The Succession Risk Gap in Private Equity Diligence
Sponsors routinely underwrite financial and operational risk with rigor, yet they routinely accept vague, subjective narratives regarding leadership continuity. This creates a deep asymmetry in modern private equity transactions. Significant capital is spent auditing historical balance sheets and customer concentration while leaving execution risk completely unmeasured. In our executive search practice, Cowen Partners Executive Search
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What Private Equity Gets Wrong About Executive Hiring (And How to Fix It)
Featuring expertise from Maxwell Salazar, Salazar Leadership Advisory — Maxwell Salazar is a business psychologist who helps private equity firms make better leadership bets. He evaluates C-suite leaders, surfaces culture and execution risk, and gives investors the clarity to hire, align, and support the people who drive value creation. The CFO had an MBA from
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The Importance of a General Counsel in a Private Equity Portfolio Company
Private equity portfolio companies operate in highly demanding environments where growth expectations, operational transformation, regulatory scrutiny, and transaction activity often move at accelerated speeds. As a result, legal leadership has become increasingly important within PE-backed organizations. Modern General Counsels are no longer viewed solely as legal advisors responsible for contracts and compliance. Today’s in-house legal
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What Private Equity Really Wants in a CFO (and Why Big-Company Experience Can Miss the Mark)
Private equity CFO hires are often misunderstood. Boards see a candidate with Fortune 500 experience, a prestigious MBA, and a track record at a recognizable brand, and end up assuming they’ve found their finance leader. Six months later, the hire is drowning, the portfolio company is missing targets, and the sponsor is questioning everything. The
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The Leadership Crunch Behind Private Equity’s Stalled Exits
By Shawn Cole, President & Founder — Shawn Cole is a nationally recognized authority on CEO recruiting. His insights regularly appear in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and other leading publications, delivering nuanced and critical analysis on executive recruitment, succession planning, enterprise transformation, and the evolving demands of
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Patient Capital, Permanent Value: The Family Office Advantage in a PE Slowdown
By Jacob Gamble, Principal — Jacob Gamble leads executive searches in investment banking, family offices, and asset management. His analysis has been featured in Fortune, Financial Times, Bloomberg Wealth, Business Insider, and other leading publications, delivering valuable insights on legacy preservation, aggressive growth, family offices, and topics at the intersection of investment, institutional strategy, and
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Why Family Offices Are Choosing Direct Investments Over Private Equity Funds
By Jacob Gamble, Principal — Jacob Gamble leads executive searches in investment banking, family offices, and asset management. His analysis has been featured in Fortune, Financial Times, Bloomberg Wealth, Business Insider, and other leading publications, delivering valuable insights on legacy preservation, aggressive growth, family offices, and topics at the intersection of investment, institutional strategy, and
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Leadership in Family Offices: Where Private Equity Expertise Meets Long-Term Legacy
By Jacob Gamble, Principal — Jacob Gamble leads executive searches in investment banking, family offices, and asset management. His analysis has been featured in Fortune, Financial Times, Bloomberg Wealth, Business Insider, and other leading publications, delivering valuable insights on legacy preservation, aggressive growth, family offices, and topics at the intersection of investment, institutional strategy, and
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The New CFO Playbook: Navigating Private Equity’s Transformed Landscape
By Walker Stadler, Director of Executive Search — Walker Stadler is a trusted advisor to high-growth companies and private equity firms, recruiting financial executives and operational leaders who drive scale. His work spans finance, manufacturing, distribution, technology, complex organizational design, succession planning, and talent strategy. Picture this: You’re a CFO, and your company just got
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Why PE-Backed Companies Should Obsess Over the CFO Seat
All private equity executives know that the most important aspect of any PE-backed venture is value creation. While all of the members of the C-suite and board play a vital role in actively improving portfolio companies, there is one role that is particularly critical to achieving higher returns: the CFO. A portfolio company’s CFO takes
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