ParkerGale Capital is a private equity firm that buys technology companies and has been for more than two decades. They aim to help people build products that matter and processes that can scale, and cultures that last so that their companies can grow and their teams can thrive.

ParkerGale's Private Equity Funcast is an entertaining and insightful channel for the team's discussions on building technology companies and the tools that they use to grow them.

AlixPartners Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer, Ted Bililies shares his insight on the podcast, detailing the findings of our Annual Private Equity Leadership Survey and what that means for day-to-day operations and strategies for PE leadership and their portfolio companies.

#01 LEADERSHIP, CULTURE & PRIVATE EQUITY

AlixPartners Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer Ted Bililies, Ph.D (top right), sat down with ParkerGales' Jimmy Holloran, Principal (top left) and Devin Mathews, Partner, the hosts of the ParkerGale PE Funcast podcast, to discuss the findings from AlixPartners’ 5th Annual Private Equity Leadership Survey. The results reveal just how critical human capital is to value creation and how culture is an often overlooked source of value by investors. With more than a half century of PE experience between them, the three bantered on the PE-portco dynamic, given the volatility and uncertainty we are all experiencing in 2020.


Key takeaways:

  • Leadership and culture are two sides of the same coin. When we are asked to help evaluate and select CEOs for portfolio companies, which we are asked to do every month. We are increasingly looking at not just how competent will the CEO be in the role, but how quickly and how effectively is he or she going to be at creating a culture? Do they know how to do it?
  • PE firms themselves have noticed that they have to eat their own cooking and look critically at their own culture.
  • CEOs are in hand-to-hand combat every day for talent. They know the power of a good culture and the toxicity of a bad culture when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.
  • Over the last 5 years, there isn’t a significant middle-market fund that hasn’t hired a human capital partner or they are actively recruiting right now for the position.
LISTEN NOW

AlixPartners Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer Ted Bililies, Ph.D (top right), sat down with ParkerGales' Jimmy Holloran, Principal (top left) and Devin Mathews, Partner, the hosts of the ParkerGale PE Funcast podcast, to discuss the findings from AlixPartners’ 5th Annual Private Equity Leadership Survey. The results reveal just how critical human capital is to value creation and how culture is an often overlooked source of value by investors. With more than a half century of PE experience between them, the three bantered on the PE-portco dynamic, given the volatility and uncertainty we are all experiencing in 2020.


Key takeaways:

  • Leadership and culture are two sides of the same coin. When we are asked to help evaluate and select CEOs for portfolio companies, which we are asked to do every month. We are increasingly looking at not just how competent will the CEO be in the role, but how quickly and how effectively is he or she going to be at creating a culture? Do they know how to do it?
  • PE firms themselves have noticed that they have to eat their own cooking and look critically at their own culture.
  • CEOs are in hand-to-hand combat every day for talent. They know the power of a good culture and the toxicity of a bad culture when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.
  • Over the last 5 years, there isn’t a significant middle-market fund that hasn’t hired a human capital partner or they are actively recruiting right now for the position.
LISTEN NOW

#02 LEADERSHIP IN TIMES OF DISRUPTION

AlixPartners Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer Ted Bililies, Ph.D. (right), spoke with ParkerGales' Jimmy Holloran (left), Principal and host of the ParkerGale PE Funcast podcast, to discuss the findings from AlixPartners’ 6th Annual Private Equity Leadership Survey. This year's report focused on how companies can best survive and thrive amid extreme disruption, thus ensuring PE investment success. This year’s survey findings delivered a message loud and clear: In times of extreme disruption, smart management of human capital becomes even more essential for portfolio company performance and PE investment success.

Ted and Jimmy discuss the top priorities for generating value—both PE and Portco respondents to generate value during periods of disruption was human capital, the increased focus on human capital due diligence, and the evolving role of leadership when managing through disruption.


Key takeaways:

  • The transformational leader is someone who sets a very compelling vision, who makes the hard strategic choices on the one hand, but relates to people empathetically and authentically on the other. And the survey findings are in agreement with this definition.
  • The number one fastest-growing job in the private equity industry is not deal partner. It's human capital partner. It used to be that only very big firms would have a human capital partner... and that was only 5 years ago. Now, you can't find a middle-market firm that doesn't have a human capital partner.
  • ESG is not a nice to have anymore. It's a must-have because if you don't, your talent is going to walk across the street to another firm who ‘gets it.’ Layer on top of that a global pandemic and working from home, which puts even greater emphasis and need for the ability of an organization to connect its people to its purpose.
  • We're not in just one disruption. We are in disruptions involving racial injustice, severe climate change that affects businesses and other stakeholders significantly, we're dealing with gender inequality. We are in the midst of multiple disruptions besides COVID-19, and we will be for several years. Why is this important? Because leading through disruption is itself a core competency of leadership.
LISTEN NOW

AlixPartners Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer Ted Bililies, Ph.D. (right), spoke with ParkerGales' Jimmy Holloran (left), Principal and host of the ParkerGale PE Funcast podcast, to discuss the findings from AlixPartners’ 6th Annual Private Equity Leadership Survey. This year's report focused on how companies can best survive and thrive amid extreme disruption, thus ensuring PE investment success. This year’s survey findings delivered a message loud and clear: In times of extreme disruption, smart management of human capital becomes even more essential for portfolio company performance and PE investment success.

Ted and Jimmy discuss the top priorities for generating value—both PE and Portco respondents to generate value during periods of disruption was human capital, the increased focus on human capital due diligence, and the evolving role of leadership when managing through disruption.


Key takeaways:

  • The transformational leader is someone who sets a very compelling vision, who makes the hard strategic choices on the one hand, but relates to people empathetically and authentically on the other. And the survey findings are in agreement with this definition.
  • The number one fastest-growing job in the private equity industry is not deal partner. It's human capital partner. It used to be that only very big firms would have a human capital partner... and that was only 5 years ago. Now, you can't find a middle-market firm that doesn't have a human capital partner.
  • ESG is not a nice to have anymore. It's a must-have because if you don't, your talent is going to walk across the street to another firm who ‘gets it.’ Layer on top of that a global pandemic and working from home, which puts even greater emphasis and need for the ability of an organization to connect its people to its purpose.
  • We're not in just one disruption. We are in disruptions involving racial injustice, severe climate change that affects businesses and other stakeholders significantly, we're dealing with gender inequality. We are in the midst of multiple disruptions besides COVID-19, and we will be for several years. Why is this important? Because leading through disruption is itself a core competency of leadership.
LISTEN NOW