Executive: Larry A. Haas is an experienced CEO, successful PE-backed executive, and the founder of Global Aperture, a management consulting firm specializing in helping organizations improve and transform to achieve their strategic goals. He is the author of SOS to ROI: A Strategic Approach to Conquer the Complexity Monster and Accelerate Results. Haas has significant experience leading turnarounds both inside and outside of the PE space. As an interim executive, consultant, and speaker, Haas’s work has spanned a cross-section of functional areas in industries such as aerospace and defense, agriculture, services, transportation, corrections, food and beverage, homeland security, and non-profit organizations.
Challenge: Leading a turnaround in a PE-backed company is high-stakes and fast-moving. Executives are under pressure to act quickly, but moving too fast without understanding the business can cause more harm than good.
Solution: Successful turnarounds follow a deliberate progression: stabilize the business, then strengthen internal structures and systems, and only then begin to scale. This three-phase approach ensures leaders build a solid foundation before pursuing growth.
Stepping into a PE-backed executive role often means inheriting challenges. Some are visible from the outset — declining margins, missed targets, operational disarray — while others emerge only after the transition, such as a founder who struggles to step back or a misaligned, unempowered culture. Even if a company looks stable on paper, it’s essential to have turnaround tools in your arsenal from day one.
In today’s environment of longer hold periods, tariff-related distress, dealmaking uncertainty, mounting dry powder, and hesitant M&A, every PE-bac...