Perspectives on the leadership challenges specific to private equity: executive hiring and fit, management team risk, investment transitions, execution velocity, and the conditions that determine whether capable teams deliver or drift.
Ten stages for hiring a senior executive well. The first four, defining success, establishing capability, testing track record and triangulating references, are the ones a sophisticated Talent function already runs. The remaining six, from behaviour under pressure to the first ninety days, are where the appointment is actually decided. Written for the people who own senior hiring in-house.
Read the guideEvery consequential senior appointment has to answer two questions: can this person do the job, and will this person work here, with this CEO, in this team, under this plan? Most selection processes answer only the first, and it is the second on which most senior hires turn.
Read articleThe CEO relationship is where senior hires most often break. Assessing the pairing before the offer needs evidence of the CEO's pattern under pressure, the candidate's pattern, and what happens at the moments when the two meet.
Read articleReferences and psychometrics answer whether an executive can do the job. Due diligence on a senior hire also has to answer whether they will work in this company, with this CEO, under this plan, when the pressure arrives.
Read articleA new executive joins a CEO with a settled pattern under pressure, a leadership team in a particular state, and a value-creation plan with a timetable. Assessing the appointment means reading all three before the offer.
Read articleEvery engagement produces reports, roadmaps, and sessions. But one page gets printed, pinned up, and pulled out in board meetings months later: the pressure map, a single evidenced view of where a leadership team goes when the stakes rise, individually and collectively. Here is why we believe nothing else shows what it shows.
Read articleBy the final stage of a senior hire, every candidate can do the job. The differences that will decide whether the hire succeeds are precisely the ones the process cannot see. Senior hires fail under pressure, in the working relationship. Both are assessable before the offer.
Read articleIn Olympic sport, we made a very clear distinction: training environment skills versus arena skills. An athlete could dominate in training and look exceptional in preparation. But that told us very little about how they would perform when it actually counted.
Read articleMost PE due diligence assesses individual leadership competence. Very few assess how the leadership team functions as a collective system under the specific pressures of PE ownership. This gap is where value creation plans stall.
Read articleThe first 100 days after a PE investment sets the trajectory for the entire hold period. Teams that define the new chapter cleanly, align around what winning now looks like, and restore execution pace create a compounding advantage.
Read articleSpeed of decision-making is the single most visible indicator of leadership team health in PE-backed environments. When it slows, value creation stalls. The causes are rarely what boards assume.
Read articleA new CEO in a PE-backed business has a narrower window and higher stakes than almost any other leadership transition. The cost of a slow start compounds against the hold period clock.
Read articleIn the final year of a hold period, the leadership team becomes part of the product. Buyers are assessing management depth, autonomy, and the ability to sustain performance without the outgoing PE sponsor.
Read articleWe work with a select number of PE-backed leadership teams at any one time. If leadership performance is the lever, let's talk.
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