Private Equity Power Talks: Map of the Maze

For this episode of the PepTalks Podcast, we are joined by culture, talent and HR expert David Bowes…

David is a highly successful and high-growth Chief People Officer under PE ownership, having held the position at WDS, A Xerox Company, Phlexglobal and Xalient. We discuss the role of the chief people officer, including what a good people strategy looks like, building your top team and how to hire, retain and develop talent throughout your organisation.

In this episode of the PepTalks Podcast, we are talking all about strategy and how to build a winning value creation plan under PE ownership with Achilles CEO, Paul Stanley.

Paul has held 7 PE backed CEO roles, the last 4 of which he took on when the business was underperforming so he could implement a successful strategic repositioning. Paul shares his approach to building a strategy by focusing on the business's purpose, culture and key customers. He then shows us how you can translate this into an effective value creation plan.

This episode of the PepTalks Podcast is all about operating models and how they can be successfully implemented into a PE-backed business to drive value, culture, innovation and set you up for a successful exit.

Our expert guest is Forge Holiday Group & Sykes Holiday Cottages CEO, Graham Donoghue, who has successfully implemented OKRs into the business resulting in a 9x return for Livingbridge and enterprise value of £400m upon their last exit in 2019. Graham attributes a large amount of his success to the successful implementation of OKRs. Listen to hear his full story.

For this episode of the PepTalks Podcast, we are joined by regular guest, Richard Madden, for an update on the state of the private equity deals market. Richard is CEO of DC Advisory UK a leading international investment bank who provide buy and sell-side advice during PE transactions and other M&A activity.

We discuss how the economic climate has affected the market over the course of this year and what we can expect over the next 6 to 12 months.

For this episode of the PepTalks Podcast, we welcome David Brennan, Executive Chair of Nexus Vehicle Rentals for the second time to discuss his continuing journey with the business. David was CEO of Nexus for 9 years and steered the company through 3 PE transactions before recently transitioning to Exec Chair.

We discuss how to drive organic growth through effective sales and marketing, developing your management team and succession planning for the CEO role.

For this episode of The PepTalks Podcast, we are joined by Andrew Dyckhoff, Founder and CEO of Strengths Unleashed, who are experts in assessment, development and advisory, helping energise individual leaders, their teams and organisations to release untapped potential, transform performance and deliver outstanding results.

Our main area of discussion is around personal and organisational energy and why it is so important when delivering the growth required under private equity ownership.

For this episode of The PepTalks Podcast, we are joined by Neil Rodford, Executive Director of Voly Music and Former CEO of YMU, a market-leading talent agency.

Neil led YMU through 3 successful buyouts, delivering a 500% increase in enterprise value and a turnover in excess of £140m. During this time Neil executed over 40 acquisitions which are our key topic of conversation for this podcast. We also discuss team development and how your relationship with PE changes through an investment cycle.

For this episode of The PepTalks Podcast, we are joined by Lois Heywood, CEO of Retail & Asset Solutions who are at the forefront of the audit and stocktaking industry.

In 2018 Lois became CEO of Retail & Asset Solutions upon leading a Carve Out from ODS group with the support of LDC. Lois draws on this experience and describes how to transition from corporate to PE-backed leadership.

We also discuss how Lois and her team became the business's majority shareholders, having completed a debt-funded management buyout in 2022.

For this episode of the PepTalks Podcast, we are joined by Elona Mortimer-Zhika, CEO of Iris Software Group, who help organisations to make better business decisions by developing integrated software solutions. 

In 2016 Elona joined Iris as CFO, transitioned to COO in 2018, and finally to CEO in 2019. During her tenure, Iris has seen incredible amounts of growth. Their most recent exit in 2018 was worth £1.3 billion and since then the value of the business has grown to over £3 billion.

In this podcast, we discuss Elona’s approach to M&A, expansion into the US, how to successfully transition from an Exec into the CEO role, and her approach to hiring. 

For this episode of the PepTalks Podcast, we are joined by Clare Roberts OBE, Founder and CEO of Kids Planet Day Nurseries, an award-winning group of 137 nurseries across the UK. Clare founded the business in 2008 and has since completed two private equity transactions.

Clare shares how she successfully transitioned from an entrepreneur to a PE-backed business leader, and how this path to success affects your mindset towards growth, investors, M&A and the culture of your business.