Principals Cass and Kara interview Professor Chris McGowan,
from University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. As an investor, advisor and teacher, Chris has been in the private equity industry for 26 years, when he began his own career in private equity as an associate at AEA Investors in New York City. In this episode, Cass and Kara explain their own personal impact that Chris has had on their careers, and Chris gives advice for MBA students and non-students alike who are trying to navigate breaking into private equity.
Can you predict the future by throwing asparagus against the wall? Have a listen to Devin and Jim on the Funcast's mostly-annual predictions show.
Private equity deal teams need to work together seamlessly to close a buyout successfully. However, each member of the deal team does have different responsibilities and perspectives - all of which are important. ParkerGale Associate, Nori Welles-Gertz, makes her PE Funcast debut, discussing with Principal Kevin Fitzgerald and Partner Ryan Milligan the myriad of details, thoughts, and worries she has throughout a live deal. Kevin and Ryan contribute their perspectives and provide a true top-to-bottom view of what each role focuses on and cares about.
Private equity firms get tons of inbound emails from executives looking for their next opportunity. Paul and Jim discuss the best ways to get private equity teams to pay attention to these emails -- and how to avoid getting on the blocked list.
Devin and Jim reunite for our sometimes annual Halloween episode. Today's discussion revolves around what is currently scaring us the most in private equity.
Guest host, Cici, interviews Cass Ziebel on her return to ParkerGale after two years at Chicago Booth. Cass talks about her background prior to working with ParkerGale as an Associate, what she learned before business school, how she felt about going, and what she ultimately got out of it. Cici and Cass also discuss her transition from the deal team role as an Associate into an operating role as a Principal, and why she decided to make the switch over to the light side.
It’s no secret that there are not very many women in private equity. According to a recent Preqin study, women account for just 19.4% of total private equity employees. In this episode, Cici and Kristina are joined by Ann Kraftson, Managing Director from the recruiting firm The Oxbridge Group. We discuss why there aren’t more women in PE, why we care about it as a private equity firm and why we think it’s a compelling industry for women to explore, especially those at the pre-MBA level. We share some of the myths vs. realities about the scary reputation of PE and shed some light on the general PE recruiting process (including the differences between on-cycle and off-cycle recruiting).
Leadership, culture, and their impact on investments are growing trends across the private equity industry. In this episode, Jimmy and Devin are joined by Ted Bililies, Managing Director at AlixPartners and founder of the consultancy's Transformative Leadership Practice. We discuss the findings from AlixPartners’ 5th Annual Private Equity Leadership Survey which reveal just how critical human capital is to value creation and how culture is an often overlooked source of value by investors. We also discuss why these topics are so important today given the volatility and uncertainty we are all experiencing in 2020.
Kevin and Jim spend an hour with Ben Harrison, Co-Founder and President, Financial Services at DealCloud about the DealCloud platform and how we use it at ParkerGale. Our collective paths have crossed over the years, so as per usual we digress into some private equity history along the way.
No serious athlete steps on the field without a scouting report. No serious professional should lead without one either. In this episode of the Funcast's Leadership Series, Paul and Jim discuss a simple document that can help you clarify working styles and create a high-performing team. This episode references our recently published article, which can be found at parkergale.com/scoutingreport.
Jim talks with Ryan Milligan about the use of debt in private equity deals and the state of the lending market in uncertain economic environments.
Jim, Jimmy and Dr. Steve Julius get together to discuss the denouement of The Last Dance. Dr. J leads the discussion around managing a superstar to become part of a broader system and why so few stars make the transition to being great coaches -- and the parallels for middle market PE portfolio companies.
The conclusion of our two-part episode (both recorded before the coronavirus pandemic) with ParkerGale advisor and former Chicago Bulls team psychologist Dr. Steve Julius discussing how elite sports franchises think about organization and team culture and what can be applied into a business context.
In episode 1 of a 2-part episode (both recorded before the coronavirus pandemic), Jim, Jimmy, and Paul are joined by ParkerGale advisor and former Chicago Bulls team psychologist Dr. Steve Julius to discuss how elite sports franchises think about organization and team culture and what can be applied into a business context.
Weeks ago, before we were all focused on the coronavirus pandemic, Jim and Jimmy recorded our (mostly) annual March Madness episode. We hit pause on posting this one for a while, but on what would have been the finals of the men’s college basketball tournament, we thought a little levity would be something listeners could use. In this episode, the months of the year face off in a battle for supremacy.
A fan favorite episode -- The FunCast spends an hour with Kirkland & Ellis partner Ryan Harris (formerly of McDermott Will & Emery LLP) talking about the legal traps founders fall into when setting up their companies and when they sell them. What's the best company structure -- C Corp, S Corp, LLC? How do you handle employee equity? Hear about the infamous "Cubs side letter." What are the common issues Ryan sees when founders go to sell their business and how can you avoid them? Listening to this conversation won't make you stronger, but it sure will make you smarter! Enjoy.
Jim and Jimmy are joined by Marla Caceres and Nelson Velazquez, improvisors at Chicago’s famous Second City Theatre. They discuss how ParkerGale has leveraged the Second City Works to provide professional development for senior executives in addition to the concepts that underpin the Second City philosophy and why they are so important to fostering growth, teamwork, and innovation. Oh – and don’t miss the end when the crew improvises a song entitled “The Ugly Burning House.”
On this episode, Jay Nathan (Founder of Customer Imperative) joins Paul Stansik to share how companies can be more intentional in building intimacy and delivering value to their customers. We talk about how his consulting firm builds customer success teams, how business leaders get this wrong, and the baby-steps that anyone can take to "make the renewal a no-brainer."
Jimmy sits down with Dean Brown, CEO of Ipro Tech. Dean discusses his upbringing in a military family, his education in Industrial Psychology, the serendipity of a career, his love of products and product strategy, his experience founding, scaling, and ultimately selling his startup, why culture is so important to him in business, and much more.
In part 3 of a 3 part series on Product Strategy, Jim and Cici continue the discussion of how product strategy ties into value creation, and how specifically as a PE firm, we monitor our portfolio companies’ product strategy through taking a detailed look at their product roadmaps. We discuss how we conduct Product Strategy Reviews – the objectives, who’s in the room, and what we actually cover. We talk about why we’re focused on outcome-driven product roadmaps, how we work with our portfolio companies to prioritize what actually gets built and why that’s so critical when we’re allocating scarce resources to create value.
In part 2 of a 3 part series on Product Strategy, Jim is joined by Cici to discuss the private equity investor's perspective on how and why products get built. Living in a world of limited resources, we discuss the framework that we use to help shape the discussions with our portfolio companies about prioritizing their products and features. We talk about market segments versus markets, the Ansoff matrix and Geoffrey Moore's famous "Bowling Alley" strategy.
Devin and Jim kick off the new year with our annual predictions episode. Come have a listen as we opine on what 2020 has in store for Private Equity.
Jimmy Holloran talks with Stacey Kacek, OnePlus Systems CEO. They discuss her early career as an engineer at Motorola, her transition into leadership, and her perspective on being a CEO. Along the way, they cover key influences in her life, lessons learned, and as well as advice for aspiring CEOs.
Devin sits down with Cici to discuss some easy but very important things you should be doing to extract deeper customer and market insight into your software products.
Partner Ryan Milligan talks with Mike Trasatti, CEO of DealerBuilt and Bill Lamm of Presidio Technology Partners about how a deal really gets done. Covering everything from the banker signing up to represent DealerBuilt to ParkerGale courting and successfully completing the deal with management.