The global private equity (PE) market is re-emerging with opportunity after a subdued 2024 and the post-boom slowdown of 2021-22. Deal activity is set to accelerate, driven by lower capital costs, increased fund availability, and a backlog of portfolio companies seeking exits after delays in recent years.
As the landscape shifts, traditional approaches to value creation and talent acquisition are evolving. Longer holding periods and operational complexities mean that beyond leverage and expanding multiples, revenue growth and margin improvement are now critical drivers of the internal rate of return (IRR).
This shift demands new leadership skills and experience among those that lead portfolio companies. In particular, this requires broader competencies for C-suite roles, especially CEOs, moving beyond the traditional focus on finance-sector candidates. With more PE-owned firms than ever, the pool of experienced executives is increasingly stretched.
Finding the right leadership at the right time is paramount, as the quality of portfolio company management is commonly viewed as one of the key determining factors in the relative success or failure of any investment deal. Having the wrong leadership in place can come with a heavy price. PE firms rely on both executive search and in-house talent teams to recruit leaders, define role-specific capabilities, and align leadership with strategic goals.
Leadership teams offer more than operational value; their networks of senior business contacts are strategic assets. These connections facilitate commercial opportunities, enhance recruitment through warm introductions and due diligence, and even support deal sourcing and closures. In today’s PE environment, strong leadership isn’t just about running companies—it’s about driving growth and creating value at every level.
Finding the right leadership at the right time is paramount, as the quality of portfolio company management is commonly viewed as one of the key determining factors in the relative success or failure of any investment deal. Having the wrong leadership in place can come with a heavy price.
Altrata’s Portfolio Company Talent 2025 – the second edition powered by BoardEx data – analyses the leadership teams of portfolio companies in five major markets: the US, the UK, Canada, Germany and France. The research encompasses all of the C-suite roles, with a focus on the thousands of current chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs), the key decision-makers with responsibility for implementing a PE firm’s investment strategy to its successful conclusion.
This report begins with an overview of developments in the global PE industry and, highlighting a more positive outlook heading into 2025, discusses the impact on talent recruitment and the pivotal role of leadership teams in the specialized environment of PE-owned firms. The report discusses the large number of connections that most senior C-suite executives have to people in leadership positions in general, and the wider benefits these bring to the PE firm itself, aiding recruitment, due diligence efforts and facilitating business development.
Drawing on BoardEx’s extensive database, the report examines the key characteristics of portfolio company leadership teams, such as age and gender profile, the time the members spend in their respective roles and the share of internal and external appointments, also detailing how these characteristics have changed over the past decade.
One key insight within Portfolio Company Talent 2025 is that 87% of US portfolio firm execs previously worked in tech, business services or financial services. Some 54% of US portfolio company leadership team executives have previously held a senior position in the tech sector, followed by 30% and 25% in business services or financial services respectively.
Other key insights explored within Portfolio Company Talent 2025 include:
- Around 70% of current leadership team members (and 80% of CMOs) at US portfolio companies were external appointments. The respective shares for the UK are slightly lower but follow the same trend. This stands in contrast to publicly listed companies (small cap and especially large corporates), which lean towards internal hires for senior executive roles (60-70% are internal appointments).
- Most US portfolio company CFOs and CEOs have experience of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Among CFOs, 62% have buyer-side experience and 63% have seller/target experience.
- Almost a quarter of today’s US portfolio company CFOs have experience taking a company to public launch. This is double the share among CFOs at listed firms on the S&P SmallCap 600, and four times higher than those at S&P 500 companies
- Some 70% of current portfolio company CEOs in the US have previously held that position at another firm, with the respective share rising to 93% in the case of portfolio company CFOs.
Altrata’s Portfolio Company Talent 2025 offers a unique insight into the group of senior executives who lead and steer these companies, making it an essential read for firms looking to make the most of their talent management and acquisition strategies.
Download the latest Portfolio Company Talent report for in-depth analysis of the current trends of leadership teams of today’s portfolio companies.
Methodology
This report was based on analysis from Altrata’s BoardEx, using its unique and proprietary Global Leadership Database, which covers board and non-board members, C-suite executives, senior leaders and professional advisers. The database contains more than 2.4 million profiles of public, private and not-for-profit organizations and the 1.8 million people who work for them.
For our analysis, we studied the individuals who make up the current leadership teams at portfolio companies across five major markets in North America and Europe: the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and France. To ensure we examined the most up-to-date set of portfolio companies, we restricted our criteria to those that had received at least one round of PE investment since 2018. In total, our research encompasses almost 12,000 companies and 55,000 individuals. In addition, we also studied the leadership teams at portfolio companies in the US and UK in the year 2014, using the same criteria of having received at least one round of PE investment in the previous seven years.
All BoardEx data is collected from credible, published sources and cannot be edited by users. Our data is powered by a team of skilled analysts, who research, verify and maintain these profiles. Data details include current and historical roles (with start and end dates) for board positions, employment and education.
About the author
Maya Imberg is the Head of Thought Leadership and Analytics at Altrata. She is responsible for spearheading the company’s thought leadership efforts and overseeing its analytics and predictive modeling services commissioned by clients. She joined Altrata’s Wealth-X in 2016 as Director of Custom Research responsible for secondary research, data analytics and branded content. Maya has over fifteen years of experience in research, spanning market research, macroeconomics and financial services. Prior to joining Wealth-X, Maya held a variety of consultant and economist roles at the Economist Intelligence Unit and spent a number of years working for Datamonitor’s Financial Services practice. Maya holds an undergraduate and MSc degree in economics and comparative politics from the University of Pennsylvania and London School of Economics respectively.