PRIVATE EQUITY EXECUTIVE SEARCH
71 searches · 34 portfolio companies
Half the searches 33eleven Partners has ever run were for private equity-backed companies. That is not an accident of who called us. It is what we built the firm to do.
Hiring for a sponsor-backed business is a different job from hiring for a founder-led one. There is a thesis, a hold period, and a set of value creation levers already agreed before the search opens. The leader you hire is not being asked to figure out what the company should become. They are being asked to execute a plan that someone has already underwritten, usually faster than the company has ever moved, and often alongside a founder who is still in the building.
That combination breaks a lot of impressive résumés. The executive who thrived at a company with unlimited runway struggles when every quarter is measured against a model.
The one who has only worked in sponsor-backed businesses sometimes cannot read a founder-led culture well enough to change it without a fight. And the operator who has never been through a diligence process, a bolt-on, or an exit does not know what the next two years will actually feel like.
We screen for people who have lived inside that structure and want to again. Executives who understand what a board deck is for, who can hold a number and a relationship at the same time, and who have done it at roughly the stage the company is at now rather than three stages later.
The strongest signal is that sponsors bring us into company after company. Susquehanna Growth Equity has introduced us to twelve of its portfolio companies. Lead Edge Capital to six, across fifteen searches. Incline Equity to Icreon six times, starting with the board. By the fourth or fifth engagement with an investor, we are not learning what good looks like to them. We already know.
71
PE-BACKED SEARCHES
34
PORTFOLIO COMPANIES
110
avg. days to close
94%
executives STILL IN SEAT
SPONSOR RELATIONSHIPS
Roughly a third of everything we have done has come from an investor bringing us into one portfolio company after another.
LEAD EDGE CAPITAL
15 searches · 6 portfolio companies
Six searches at Holistiplan and five at SafeSend, plus Cove, Artera, Gooten, and IGM Technology. Our deepest relationship inside individual companies.
M33 Growth
11 searches · 5 portfolio companies
Three searches each at Rosnet and Operix, two each at GoDocs and SwiftComply, plus L2L, with a VP of Marketing search live at Brillion now.
Susquehanna growth equity
14 searches · 12 portfolio companies
NoRedInk, OrderMyGear, PerkSpot, Point of Rental, Field Nation, Tekmetric, Real Capital Analytics, Realync, B-Stock, Tvision, BestPass, and Fundera. Our broadest sponsor relationship, spanning eight years.
INCLINE EQUITY PARTNERS
6 searches · 1 portfolio company
Six searches at Icreon in under two years, beginning with a board seat before any operating hire.
FRONTIER GROWTH
3 searches · 2 portfolio companies
Sales and marketing leadership at Sprocket Sports, and finance leadership at HealthyRoster.
STARTING AT THE BOARD
The best way for a sponsor to teach us their thesis is to let us find them a director.
Incline Equity brought us into Icreon for a board search before any operating hire. That order is unusual, and it changed everything that followed. By the time we opened the VP of Sales search we had already spent three months working with Incline on what Icreon needed to become, which is knowledge most search partners accumulate over several engagements.
That VP of Sales search closed in 34 days from four submitted candidates. Not speed for its own sake. The brief was settled before the search opened.
THE COMPANIES
REPRESENTATIVE PLACEMENTS
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT of SALES
HOLISTIPLAN
Installed quotas, KPIs, and a sales playbook at a company where half the customers had never spoken to a salesperson.
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT of ENGINEERING
ROSNET
Modernised a 27-year-old restaurant platform without breaking what its customers already depended on.
VICE PRESIDENT of FINANCE
GODOCS
Strategic finance and the reporting discipline a sponsor expects, two years into an M33 Growth investment.
VICE PRESIDENT of MARKETING
Swiftcomply
Category education and credibility with municipal water authorities, closed in 46 days.
BOARD MEMBER
ICREON
A Board director for a sponsor's digital services thesis, hired before any operating role.
EXPLORE Related practices
33eleven Partners places VP through C-suite leaders at Private Equity-backed software and technology companies.