experienced consultant can distinguish between routine concerns about pay and comments carrying the emotion and anger associated with a genuinely serious problem. Protostar believes processes so intrinsically concerned with human feelings and behaviours should be supported by humans. However, that doesn’t mean creating more work for already busy HR teams. Its fully managed employee engagement survey service is designed to minimise the client’s workload. Protostar can undertake the analysis, communications and administration that would ordinarily fall to HR, including producing individual slide decks for senior managers covering results within their areas. Human expertise then comes back to the fore when deciding what happens next. Protostar’s consultants facilitate action planning and, while also drawing upon their experience across many organisations, advise managers on approaches that have proved successful in practice. Excellent client reviews continue to reinforce the value of this highly personal service. At a time when AI is increasingly presented as the solution to everything, we were particularly impressed by Protostar’s determination to use technology where it helps, while retaining human judgement where it matters most.
October 2026, Acquisition International | 13 Alexander Paykin: Making New York’s Complex Transactions Simple eople go to Paykin Law because they have something important at stake. It might be a business they have built, a property they own, or a dispute they cannot afford to lose. Whatever it is, they all trust Alexander and his firm to make the situation clear and help them to find a practical way out. Today, Paykin Law is the go-to firm for business and individuals across New York City, as well as in the Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, and Dutchess counties. The practice itself dates back to 2010, but it was 2015 that saw Alexander confidently go ahead with the kind of firm that he wanted to build, following a difficult partnership experience. Rebuilding Paykin Law from the ground up, Alexander made deliberate choices about the people he worked with, the standards he would uphold, and how he would serve clients. Today, more than a decade later, he has built a team he trusts and has systems in place that allow them to work effectively, wherever that work takes them. Guided by the belief that clients should feel as though the people handling their matter understand why it is important, the first question Alexander asks when taking on a case is what the client wants to accomplish. This may sound obvious, but it is easy for a dispute to take on a life of its own. Alexander and co. then assess all the evidence, available remedies, likely expenses, and what a useful outcome looks like. As the firm’s owner, Alexander also considers factors beyond the work itself, like collectability and relationships. Paykin Law’s rigorous upholding of an excellent client journey was reflected recently in the words of one satisfied individual, who described the team behind the firm as being “thorough, strategic, and completely committed to protecting my interests” in a published review. This testimonial, which also mentioned the client feeling informed and reassured as the team worked through his complex real estate transaction, means a great deal to Alexander, as legal proceedings can often leave people feeling as though they have lost control. The impact a great lawyer can have on a person’s life is something Alexander experienced firsthand at age nine. After his family fled the Soviet Union, they became stranded in Italy while awaiting approval to immigrate to the United States. Money was scarce, and Alexander washed windows at local businesses in exchange for pennies or food. His parents eventually scraped together enough to hire an attorney, and shortly afterward, their approval arrived. The experience left a lasting impression on Alexander and shaped his belief in the profound difference a lawyer can make in a person’s life. In high school, Alexander revived the school’s dormant mock trial team and served as its president for three years. Leading the team and competing in mock trials deepened his passion for law, particularly litigation. From there, his path toward a legal career became clear. Building Paykin Law has since allowed Alexander to extend his impact beyond the courtroom and into the broader community. Be it supporting veterans through General Needs, contributing to Brighter Tomorrows’ work with survivors of domestic violence, or mentoring young lawyers, these initiatives have been incredibly meaningful parts of Alexander’s life. They all go back to that feeling he remembers when his own family needed help, and being in a position where he can offer the same good-spirited support to others is a responsibility this lawyer takes seriously. As Alexander reflects on his recognition in this feature, he credits the huge role his team plays in the day-to-day running of this practice, even if a lot of what they do never makes it into an award announcement or a courtroom decision. Having built a place where these people support one another, care about the work, and are aligned with the wider mission of nurturing a firm that can support its clients and the community remains Alexander’s crowning achievement. We are delighted to celebrate this and more through this recognition. Details of Paykin Law’s practice can be found at the link below. Contact: Alexander Paykin Company: Paykin Law Web Address: https://www.paykinlaw.net/ Based in Manhattan and Queens, Paykin Law delivers the resources and focused attention of a firm built around serving complex, high-stakes commercial litigation, real estate, and business transactions. The esteemed firm is headed up by Alexander Paykin, and as Alexander is named the Leading Complex Transaction Lawyer of the Year 2026 – New York, we caught up with this impassioned award winner for more on his journey and what sets his namesake firm apart in New York’s bustling legal sphere. P
14 | Acquisition International, October 2026 Driving Operational Success Across Global Markets ince its inception in 2019, MMF Global Trading has worked hard to establish itself as a one-stop-shop for all raw material needs. The company has earned its stellar reputation for undertaking the distribution of raw materials for construction projects, chemicals needed for the agricultural sector, and industrial chemicals, prioritising safety and efficiency across its import and export operations. The company has established a strong client base comprised predominantly of end-users, manufacturers, and traders, with each new business partnership built upon a symbiotic foundation; as its clients grow in their respective fields and expand through vertical integration, MMF Global Trading grows alongside them by helping them source the raw materials they need for their expanding operations. At the helm of this mission stands Kumanaruban Rasiah, whose visionary leadership has shaped MMF Global Trading’s exponential growth through the years. Rasiah encourages his team to think beyond traditional boundaries, an approach that has led to the development of cuttingedge solutions tailored to the individual needs of clientele across a wide range of industries, from consumer goods to industrial supplies. One of MMF Global Trading’s core areas of focus is polymers, with a product range that encompasses four of the most versatile products within this field. Having began with PVC resin, a polymer primarily used in thermoplastics, the company also trades in PET resin, used in food and beverage packaging; low-density polyethene (LDPE), found in plastic bags and sheets; and high-density polyethene (HDPE), used in plastic bottles, piping, geomembranes, plastic lumber, and outdoor furniture. In the field of industrial chemicals, MMF Global Trading distributes melamine, found in dinnerware, laminates, flooring, and insulation; calcium chloride, often used for de-icing, dust control, food processing, refrigeration brines, and industrial drying; caustic soda, a highly corrosive white solid used widely in industry and household cleaning; and soda ash, in both its light and dense forms, used for various applications within detergents, cleaning, and textile processing. For clients across the construction industry, MMF Global Trading imports and exports a wide array of raw construction materials. Whether distributing plywood or white wood, steel products or tiles, Plaster of Paris or gypsum board, the company has made a name for delivering these products with unrivalled speed and precision, ensuring that every project can commence without delay. This can also be said for MMF Global Trading’s portfolio of fertilisers, which is an area the company has made efforts to strengthen in recent years. This portfolio includes urea, sulphur, sulphuric acid, phosphate, DAP, and NPK, which is a blend of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). In ensuring the safe and secure distribution of these fertilisers, MMF Global Trading’s services drive the agriculture sector forward. In less than a decade, MMF Global Trading has successfully cemented its position as a trusted partner to a wide range of established entities around the world. Leveraging its remarkable record of impeccable services, the company has formed essential partnerships with esteemed organisations such as the UAE’s International Chamber of Commerce, the Dubai Chamber, and the Institute of Export and International Trade, as well as the Singapore Business Council. MMF Global Trading has earned significant applause through the years, with both Rasiah and his team recognised for their exceptional work. This includes recognition at Acquisition International Magazine’s Business Excellence Awards for five consecutive years, named the UAE’s Best Industrial Raw Materials Importer 2021, the Best Industrial Chemical Supplier 2022 and 2023, and the Best Polymer Trader in 2024 and 2025. This is paired with further success in MEA Markets Magazine’s MEA Business Awards for two consecutive years, when MMF Global Trading was named the UAE’s Best Construction and Agriculture Chemicals Exporter 2021 and the UAE’s Polymers Exporters of the Year 2022. MEA Markets Magazine also recognised Kumanaruban Rasiah in the Middle East CEO of the Year Awards, naming him Dubai’s Industrial Chemicals Trading CEO of the Year in 2023 and the UAE’s Industrial Chemicals CEO of the Year in 2024. Now, we at Acquisition International Magazine are delighted to announce MMF Global Trading has been named the UAE’s Polymer Trader of the Year 2026. The worldwide distribution of raw materials and chemicals is a complex landscape that serves as the backbone of the entire world’s economy. Essential materials such as polymers, chemicals, and agricultural products form the foundation of many crucial sectors, and their safe and efficient distribution is paramount to global operations. Today, we explored the services of MMF Global Trading, a leader in import and export, following its recent recognition in the Global Excellence Awards 2026. S
October 2026, Acquisition International | 15 This feeds into how Navesink measures success, which is the same way its clients do. Gontran explained: “We ask whether the expert made a complex fact pattern clear enough for a judge or jury to rule on, and whether the same firm calls us back for the next matter.” The focus is on word-of-mouth referrals and quality work rather than marketing, because reputation is what builds an expert practice over the long term. As the numerous unsolicited testimonials from its clients show, Navesink certainly achieves this. One client wrote: “We’ve turned to Navesink on multiple occasions, and their analyses were accurate, thorough, and withstood rigorous scrutiny by our colleagues and adversaries.” What makes this all the more impressive is that every single case the firm takes on is a unique and complex task, requiring senior-level (if not insider) knowledge. Building on this specialist knowledge, which spans hedge funds, investments, trading, and risk, Navesink has expanded beyond its original core of derivatives and complex securities over the last two years. This expansion includes adding expert capacity across products and asset classes, as well as the various support functions serving market participants, and now introducing expertise in the areas of enforcement and fraud. Strategically, its capabilities are growing in response to client requests and the wider market shifts it has identified. To this end, Gontran told us: “We are skating to where the puck is going, not where it is. We meet our clients’ needs today and will be ready to meet them tomorrow.” As new technologies are introduced that shape the future of this space, Navesink recognizes that it must strike a balance between using them to reach and serve clients better and preserving its founding principles. Its sister company, Pyrite Risk Experts, supports this through research and development and is progressively rolling out new technology in hedge fund analysis and due diligence. In a way, all of this adds up to a new chapter for Navesink, which also plans to develop its online presence after initially holding back because its experts were being poached. The introduction of the Market Insights Driving Complex Litigation newsletter is a great example of this, and Gontran has lost count of the number of compliments he has received from readers on the ideas it highlights. It is one more way the firm serves its clients and adapts to a changing market. Recognized in our 2026 Global Excellence Awards as the Best Financial Markets Expert Witness Firm 2026 – USA, Navesink International lives up to its claim of being the home of the best experts. Gontran hopes readers will contact him directly to query the team’s expertise, or maybe simply sign up for the firm’s newsletter. Contact: Gontran de Quillacq Company: Navesink International Email : GdeQuillacq@NavesinkInternational.com Web Address: navesinkinternational.com Specialist Expert Witness Services for Financial Markets While its practice area is intentionally narrow, covering only issues related to financial markets within the securities industry, Navesink International more than makes up for it in technical knowledge and capability. This is reflected in the fact that its founder and first group of experts are traders and risk managers, individuals whose careers are tested every day by the accuracy of their knowledge. Decades of navigating this challenge have made them deeply knowledgeable and cautious experts in their niches, qualities that their clients look to leverage. “Every one of Navesink’s experts is an industry practitioner, duly tested by their career, most often still practicing, and recommended by their peers. No exceptions.” Cooperating with brand-name legal consulting firms that reach out to it when they need advanced or highly niche expertise, Navesink works on technical and high-stakes cases and is sometimes approached by both sides of the same dispute. If the team ever feels it lacks the expertise needed for a particular case and does not know someone who has it, it will not hesitate to turn the case down, choosing instead to preserve the quality of the service delivered to its clients. Navesink International is the premier expert witness firm for financial markets. Based in Fair Haven, NJ, its team supports prominent law firms, legal consulting firms, and attorneys across the US in analyzing, explaining, and winning complex cases, providing expert witnesses of the highest quality with outstanding technical knowledge. As Navesink is once again named Best Financial Markets Expert Witness Firm this year, Gontran de Quillacq, managing partner and one of its expert witnesses, caught up with us to share more. Navesink International
16 | Acquisition International, October 2026 Sales Transformation Consultancy of the Year 2026 – UK Countless SMEs have real value to offer but can struggle to communicate it well enough to win the business they deserve. They lose out, and so do the customers who would have benefited. Built on decades of direct sales experience, Spear Sales has earned a strong reputation for helping businesses across the UK compete, reach their targets faster and grow. Recently named the UK’s Sales Transformation Consultancy of the Year 2026, its founder Alex Henneberg told us more. Contact: Alex Henneberg Company: Spear Sales Consulting Web Address: www.spear-sales.com “I so often hear the same frustrations from SME sellers and business founders. They know their product inside out and can see exactly how it helps their customers, but they find it hard to turn that knowledge into a sale, because nobody ever taught them how. So leads are difficult to find, deals drag on, contract values get squeezed and win rates drop. The worst part is the hit to their confidence; they start to doubt the product, when the real problem is how it’s being sold.” So says Alex Henneberg, founder of Spear Sales. He is clear that anyone with the right attitude and work ethic can sell, provided they are given the right training and coaching. Across a 30-year career leading complex B2B sales for Microsoft, BT, CenturyLink and Siemens, Alex has helped win over £1 billion of business. He has distilled that experience into the S.P.E.A.R. Sales Operating System, which combines proven sales methodologies with his own tools and frameworks, applied selectively according to the type of organisation, the nature of the sale and where the customer is in their buying journey. What sets the approach apart is the 1:1 coaching built on that foundation: SME sellers and founders learn the methods, hear real-life examples of them in action, then apply them in their own live deals. Alex’s methods have helped organisations double their average sales values and achieve win rates of over 60%. “My clients include SME sellers pursuing £100k+ opportunities and founders chasing smaller deals who do most of the selling themselves,” Alex told us. “And it’s the sales skills gap that costs them deals they should be winning, and costs their customers the benefits they’d have gained.” To close that gap, the system is built around five pillars, each with its own sub-framework to make it practical, measurable and repeatable. The first, Strategy, sets direction and defines how a business wins, using the G.R.I.P. Model to clarify who it targets, what it offers and how it competes. The second, Plan, is supported by the S.P.R.I.N.G. Management sub-system. It creates the sales structure, processes, recruitment plans and management rhythm needed for consistent, scalable performance, aligned to how customers buy. Third is Engage, which sits at the heart of the system and is supported by the other four pillars. Its P.L.A.N.N.E.D. Pursuit Playbook gives sellers a repeatable method for progressing B2B deals from first contact to delivery through seven stages: Prepare, Lead Generation, Assess, Nurture, Negotiate, Execute and Develop. It turns the idea that “every deal is different” into a disciplined, winning sales motion. Qualification alone can transform results: a recent report found well-qualified deals won 6.3 times more often than poorly qualified ones (a 50% win rate against 8%) and closed 21.6% faster. The fourth pillar, Assist, equips sellers through the T.A.C.T. Toolkit: Technology, such as CRM, AI and automation; Assets, including playbooks, battlecards and templates; Coaching in skills, performance and mindset; and proven sales Techniques. Coaching makes a measurable difference: sellers coached regularly hit quota over 70% of the time, against less than 50% for those coached irregularly or not at all. Finally, Refine is driven by the Feedback L.O.O.P. Orchestrator: Learn, Orchestrate, Optimise and Progress. Teams learn from wins and losses, align sales and delivery, optimise processes and tools, and track the KPIs that show progress, so the sales function gets stronger with every deal. Over the past year, Alex has turned what was once his personal sales playbook into a structured, repeatable system for any business. The focus now is growth: making it accessible to even more SME sellers and founders, with tools and frameworks they can keep using long after the coaching ends. With Spear Sales named the UK’s Sales Transformation Consultancy of the Year 2026, Alex is clear about what comes next: “Longer term, I want Spear Sales to be the default answer for SME sales leaders, entrepreneurs and founders who believe passionately in the value their business provides, but feel they are underperforming on sales and don’t know how to identify or address the root cause.” Where do your own sales strengths and gaps lie? You can find out by taking Spear Sales’ free Sales Persona assessment, which identifies your selling style and the next steps to raise your win rate, by scanning the QR code below.
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