Director, M&A Origination

Director, M&A Origination

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 Director, M&A Origination, you will build and own the acquisition funnel—sourcing proprietary opportunities, cultivating intermediary relationships, and putting actionable deals in front of the investment team that we would never have seen otherwise.

In your first 6–12 months, success means a living, data-driven pipeline with measurable coverage across our target markets, a growing network of bankers and advisors who call you first, and at least one proprietary opportunity advancing toward close. You will work in partnership with our existing Director of Origination, dividing coverage across channels and categories while reporting directly into senior leadership.

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

• Build and maintain the acquisition funnel end to end—map the universe of target companies across our focus markets, keep coverage current, and ensure no relevant business transacts without CSC knowing about it.
• Segment the target universe, run structured outreach cadences, and sustain relationships across multi-year cultivation cycles.
• Maintain pipeline discipline and reporting—coverage, conversion, activity, and relationship status—so the entire team can see the state of the market without asking.

• Originate proprietary opportunities by engaging directly with owners, founders, and management teams before a formal process exists.
• Own and expand the intermediary network across investment banks, brokers, lenders, specialty-finance firms, and restructuring advisors so CSC is the first call when an asset comes to market.
• Leverage modern sourcing platforms (Deal Cloud, Grata, Sourcescrub, Affinity, Apollo, or equivalents) and AI tooling to extend coverage beyond what manual effort alone can reach.

• Screen opportunities against investment criteria, build the initial commercial case, and make a clear recommendation on whether to pursue or pass.
• Remain the relationship owner through close on deals you originate—step into the deal process wherever you add leverage while keeping origination as your primary focus.

• Represent CSC credibly with owners, boards, and advisors—articulate what we do with acquired businesses, how we treat teams, and why our offers hold.
• Manage referral and external advisor networks so sourcing capacity scales faster than headcount.

Required Qualifications

• 6–10 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.
• Demonstrable track record of sourcing transactions that closed—proprietary or limited-process deals you personally found, cultivated, and advanced.
• Established relationships across bankers, brokers, lenders, and advisors in the middle market, with the standing to open doors on your own name.
• Investing acumen sufficient to size a business, read a capital structure, and form a view on whether an opportunity is worth pursuing.
• Proven ability to build a funnel from scratch—constructing the target universe, segmenting it, running outreach, and sustaining relationships across long cultivation cycles.
• Fluency with sourcing and CRM platforms (Deal Cloud, Grata, Sourcescrub, Affinity, Apollo, or…