PATHWAYS TO PRIVATE EQUITY THE RIGHT HIRE
Pathways to Private Equity Partnerships
BY PATRICK B. ROPELLA
“For those selling their business to PE, this scenario might sound familiar.” Over the past couple of years, you’ve received multiple calls from PE firms, investment bankers, and sell-side advisors. Your peers, accountant and/or lawyer have been recommending you take those calls and have those discussions. Your business is successful, you’re prepared financially for retirement, and you’re looking at your company’s succession plan and left wondering…
What’s next? You don’t know a whole lot about succession planning, exit planning, or even how to consider which PE firm you should be considering. Moreover, selling your company to a PE firm seems like an obvious path for you to invest your valuable time looking into. That said, you’ve seen some peers do well with this approach… while others say it’s been a total nightmare. So, where do you start? You might be thinking: Maybe I should just give the business to my children or my employees? The biggest question on your mind is… how do I get my wealth out of the business now while I’m still healthy enough to enjoy it?
Whether you are a business founder / owner looking to sell your business, or an executive looking to partner with a PE firm as part of a career transition, you need to understand all these differences before learning what fit would be the most rewarding for you and your ambitions.
In this book, we will help you select and navigate your chosen course. For almost 40 years, Ropella 360 has been advising senior Leaders within Fortune 500 and larger global corporations, as well as leaders inside of mid-market companies and even startups, based all over the world. We have been serving as super-connectors to bring the best people and the most successful leaders to the conference table, with the goal of helping them grow their great companies and their careers…
This book is written to ensure that you’re effectively thinking through which PE firm is the ideal “right fit” for you to be supporting, working for, and/or investing with. In the following pages, we’ll show you how to leverage your past experiences, your special industry expertise, your personality, as well as your available time, talent, and treasure once you select the right PE firm to partner with.
Over the past 5 years, Ropella 360 has hyper-focused its business development efforts more and more to the point of almost exclusively serving PE firms – conducting searches for a wide variety of leaders – and toward sourcing leads for buying and selling businesses. As a result, we have developed thousands of global relationships with Founders, Partners, and key leaders at hundreds of PE, VC, and FO investment firms. It’s as simple as it sounds – be the best and then find the best people to partner with, as this is the fastest path for going from good to great.
Pathways to Private Equity can be the first step to making it happen for you.
Endorsed by Experts
“Congratulations on writing such a book. I’m flattered you would ask me for an endorsement. Winston Churchill once said that writing a great book goes through 5 phases. In phase 1 it’s a novelty… but by phase 5 it’s ruling your life. I extend to you my warmest wishes and the best of success with your launch and life.”
Jim Collins
Author of Good to Great
“With years of success in this industry, Patrick Ropella expertly breaks down how to choose the right PE firm, create a solid strategy, and maximize value in business transitions. The practical and straightforward advice offered in this book makes it essential for anyone thinking about selling their business or growing wealth through private equity. It simplifies a complex process and gives readers the tools they need to confidently move forward.”
Marshall Goldsmith
Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times bestselling author of
The Earned Life, Triggers, and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.
“If you’re looking for an insider perspective of the dealmaking process and the role of corporate executives in driving successful transactions, I recommend Pathways to Private Equity Partnerships. Patrick Ropella’s new book explains the ‘must haves’ of these deals and offers a strategic approach to drive successful equity investments. Whether you’re an investor who wants to recruit great leaders from the corporate world or an executive looking to partner with a PE firm, you can learn the fastest pathway to success through the lens of Patrick’s extensive career as a super-connector advising senior leaders, companies, and PE firms.”
Verne Harnish
Founder Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and author of Scaling Up
“I recommend you read this book because Patrick comes to the private equity space with a unique background in the one area that determines success of a company most – talent. While most private equity executives and experts come from large banks, investment banking firms, or PE shops, Patrick’s expertise is most deep in securing critical team members, executives, and leaders to navigate both market challenges and opportunities. You can mess up the pricing, strategy, launch, and even product type you start out with, but if you have the wrong leader or team it makes it much harder to pivot and move past challenges in front you.”
Richard C. Wilson
President and Founder, Family Office Club
“Pathways to Private Equity Partnerships is a terrific primer for any executive looking to navigate the complex world of the PE landscape. Whether you are a first timer who has never sold a business to a PE firm or a seasoned executive who has led multiple transactions, this book will provide you with the insights and perspectives to help you make the best decisions for your business. I only wish Patrick had written this book 25 years ago so that I could have avoided the mistakes I made.”
Sam Reese
CEO at Vistage
“Patrick Ropella’s book Pathways to Private Equity is a must-read for those who want to learn how to leverage private equity to achieve their goals. His insights come from decades of experience in attracting strategic and operations talent to private equity firms that are partnering with business owners who want to diversify their wealth while still having a significant equity stake that will continue to grow new capital for growth. This involves the foundational step of owners picking the right private equity partner and management team to lead the enterprise into the future with a shared vision, clear strategy and execution plan. In my own experience of partnering with a private equity group over two decades ago and then leading a buy and build strategy that resulted in taking a regional adhesives & sealants business and building it into a top ten global adhesives & sealants business through nineteen acquisitions and growing from $35M to over $650M with an enterprise value of $1.6B I can say with confidence that the lessons in this book are relevant and right on point and create a roadmap for readers to follow to achieve success and outsized returns in private equity partnerships.”
Ted Clark
Partner Iron Path Capital, Author, Strategic Advisor, Talent Development Advocate, CEO/COO
“Patrick has been connecting transformational leaders and PE firms and applying his revolutionary Deal Flow Accelerators program to drive successful transactions for decades. His new book, Pathways to Private Equity Partnerships, offers best practices for achieving sustainable success.”
Adam E. Coffey
CEO, Operating Partner, Board Member, CEO Coach, Consultant, Empire Builder, Dealmaker, #1 Best Selling Author (x4),
Global Educator, Top 1% Speaker & Proud US Army Veteran
“Patrick’s guidance is crucial at the most vulnerable inflection point in a company’s history.
These insights make the difference between becoming a unicorn and remaining one!”
Mark Thompson
Thinkers50 Coaching Legend and World’s #1 CEO Coach
“Developing exit and liquidity options is a core need and challenge for family business owners at some point in their generational journey. Private equity can be a great option for some stakeholder groups that seek a partial or full exit. Private equity can also be useful to accelerate the growth of the business by providing needed capital, connections and expertise. Choosing the right PE firm, however, can be difficult. Stakeholders may be new to private equity and may not fully understand the benefits and risks. Striking a deal that works for all parties can be complex and uncertain. That is why Pathways to Private Equity Partnerships is such a valuable resource for family business owners. From decades of helping family businesses source needed talent, author and business leader, Patrick Ropella provides family business stakeholders a roadmap to understand and choose the right PE firm to take their business to the next generation, next chapter, or both.”
Doug Baumoel
Founding Partner, Continuity Family Business Consulting and Author of Deconstructing Conflict
“Pathways to Private Equity Partnerships is a game-changer for anyone navigating the complex world of private equity. Patrick Ropella masterfully breaks down what it takes to gain access to PE firm leadership—a notoriously challenging feat—and presents actionable strategies to stand out in a space that demands excellence, precision, and alignment.
Ropella understands the razor-thin margins of success, where your ability to articulate value, command attention, and establish credibility in mere seconds can determine whether the door stays open or shuts permanently. From identifying and leveraging your subject-matter expertise to mastering the art of referral networking and Backable Executive Campaigns, this book equips you with the tools to create proprietary deal flow—arguably the lifeblood of private equity.
This is more than a guide; it’s a blueprint for building powerful, mutually beneficial relationships in one of the most demanding industries in the world.”
Angelo Robles
Founder, Robles Family Office and HoldCo.
“Pathways to Private Equity Partnerships provides an insider perspective of the dealmaking process and the role corporate executives have in driving successful transactions. A useful read for anyone interested in learning more about the space.”
Jonah Berger
Wharton Professor and Bestselling Author of Contagious and The Catalyst
BY TED CLARK
In Buy & Build CEO, Clark describes how he and his very carefully selected team turned a regional company with 68 employees and $35 million in sales into a global company with 1,600 employees and over $650 million in sales. Along the way he shares invaluable lessons and the finer points of the buy-and-build merger and acquisition strategy.
‘Whether you’re a long-time, buy-and-build CEO or a newbie looking for guidance in the arcane private equity world, Ted Clark teaches everything you need to be successful in such a role and to weather the tough times along the way. As a former CEO in the space, I am recommending “Buy and Build CEO” to everyone contemplating a move to PE.’
CELESTE MASTIN | Chief Operating Officer H.B. Fuller company
The Private Equity Playbook: Management’s Guide To Working With Private Equity
BY ADAM COFFEY
Today, more than 5,500 P.E. firms own tens of thousands of companies, so it is essential for CEOs and senior management executives to understand exactly how private equity firms operate. This invaluable resource can help you devise a winning P.E. game plan for your own company that offers you greater freedom and financial success.
‘Last year I was approached by two PE firms, and I deflected their entreaties because I did not understand. This book helped me overcome my own ignorance. Not only is it an excellent primer on PE, but it is also a good management guide to running a business for maximum shareholder value and increased efficiency.’
PHILLIP C. CANTRELL | Founder & CEO, Benchmark Realty LLC
Backable: The Surprising Truth Behind What Makes People Take A Chance On You
BY SUNEEL GUPTA
A groundbreaking book that boldly claims the key to success in business is not talent, connections, or ideas, but the ability to persuade people to take a chance on potential.
‘Whether you want to get ahead inside a company or build a startup from the ground up, this fascinating book is a must-read.’
REID HOFFMAN | Co-founder, LinkedIn
Deconstructing Conflict: Understanding Family Business, Shared Wealth and Power
BY DOUG BAUMOEL
Deconstructing Conflict draws upon nearly fifteen years of experience in which Doug Baumoel and Blair Trippe have helped scores of enterprising families navigate the challenges of owning and managing together as family. Based upon their groundbreaking methodology known as “The Conflict Equation,” the book presents five foundational concepts to help readers deconstruct conflict into its component parts. It will help you understand the reasons that underlie all conflict, what triggers active conflict, and why conflict can be so extreme and intractable in family business systems. This book will arm family business stakeholders and their advisors with the most cutting-edge thinking for achieving generational success in family enterprise.