By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.

To speak at an M&A or private equity conference, pitch a specific session to the committee that builds the program, months before the agenda goes public. Most panels are assembled by volunteer dealmakers from people and topics they already have in mind, so the operators who get on stage are the ones the committee hears from between events, not just when a form opens.

Here is the scene. You open the conference app on the flight to Vegas and scroll the agenda. The lower middle market add on panel has a moderator from a firm you know and three panelists. You have closed more add ons than two of them. You never pitched. Nobody asked. By the time you saw the topic, it had been locked for five months.

I look at this the way I look at matchmaking. A panel is an introduction problem. Somebody on a committee needs the right three people, and they pick from whoever is front of mind.

Who actually builds the program

M&A conference programs are mostly built by committees of practitioners, not by event staff.

ACG chapters say this plainly. ACG Wisconsin’s Programs Committee “meets quarterly via conference call to determine program content, audience development, and speaker selection.” ACG Boston’s Speaker Committee describes itself as “a resource for ideas” on content and speakers, and asks its members to bring “connections to potential high caliber speakers.” DealMAX publishes its 2027 committee, a chair from Capstone Partners and 16 members from banks, funds and advisory firms. M&A Source runs its conferences with a conference committee chair each year.

Read the Boston line again. The committee’s job is to turn its own connections into speakers. That is the whole game. When a committee member sits on the quarterly call and someone says “we need a panelist on quality of earnings for searchers,” the names that come up are the ones that member has talked to lately.

The doors that exist, and where they open

There are three ways onto an M&A stage. Know which one you are using.

1. The public call. Some events post one. Verify the current page before you plan around it.

• The IBBA 2027 conference, May 21 to 23 in Orlando, has workshop submissions open through November 13.
• The AM&AA 2027 Winter Conference has a Speaker Interest Form. It says it is looking for “qualified industry experts to join our general sessions and breakout discussions,” and a representative follows up.
• ACG Atlanta asks members to email the chapter “if you have a content or speaker idea you would like us to explore.”

2. The committee. ACG’s DealMAX, May 3 to 5, 2027 at ARIA in Las Vegas, does not show a public call for speakers on its site or its FAQ as of this writing. When there is no form, the committee is the door. Most chapter events work the same way.

3. The sponsorship. Covered below. It is a real door and it is clearly labeled.

The timing matters more than the door. IBBA closes submissions in November for a May conference. Chapter committees plan by quarter. If you are reading the published agenda, you are already pitching for next year.

Pitch a session, not a bio

Committees are not looking for speakers. They are looking for a full panel on a topic their members will show up for. Here is how I would make their job smaller:

• Name the session. “What lenders are actually asking searchers in diligence right now” beats “I’d love to speak on M&A.”
• Bring the panel. Offer two other panelists and a moderator who fit, ideally from different seats at the table: a lender, an intermediary, an operator. You just solved the committee’s hardest problem. This is where your network earns stage time, and it is the part I would lean on hardest. It is matchmaking with a microphone.
• Show what is current. A deal you closed this year, a pattern you saw across your last ten LOIs, a market shift your audience is living through. Committees want what is true now.
• Keep it to one screen. Title, three bullets, who else is on it, why you. Committee members read this on their phone between calls, same as you.

Do that a few times and you stop being an applicant. You become someone the committee calls when it has a topic and no panel.

Sponsor slots versus earned slots

Some stage time is sold. That is not a scandal, it is how chapters fund themselves, and the price list is often public.

ACG South Florida’s 2025 sponsorship guide is a clean example. The $5,000 Platinum event sponsorship includes a “Speaking/Moderator opportunity,” with the chapter reserving “the right of the final decision.” The $2,500 Gold level gets opening remarks and an introduction of the topic. The $10,000 Platinum annual sponsorship includes the “opportunity to play a key role in developing program content and speaker/panel selection.”

So the honest tradeoff:

• A sponsored slot is guaranteed and fast. The room knows it was bought, and you usually get one seat, not the topic you wanted.
• An earned slot takes longer and carries more weight. You were picked by peers, and a committee that liked you once has every reason to ask again.
• The annual sponsor seat on programming is the interesting one. It buys you a voice in who else gets picked, which means panelists start owing you a call.

Plenty of firms do both: sponsor for a seat this cycle, earn the committees that matter next.

Staying front of mind with organizers

Most operators send the form, then go quiet until next year’s call. The committee meets four times in between.

The organizer and committee relationships run on a calendar. Here is how I would work it:

• The week after the event. Text the committee chair and the staff contact before you text anyone else. One line on a session that worked and one topic their members kept raising in the hallway. Almost nobody sends it. Put them at the top of your list, the same way you rank everyone else in who to follow up with first after a conference.
• Before their planning call. Committees that meet quarterly are open to ideas a few weeks before each call. A short note with a session idea and two names lands while the agenda is still soft.
• When you see them on the circuit. The same committee members are at the ACG chapter breakfast, the IBBA conference and the dinner the night before DealMAX. Each time is a reason to follow up afterward.
• When you send them someone. A speaker who fits, a sponsor, a member. Log it. An organizer who got a great panelist from you remembers who sent them. If you track intros at all, these belong on the same intro ledger.

Podcasts work on a different rhythm, with one host booking weekly instead of a committee planning by quarter. That playbook is in how to get booked on podcasts and panels.

Why it slips

You know the committee chair. You met two of the members at the last event. You meant to send the chair that hallway topic. Then you were in diligence for six weeks, flew to two other conferences, and the next time you thought about it the agenda was live.

Nothing about this is hard. It is just easy to lose 15 committee members inside 800 contacts and four live deals.

The system that remembers the committee

I built FRONT OF MIND for exactly this kind of slip. It opens on your 10 minutes for today. When you met an organizer at an event 9 days ago and never followed up, they show up with that reason. When a committee member posts about the agenda they are building, you see it, and posts are only shown once confirmed to belong to that person. When a chair you used to talk to is going cold, that shows up before the planning call, not after.

Every person comes with a drafted text style message, 40 words max, in your voice. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits. Ask Liala out loud, “who do I know on an ACG committee” or “who do I know that could moderate a panel on add ons,” and get the right people with why. Intros to make this week show up with dated proof on both sides, so the panelist you promised an organizer actually gets introduced.

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