The Wrong Experience Can Slow a PE-Backed Business Down
One of the biggest people challenges in private equity is bringing experienced leaders into businesses where the structure around them is still evolving.
On paper, the hire can look perfect.
Strong company names.
Senior titles.
Large teams.
A track record of delivering results.
But PE-backed businesses test something different.
Can that person deliver without mature systems, clean data, clear ownership, and established processes in place?
Can they introduce structure without slowing the business down?
Can they make decisions while the foundations are still being built?
Can they move between strategy and execution without waiting for everything to be perfect?
There is a big difference between operating within a well-built system and building one while the business is still running.
Knowing best practice does not mean you can build it
Many experienced leaders know what good looks like.
They have worked inside established operating models with clear roles, specialist teams, mature technology and reliable reporting.
They can explain best practice.
But they may never have had to build it.
That difference becomes clear when they enter a business where:
Data cannot yet answer every question.
Processes vary by team or individual.
Ownership overlaps.
Technology does not join up.
Reporting is heavily manual.
Priorities continue to move.
The company still needs to hit its numbers while changing.
You cannot stop a PE-backed business, rebuild it and then press play again.
The machine has to keep running while parts of it are being fixed.
That requires a different type of experience.
When experience becomes a constraint
The risk is not necessarily that the person lacks capability.
It is that they apply the wrong level of structure for the business's stage.
Too much governance
A leader arrives and introduces more meetings, more reporting, more approvals and more layers of sign-off.
The intention is usually sensible. Create control and improve visibility.
But the outcome can be slower decisions and less accountability.
People spend more time servicing governance than resolving the issues the governance was created to address.
PE-backed businesses need control.
But governance should speed up good decisions, not become another reason decisions cannot be made.
Over-engineering the answer
It is easy to design the perfect end state.
The complete operating model.
The ideal organisational structure.
The fully integrated technology stack.
The comprehensive reporting suite.
The challenge is whether the business needs, or can absorb, all of that now.
Over-engineering creates cost, dependency and complexity before the value has been demonstrated.
The strongest operators do not build the most sophisticated solution.
They build what the business needs next.
Waiting for certainty
In more mature organisations, leaders may be used to robust analysis, established reporting and clearly defined decision processes.
Those foundations may not exist in a PE-backed scale-up or turnaround.
The CRM may not be trusted.
Product data may be incomplete.
Finance and GTM reporting may tell different stories.
Roles may still be changing.
Waiting for every answer can mean no meaningful decision is made.
Good PE operators distinguish between decisions that genuinely require more evidence and decisions where the business needs to move, test and adjust.
Copying an operating model from somewhere else
What worked in a global enterprise will not automatically work in a smaller, evolving SaaS business.
The resources are different.
The management layers are different.
The systems are different.
The maturity is different.
The investment thesis is different.
You can bring the principles.
You cannot simply copy and paste the model.
Staying too far from execution
Some experienced leaders have spent years operating through large teams and specialist functions.
They set direction, and other people translate it into delivery.
That can become a problem in a lean PE-backed business.
There may be no transformation office, large operations function or dedicated team ready to pick up the recommendation.
You may need to diagnose the problem, design the approach, build the first version, test it with teams and personally help get it moving.
A strategy deck is not execution.
And execution is what ultimately moves enterprise value.
What I learned moving into less structured environments
The biggest shift for me was not learning a new framework.
It was changing how I operated.
Moving from more established organisations into startup, scale-up and PE-backed environments forced me to challenge some of the habits that work well in mature businesses but can create drag in evolving ones.
The discipline still mattered.
The structure still mattered.
The need for strong controls still mattered.
But they had to be applied differently.
The focus moved from designing the perfect model to creating enough clarity and structure to help the business move forward.
Here are the practical lessons I took from that shift.
Start with the commercial constraint
It is tempting to arrive with a target operating model, a transformation framework, or a long list of best practices.
But the business does not need another framework.
It needs its most important problems solved.
Start with:
What is stopping growth?
Where is revenue leaking?
What is putting retention at risk?
Where is cost scaling faster than value?
What is creating customer friction?
What is slowing decisions?
Where does execution depend on individuals rather than on repeatable capability?
This keeps the work connected to the investment thesis and prevents transformation becoming a collection of disconnected initiatives.
The question is not what could be improved.
It is what needs to be improved first.
Build the minimum viable structure
PE-backed businesses need discipline.
But they do not need unnecessary bureaucracy.
The goal should be to introduce the minimum structure required to improve performance.
Enough structure to:
Clarify ownership.
Speed up decisions.
Improve predictability.
Reduce risk.
Create repeatable execution.
Support scale.
That might mean:
One clear weekly operating rhythm rather than several governance forums.
A one-page playbook rather than a lengthy process manual.
A small number of outcome measures rather than a dashboard full of activity.
Clear decision rights rather than another approval layer.
A controlled pilot rather than a company-wide launch.
A fit-for-now process with a clear route to scale.
The objective is not to make the business appear more mature. It is to improve its performance.
Separate principles from process
One of the most useful lessons is understanding what should remain consistent and what should be adapted.
The principle might be strong.
The process used elsewhere may not be.
For example:
The principle is clear accountability.
That does not mean every decision needs a committee.
The principle is good governance.
That does not mean adding more reporting.
The principle is customer value.
That does not mean copying another company’s Customer Success model.
The principle is predictable growth.
That does not mean importing a complex enterprise sales process into a business that is not ready for it.
Strong operators preserve the principle while adapting the execution.
Make decisions with the evidence available
Operating without perfect data does not mean operating without discipline.
It means being clear about:
What is known.
What is assumed.
What risk is being accepted.
How the decision will be tested.
What evidence would cause the direction to change.
Not every decision needs months of analysis.
Some need a short experiment.
Others need a clear leadership call.
A major part of operating effectively in PE is knowing which is which.
The cost of delay can be as damaging as the cost of a poor decision.
Design for adoption, not presentation
A solution can look excellent in a board pack and still fail in the business.
The real test is whether teams can understand it, use it and repeat it.
Before introducing a new process or operating model, ask:
Is ownership obvious?
Is the process simple enough to follow?
Does it fit the team's capacity?
Does the technology support it?
Can the business measure whether it is working?
Does it remove friction or add more?
Will leaders reinforce it consistently?
If the people responsible for execution cannot use it, it is not finished.
Stay close to the work
In leaner environments, leadership cannot sit too far away from execution.
You need to be willing to move between strategic direction and operational detail.
That could mean reviewing the operating model with the leadership team, then working directly with teams to map the process, understand the data, or test the first version.
This is not micromanagement.
It is how you make sure the solution reflects how the business actually operates.
The closer you stay to execution, the quicker you spot where theory and reality have separated.
Do not scale inconsistency
One of the biggest risks in growing businesses is automating or scaling processes that are not yet stable.
More technology does not fix unclear ownership.
Automation does not fix poor process.
AI does not fix inconsistent data.
Hiring more people does not fix a broken operating model.
Before scaling, simplify.
Before automating, standardise.
Before adding governance, clarify the decision.
Before investing in technology, understand the workflow.
Otherwise, the business simply scales the problem faster.
Know what not to introduce
Good transformation is not only about what gets added.
It is also about what is deliberately left out.
Not every problem needs a new role.
Not every gap needs a new system.
Not every decision needs more governance.
Not every team needs a fully documented process.
Not every best practice is relevant to the current stage.
Restraint matters.
The best operators understand the long-term destination but only introduce what the business can absorb and use now.
Connect every change to value
Transformation can easily become a list of projects.
New systems.
New processes.
New roles.
New reporting.
But those are inputs.
The real question is what they improve.
Revenue.
Retention.
Margin.
Cash.
Risk.
Customer value.
Execution speed.
Enterprise value.
If a new process does not improve speed, quality, cost or predictability, why is it being introduced?
If a technology investment does not release capacity or improve the customer experience, why is it being made?
If governance does not improve decision-making, why does it exist?
Structure is not the outcome.
Better business performance is.
Hire for the stage, not just the CV
I am a big believer that experience alone is not enough.
It has to be relevant to the stage of the business.
A strong corporate leader may struggle in an environment where they need to create the first version themselves.
A brilliant startup operator may struggle when the business needs stronger controls, clearer accountability and more predictable execution.
Neither is automatically better.
The question is what the business needs now and what it will need next.
Boards and leadership teams should look beyond job titles, company brands and headline results.
Ask:
What did the person personally build?
What did they inherit?
What infrastructure existed around them?
How did they operate when the data was unreliable?
How did they make decisions without full certainty?
What did they simplify?
What did they decide not to introduce?
How did they balance pace with control?
Where did they personally step into execution?
How did their actions improve revenue, retention, margin or risk?
Those questions reveal whether someone created the outcome or operated within a system that was already capable of delivering it.
The person also needs to assess the fit
This is not only a hiring risk for the business.
It is also a risk for the person accepting the role.
Before moving into a PE-backed environment, leaders should be honest with themselves.
Are you comfortable working without perfect information?
Can you operate without a large support structure?
Can you build the first version rather than only approve it?
Can you introduce discipline without creating bureaucracy?
Can you challenge what exists without dismissing why it developed?
Can you work at board level and still go deep enough to unblock execution?
Can you accept that the right answer for today may not be the final answer?
Most importantly, are you comfortable being measured on outcomes rather than the sophistication of the work produced?
The move into PE is not simply a change in company size.
It is a change in operating style.
Final thought
PE-backed businesses do not just need experienced people.
They need people whose experience fits the stage, investment thesis and execution challenge in front of them.
People who can take the discipline learned in larger organisations without importing the bureaucracy.
People who can create structure without over-engineering.
People who can make decisions as the foundations evolve.
People who understand when to build, when to fix, when to scale and when to leave something alone.
Some leaders are excellent at running a mature machine.
Others can build and repair one while it is already moving.
The mistake is assuming those are the same skill.
If you want someone who’s actually delivered this inside PE/VC-backed SaaS companies — let’s connect 🚀
