Dealmakers of the Year Finalist: Melissa Kalka, Kirkland & Ellis
Melissa Kalka was named a finalist for “Dealmakers of the Year” as part of Texas Lawyer's Texas Legal Awards, and participated in this Q&A.
Melissa Kalka, partner with Kirkland & Ellis, is among the finalists for Texas Lawyer's 2025 Dealmakers of the Year Award. Read a Q&A with her below.
How do you stay ahead of the curve in a competitive market, especially when managing high-stakes transactions?
One of Kirkland’s value-adds is that the firm has a deep bench full of talented attorneys that are all rowing in the same direction and communicating regularly. This helps immensely when it comes to finding and building the right team for a deal and allows you to manage multiple high-stake transactions with the time and attention that they require. M&A deals, especially in sectors that are seeing rapid changes, require the ability to stay on top of multiple moving parts, and having the right team is crucial.
I also find that it is incredibly important to stay up to date on the market through various publications and analyst reports. I make it a point every morning to try to read something that will improve my market knowledge in some way.
What trends in the market do you foresee having the greatest impact on dealmaking in the coming years?
I don’t think that it’s a secret that the digital infrastructure space has been growing almost parabolically. We have done a lot of the transformative transactions in this space in the last few years. I believe the digital infrastructure space will continue to be incredibly active and dynamic, requiring creative solutions for capital and power solutions. Companies are investing billions of dollars in order to power the future and looking at a project scale that we have never seen before. To be able to advise your client in the digital infra space requires you to stay current on market trends and not be afraid to borrow from other disciplines and industries to find solutions. Compared to other industries, it is so dynamic that if the market and mousetraps to solve problems evolves that it requires its advisers to continuously challenge what is market and stay on top of trends.
As the story of new technology and artificial intelligence continues to unfold, I believe that the rapid changes in these areas will drive much of the M&A and financing activities in Texas. Kirkland has made a lot of investments to prepare for the future, and I am excited to be part of the team here and to see what is next.
