Private Equity (PE) firms are under constant pressure to deliver returns for their investors, often relying on acquiring businesses where they can bring their expertise to bear in areas like operations and strategy. However, finding the right executives to lead these businesses through transformational change and steer them towards sustainable success can be a challenge.
We’ve often been engaged by PE organisations to help them appoint the best talent post-acquisition. So we’ve explored the three key benefits of using Executive Search in post-acquisition scenarios and the role it plays in unlocking the full value potential for Private Equity firms.
1. Appointing the Right Leadership
Leadership is crucial for any business but is especially critical for companies in transition. Post-acquisition, newly acquired businesses face a variety of challenges and opportunities. Finding the right leader is essential, as this person must have a deep understanding of both the acquired business and the goals of the PE organisation.
The person responsible for leading a newly acquired company should have the skills, experience, and vision to drive the transformational change usually required to achieve new targets in a post-acquisition environment.
Top Executive Search firms specialise in identifying more than a candidate’s track record. They also place a major focus on ensuring the candidate's aspirations match with those of the company, and even more importantly, ensure that cultural alignment is achieved. This meticulous search process ensures that new appointments are tailor-made for the business, resulting in a much quicker successful transformation process.
2. Reducing the Risks of Making Hasty Leadership Appointments
Private Equity frequently acquires underperforming businesses that require a complete turnaround. Without the right leadership in place, it can be challenging to achieve the desired transformation. The risks of making hasty leadership appointments during acquisitions are high, resulting in a negative impact on operational success, profitability, and productivity. Ultimately, underperforming businesses can lead to a negative return on investment (ROI) for the PE organisation.
The use of an Executive Search organisation to find the best talent significantly mitigates these risks. Their understanding of the market in which businesses operate, combined with their experience in candidate assessment, results in candidates that are far more likely to fully understand the challenges ahead and have the right experience to navigate them successfully. This reduces the negative impact of poorly made leadership appointments, turning around underperforming businesses and unlocking value much quicker.
3. Enhancing Business Value - Quickly
The central goal of Private Equity is to unlock the value potential of a business through improved performance as quickly as possible. This improvement requires a strong, strategic vision, and effective leadership to enact it. Additionally, it requires an extensively developed understanding of the business and the wider market and industry in which the business competes.
To achieve this, the best executive talent is required to be firstly, identified and secondly, secured.
Executive Search is the best recruitment methodology to deliver in this environment. It proactively researches the entire market to identify and confidentially approach those top executives who are not actively looking for a new role. They may be happy in their current role but are nevertheless, open to a new opportunity if presented to them in the right way. This passive talent would not otherwise be visible or attainable without an Executive Search firm undertaking the rigorous market mapping exercise to identify the best performers.
Summary
The use of Executive Search in post-acquisition scenarios is crucial to enable Private Equity firms to realise the full potential of newly acquired businesses.
Utilising Executive Search ensures that the best leadership talent can be acquired to enact transformational change and achieve sustainable success. By mitigating the risks associated with hasty leadership appointments and leveraging the expertise to access and attract passive talent, using Executive Search significantly increases the chances of quickly delivering ROI and enhancing business value for the PE on a long-term basis.
At Executive Headhunters, we have significant expertise in headhunting the top talent for Private Equity acquisitions. So if you'd like to discuss what leadership talent your newly-acquired organisation needs, please feel free to give us a call on 0207 160 6996 or email us at info@executiveheadhunters.co.uk.
About Executive Headhunters
As an International Executive Search firm, we are experts at identifying and attracting high-calibre senior executives to fill challenging and business critical vacancies. We are one of only 0.1% of UK recruitment companies who are a fully-accredited member of the AESC.
We understand that no two businesses are the same, which is why we start every assignment with a blank canvas. We undertake a thorough and methodical research process that is bespoke to your business and your industry. Our rigorous methodology is specifically designed to encourage diversity, equality and inclusion at every stage of the recruitment process.
We don’t have a database of candidates that we search through, so we identify and approach every suitable candidate for the specific role we are headhunting for.
We have extensive experience recruiting for businesses of all sizes and across all sectors. In addition, we have a global reach that ensures we can expertly deliver international assignments, as well as having access to a global pool of candidates that are suitable for UK roles.
