Head of M&A

Head of M&A

Milan · Full-time, on-site · Italian required

Why Livia exists

Italians have put everything into their homes: the savings of two generations, their identity, their children's future. No country loves the home more. And no country administers it worse.

Most of us live in a condominium. You can track a €10 pizza in real time on your phone, but your building's €200,000 budget disappears once a year into an unreadable PDF. You call, and nobody answers. The leak becomes a stain, and the stain becomes a dispute. In the end, nobody is accountable.

The real monopolist in this market isn't any administrator. It's resignation: "tanto è così." Livia exists to revoke this mandate.

What we're building

Livia is building the operating system for residential living, and we are running it ourselves.

We don't sell software to administrators. We are the administrator, and we build the technology that powers us from the ground up. That lets us make promises no one else in the market makes: every euro visible in real time, no kickbacks from contractors, an answer within one hour on emergencies, and a full refund if a building isn't satisfied in the first year.

Underneath, we're building something harder to see: the deepest context layer on Italian buildings. Every repair request, contractor job, assembly decision, and resident conversation becomes structured knowledge. The better the context, the better the AI; the better the AI, the more buildings run proactively rather than reactively. That compounding context is our moat.

But property management is a trust business, and AI can't take responsibility. So our administrators become what they should always have been: dedicated people who know their buildings, run assemblies well, and put their name on every decision, while software handles the groundwork.

We're backed by Italian Founders Fund, Vento, 2100, and leading Italian families and angels. The market has thousands of fragmented firms and no reference company yet. We intend to become the alternative and fix the world's oldest asset class.

Why M&A is at the heart of Livia

Condominium administration in Italy is one of the most fragmented service markets in Europe. Thousands of firms, most of them run by a single administrator, many of whom are approaching retirement with no successor, no exit, and a lifetime of relationships they don't want to abandon.

That's our opportunity and our responsibility. We grow by integrating these firms: welcoming their teams, honouring the trust they've built with their buildings, and giving them the processes and technology to serve those buildings better. Every firm that joins Livia is a step toward the reference company this market has never had.

The Role

As Head of M&A, you'll own Livia's acquisition engine from first conversation to fully integrated firm. You'll work directly with our founders, Alessandro and Matthias, and you'll be the person who turns a handful of deals into a repeatable machine.

That means doing the deals yourself at first: finding the firms, earning the trust of their owners, structuring and negotiating the transaction, running due diligence with our lawyers, and making sure the integration actually works. Then professionalising all of it, so that deal twenty is faster, cleaner, and better than deal two.

As the pace grows, you'll build and lead the M&A team, including bringing M&A legal expertise in-house. The role is designed for someone who wants to build one of the defining roll-ups in Italy, not just close transactions.

How We Work

We're a team of internationals and Italians who left, built careers at some of the world's fastest-growing startups and unicorns, and came back. We brought that playbook home: high standards, fast decisions, and radical ownership.

We believe Milan can become a startup ecosystem that rivals London, Paris, or Berlin, and we intend to help build it. That means proving that a world-class company can be built here, with homegrown and international talent, in one of the most traditional industries in the country.

Here's what that looks like day to day:

• We move fast. Decisions take days, not months. A promising target identified on Monday can have a first meeting by Thursday.

• We hold a high bar. We expect excellent work, and we tell each other directly when something falls short, including the founders.

• We own outcomes, not signings. A closed deal isn't the finish line; an integrated firm whose buildings are happier than before is.

• We work hard, on purpose. Building a category-defining company takes real commitment, especially in these early years. We protect what matters (health, rest, the people you love), but we won't pretend this is an easy job.

We're looking for people who want to do their life's work. If that's not you right now, that's completely fine. It just means Livia isn't the right place for you.

What You'll Work On

• Origination. Map the market firm by firm, build and prioritise the pipeline, and create the channels that bring sellers to us: direct outreach, professional associations, accountants, notaries, and word of mouth from administrators who already joined.

• Winning the seller. Most of our sellers have never sold anything. They've built their firm over decades and care deeply about their clients and staff. You'll earn their trust, understand what they actually want (succession, continuity, a role, liquidity, a share of future results), and design a deal that works for them and for Livia.

• Structuring and negotiation. Value firms, design deal structures (asset or share deals, earn-outs, revenue sharing, transition roles, non-competes), and negotiate terms alongside the founders.

• Due diligence and execution. Run the full process: LOI, due diligence (financial, legal, tax, operational, and on the building mandates themselves), SPA and ancillary agreements, signing, and closing, working closely with our external M&A lawyers and advisors.

• Post-merger integration. Own the integration: transferring mandates and bank accounts, migrating data onto our platform, bringing staff into Livia, and making sure every building experiences the change as an upgrade, with no interruptions and no lost trust. Measure retention and learn from every integration.

• Professionalising the engine. Build the templates, playbooks, valuation models, checklists, and data room standards that make each deal faster and less risky than the last. Work with engineering to automate what can be automated.

• Building the team. Hire and lead the M&A team as volume grows, including bringing an M&A lawyer in-house and deciding what stays with external counsel.

• New markets. Evaluate adjacent fragmented markets around the home and new cities in Italy, and build the case for where Livia goes next.

Examples of what you might own in your first months

• Closing and integrating our next administration firms, from first coffee with the owner to the first assemblies under Livia

• The standard deal package: LOI, term sheet, SPA templates, and a seller-friendly explanation of how joining Livia works

• A valuation model and due diligence checklist tailored to condominium administration

• The integration playbook that tells everyone at Livia what happens in the 90 days after signing

• A ranked map of the Milan market and a pipeline strong enough to sustain a steady deal cadence

Who We're Looking For

• Deal experience in small and mid-caps. Several years executing transactions in the Italian small and mid-cap market, in M&A advisory, private equity, a search fund, corporate development, or a buy-and-build platform. You know the standard M&A process end to end and have run due diligence yourself.

• Service industries. Experience with Italian service businesses (professional services, healthcare, facility management, or similar) is a big plus. Experience in real estate is a strong plus, but not required.

• Seller empathy and persuasion. You can sit across from a 65-year-old founder, understand what their firm means to them, and convince them that Livia is the right home for it. You're as comfortable in a family business as in a boardroom.

• Structuring and financial rigour. You build solid valuation models, understand earn-outs and deferred considerations, and know where risk hides in a small company's accounts.

• Legal fluency. You're not a lawyer, but you read SPAs comfortably, know what matters in reps, warranties, indemnities, and non-competes, and work efficiently with counsel.

• Integration mindset. You care as much about what happens after closing as before. You know that most roll-ups fail in integration, not in negotiation.

• Builder of systems and teams. You turn one-off work into templates and processes, and you want to build and lead a team.

• Autonomy and precision. You carry complex processes from start to finish with minimal supervision, and the details are right.

• Clear communication. Sharp writing and a calm, credible presence with sellers, lawyers, investors, and our own team.

• Language. Fluent Italian and English, spoken and written.

• Technical aptitude. AI is core to how we work, so we expect you to use it daily, from screening to due diligence.

We care more about the deals you've done and how you did them than about titles. Tell us about the transactions you're proudest of, and what you learned from the ones that didn't close.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary growing with your responsibility, plus a performance component tied to deals closed and integrated

• Equity for everyone: you become a co-owner, so the value you build is yours too

• Full access: to the numbers, the decisions, the board, and the rooms where things happen

• Real ownership from month one, and the mandate to build and lead the M&A function

• Flexible vacation and working hours

• Learning: free books and a budget for courses and conferences, as an attendee or speaker

• Wellbeing: a budget for therapy, if and when you need it

• Daily meal vouchers and a generous transport allowance

• €500 bonus if you move within a 20-minute walk of the office

We hire people, not roles

If this excites you but you don't tick every box, apply anyway.

Hiring Process

1. Apply: just your CV and two lines about yourself (a short list of deals you worked on helps)

2. Intro call with the team (~30 min)

3. Case: evaluate a real acquisition opportunity and walk us through how you'd win, structure, and integrate it

4. Meet the team at our office in Milan, and some of our investors

5. Trial days: three paid days with us working on a live deal

6. Offer and welcome

We aim to complete the process within 2 weeks.

This role is for people who want their work to matter, and to build a company that changes an entire industry. If that's you, we'd love to meet you.