Private Equity Value Creation Podcast

On this episode, Karl Sahyoun, Operating Director and Head of Data and Analytics at Bregal Milestone, joins Shiv Narayanan to explain why robust data infrastructure is a priority in the first year after every deal—and what it unlocks once it's in place. Learn what a pre-deal data workshop should uncover and why integrating existing systems and fixing CRM hygiene often matter more than new tools. T...

On this episode, Jean Idé, Partner at Linzor Capital Partners, offers an inside view of mid-market private equity in Spanish-speaking Latin America, where rising purchasing power creates room for organic growth and deals often come from local networks and relationships. Learn why diligence in these markets often means rebuilding revenue from the cash, how governance and long-term incentives help f...

On this episode, Alex Slusky, Founder and Managing Director at Vector Capital, breaks down how to diagnose the most impactful growth lever for software businesses, whether that's cost discipline and margin expansion for a mature, sticky asset, or a rigorous focus on winning use cases for a growth asset. Plus, hear how existing customer relationships and proprietary data can become a defensible AI...

In this episode, Adam Waglay, CEO and Co-Founder at Butterfly Equity, explains why food is an attractive sector for private equity, and why B2B enablers like ingredients and packaging offer a way to play consumer trends without betting on a single brand. Hear how a dedicated transformation team embeds operators inside portfolio companies, how the playbook differs across three business models and w...

On this episode, John Dickie, Partner and Co-Head of Private Equity at HighVista Strategies, explains how HighVista evaluates the lower middle market managers it backs. Learn what separates the managers LPs back fund after fund from the rest, the role fund size plays in that decision and the conversations that show whether a value creation playbook holds up in practice. Hear how a sharp slowdown i...

On this episode, Taylor McKinley and Chris Cassidy, partners on the investment and growth teams at Mainsail Partners, break down how 40-plus operators and a deal team work as one. Learn why engaging companies a year or more before investing helps win deals and how operating support gets factored into the investment thesis and diligence. Hear why companies at $5–10 million of ARR need practical hel...

On this episode, Shiv Narayanan, Founder & CEO at How To SaaS, explains how AI platforms have changed the way buyers research and make purchase decisions, why being invisible to AI is a business continuity risk and what you can do about it. Learn how platforms decide which vendors make a buyer's shortlist, why gated content works against you and why what customers say about you carries more we...

On this episode, Blair Garrou, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Mercury Fund, details the Mercury Method—a post-investment approach that borrows from private equity to lower loss ratios in early-stage venture. Learn how a 100-point operational hygiene audit surfaces the most urgent risks and how fractional executives fill weak functions until they hire their own replacements. Hear how an in-hous...

On this episode, Jon Lange, Managing Director at THL Partners, unpacks how private equity firms decide when and how much operational support to deploy into a portfolio company, and why that decision is never one-size-fits-all. Learn why the old software moat no longer holds up on its own, and what still makes a company defensible in an AI-native market. Then learn how AI is already automating work...

On this episode, Jim Toth, Managing Partner at Riverside Acceleration Capital, discusses how an in-house operating team works with portfolio companies to drive growth. Learn how pattern recognition across hundreds of companies helps identify who's ready to scale, how tracking over 100 data points on every company can reveal which growth investments move the needle and why a structured, benchmarked...

On this episode, Doyl Burkett, Managing Partner and Founder at Integrity Growth Partners, joins the show to talk AI-native deal sourcing. Learn how a two-person team can out-source firms ten times its size, and where that same system gets pointed once a company is in the portfolio. Learn how to filter investments for AI risk using a simple framework of defensible moats, and see why the lower middl...

On this episode, Jesse Bendit, Principal at Apax Digital, joins the show to unpack how a private equity firm builds and funds a 30-person internal operating team without letting it become bloated. Learn why a pull model beats a push model for utilization, how staying concentrated in 15 to 20 investments per fund lets a small team build real sector depth, and how that depth shows up during diligenc...

On this episode, Dustin Ackerman, Managing Director at Future Standard, joins Shiv Narayanan to discuss secondaries and backing GPs, including how to turn existing sponsor relationships into a steady investment pipeline. Learn why focusing on portcos under $1 billion in enterprise value can mean less competition on price, cleaner cap structures and clearer exit paths, and how the GARP framework—gr...

On this episode, Mike Esposito, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner at Franchise Equity Partners, unpacks why multi-unit franchise investing has stayed an underserved niche in private equity, and what it takes to underwrite these deals well. Learn how box economics—margins, rent and store format—separate the franchise brands worth backing from the ones that aren't, and why new-unit development, not...

On this episode, Shiv Narayanan, Founder and CEO of How To SaaS, breaks down how to approach international and regional expansion as a growth lever, and why the first question you should be asking is: are we already capturing everything available in the markets we're in today? Learn how to weigh the risk and investment required to expand geographically against other ways to grow, and why the right...

On this episode, Stephen Gold, Chief Value Creation Officer at Ethos Capital, unpacks how value creation in portcos changes when investment partners are also operators and put personal capital into each deal, and how removing a formal investment committee shifts how decisions are made. Hear about a four-step scoring process to help prioritize initiatives as well as an evaluation framework for deal...

On this episode, Alex Abell, Managing Partner at RCP Advisors, explains how fund of funds investors evaluate lower middle market managers—and why fund-level benchmarking alone fails to surface which GPs are genuinely creating value. Hear how deal-level data can validate or challenge the narrative a manager pitches, why a strong return in a single deal means little without peer context and how oper...

On this episode, Bob Root, Transformation Partner at Southfield Capital, discusses how to find and accelerate growth in services businesses that have been underserved by technology. Learn how deal teams evaluate growth options before close, choosing between regional expansion and adjacent-service extensions based on what a management team can realistically execute, and why trust with the existing...

On this episode, Sequoya Borgman, Founder and CEO of Borgman Capital, discusses buying and holding family and founder-led businesses in manufacturing, industrials and other legacy industries. Learn why leverage—not growth—often drives returns in these deals, and why hold periods can stretch decades rather than the typical PE fund cycle. Hear how culture gets set early in a business, why profession...

On this episode, Mike Magliochetti, Operating Partner at Riverside Partners, shares what it means to be a deeply engaged operating partner—and why he believes the role has to go far beyond an advisory or check-in function to add real value to portfolio companies. Learn what separates high-impact operating partners from the rest, what it takes to build trust and transparency with founding teams, an...

On this episode, Jackie Joelson, Head of Private Equity and Venture Capital at Oracle NetSuite, joins Shiv to break down how a dedicated PE technology practice took shape, and why ERP has become one of the established levers sponsors pull inside their portfolio companies. Learn how buy-and-build roll-ups, sponsor-backed carve-outs and decades-old legacy systems each demand a different approach to...

On this episode, Ian Ross, Partner at Concentric Equity Partners, discusses how a family office-private equity hybrid changes the economics of lower middle market investing. Learn why fund-cycle pressure pushes firms to sell their best companies early, and how removing that pressure supports a feed-the-winners strategy that keeps reinvesting in businesses as they grow, using growth, multiple arbit...

On this episode, Ari Landsberg, Managing Director at 17 Capital, explains how NAV lending works as a flexible, fund-level capital tool for private equity managers—and why demand has been driven by opportunity rather than stress. Hear how NAV facilities fit alongside traditional portfolio company debt, subscription lines and continuation vehicles across the fund lifecycle. Learn how 17 Capital unde...

On this episode, Jonathon Ferguson, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Ashgrove Capital, explains how bespoke financing solutions for B2B software differ fundamentally from both direct lending and venture debt—and why underwriting on conviction rather than exit optionality changes how you structure a deal. Hear how to think about valuing a software business as a lender, why proprietary data sets a...

On this episode, Jonty Yamisha, CEO of Axxonsoft, draws on a career that has spanned private equity underwriting, operating partner roles and the CEO seat to explain what gets lost when investors and operators don't speak the same language—and how to close that gap. Hear how the "what needs to be true" reframe transforms a top-down financial mandate into a shared problem-solving conversation, and...