Planning Your Next Private Equity-Backed Career Move

Balancing your career expectations with private equity’s demands can be a challenge. As you navigate your career path, you’ll need to understand:  

• How to evaluate opportunities based on your prior experience 
• Why and how to diligence for the right opportunity
• What your priorities are in terms of your next role, including the compensation package 
• The preferred career trajectories for PE-backed executives

What Most Private Equity Sponsors Look For

Understanding the sponsor’s view on ideal career progression is key for securing your next role. Sponsors typically look for three overarching characteristics in your career history: 

1. Job Stability: Firms want executives who will lead them to a liquidity event. Backgrounds that include short stints create uncertainty that an executive will go the distance to grow the company. While there are compelling reasons to leave roles, think carefully before accepting new roles without staying through at least one exit or jumping to numerous non PE-backed roles without at least 5 years of solid experience at different companies. This could hurt your trajectory and subsequently damage your reputation, particularly if you left a PE-backed role without seeing your equity through to exit. Sponsors will want to understand why a major component of your compensation package was disregarded. 

2. Early Career Corporate Expertise: Sponsors want to see candidates who bring with them robust skills developed at larger, successful compa...