The First 100 Days: De-Risking the Investment Thesis Through Leadership

Written By Beecher Reagan Advisors

Welcome to Searchlight—a briefing on executive leadership trends and insights shaping the future of professional services and private equity, presented by Beecher Reagan and Kinavic Leadership Acceleration. 

Together, Beecher Reagan and Kinavic form a strategic talent platform that helps leading professional services and private equity firms identify, select, and accelerate the performance of executive talent to enable growth.

Recent Executive Searches We've Completed

Chief Financial Officer | PE-Backed Global Consulting Firm

A PE sponsor retained Beecher Reagan to recruit a CFO for its $375M global consulting platform with dual UK and US headquarters. The mandate required a sitting CFO with proven professional services experience, PE portfolio exposure, and the ability to scale finance operations globally. Four qualified finalists delivered; the placed CFO brought the full profile and is driving accelerated expansion in partnership with the sponsor.

VP Transformation | PE-Backed Tech-Enabled Services

A lower-middle-market PE sponsor partnered with Beecher Reagan to recruit a Vice President of Transformation at its largest and fastest-growing portfolio company. The role was tasked with executing a high-impact value creation plan across operations, go-to-market, M&A integration, and technology. The placed leader brought consulting rigor and prior in-house PE transformation experience and has since been promoted to Senior Vice President.

Chief Growth Officer | PE Backed Tax, Accounting & Advisory Firm

A PE-backed national tax, accounting, and advisory firm engaged Beecher Reagan to recruit its first-ever Chief Growth Officer, a newly added senior leadership team role with a mandate to sustain double-digit growth across business development, marketing, and revenue operations. Three finalists advanced from a slate of seven; the placed CGO had previously doubled revenue per headcount at a Big Four peer

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PRIVATE EQUITY Executive Talent Trends & Insights

The First 100 Days: De-Risking the Investment Thesis Through Leadership

Written by Scott Ratliff, Partner, Beecher Reagan

Leadership decisions account for 20 to 40% of MOIC. In a people business — consulting, business services, tech services — it's almost certainly higher. The talent is the product.

Let's say you just closed and bought the asset. The first 100 days are where the investment thesis gets de-risked from a leadership standpoint — or doesn't. The foundation you set in this window dictates every quarter of compounding that follows: execution velocity, hire alignment, value creation cadence, and the credibility of the exit story.

Get it right and the thesis starts paying down its own risk. Get it wrong and you spend the next 12 months trying to undo it. Here's how we're seeing the sophisticated funds approach leadership in the first 100 days: Get the CEO decision right first and before close, then fill the rest of the key leadership seats that will deliver the value creation plan and set up the exit.

The CEO sets the foundation.

Every leadership decision starts with one question: Is the sitting CEO the right person to deliver the value creation plan? You need to know the answer before you close. Wait until Day 1 and you've lost the quarter.

Double down on the CEO call during diligence. Run the assessment of the sitting CEO (our colleagues at Kinavic Leadership Acceleration are doing this for a fund right now) to determine if they are the right one to execute the investment thesis. It's not just about what they've accomplished; it's about how they perform under pressure and if they have the traits and abilities to deliver on a new mandate.

If the answer is a change, it's smart to engage an executive search firm before close, not to start a search, but to scope the role and understand the market.

A few moves we're seeing funds use during diligence:

  • Bring board advisors in early. A credible operating chair stress-tests the thesis, helps get the deal closed, and steers the asset on Day 1. This may even end up being your interim CEO or potential future CEO. Even if not, the VCP keeps moving while the permanent search runs once the deal is closed.

  • Scope the search and map the market. Engage a search firm at LOI — not to start the search, but to scope it and map the candidate pool. When the wire hits, the search activates on Day 1 instead of Month 4. Valuable time saved.

  • Don't run other searches until the CEO is settled. Every C-suite seat scoped against the wrong CEO is rework. Slow down to speed up and make sure you get the CEO hire done before starting any other leadership searches.

From there, the platform build forks two ways:

Path A — CEO is right. Move faster. You could hire the PE-grade CFO and COO in parallel, then the other critical seats depending on the play — CPO, CRO, Head of Delivery, sector leads, whatever the VCP requires. In a people business, the CPO and Head of Delivery are value-creation seats, not back office.

Path B — CEO isn't right. CEO first in the first 100 days, then build behind them — CFO and COO, then the rest of the leadership team scoped to the new CEO and the VCP. Every hire made before the CEO lands gets re-litigated inside of 30 days. You pay twice and lose two quarters of compounding. The interim chair keeps the VCP moving in the meantime.

Either way, the candidate scorecards get built against the value creation plan, not titles. It's about finding the right operators who can run the specific plays that will drive value. Sometimes that's a proven "been there, done that" candidate. Sometimes it's someone who hasn't proven it, but has the necessary skill sets and experience to deliver in the role.

The last lever is coaching. My experiences playing professional lacrosse showed me that the most talented players I played alongside were also the most coached. Sponsors will spend real money to find the right executive and almost nothing to help them succeed once they're in the seat. The funds investing on both sides compound in a way the others don't.

That's what we're seeing funds do in the first 100 days to use leadership as a way to de-risk the investment thesis. If you want to compare notes or talk through any part of this, send me a reply or message.

— Scott Ratliff, Managing Partner, Beecher Reagan

References

Together, Beecher Reagan and Kinavic form a strategic talent platform that helps leading professional services and private equity firms identify, select, and accelerate the performance of executive talent to enable growth.

Whenever you're ready, here's how we can help your organization:

Get in touch with a Beecher Reagan Partner today to discuss identifying and hiring your next resilient leader to navigate disruption and drive growth.

Contact Kinavic Leadership Acceleration to discuss how to predict and accelerate the performance of your Partners and executive leadership.

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