Private Equity
International
International
Operating Partners Interactive Working Groups San Francisco 2022
26 April 2022,
JW Marriott, Union Square, San Francisco
Connecting operating partners in specific areas of interest
This unique event will offer an opportunity for operating partners to discuss different areas of value creation in smaller groups allowing you to build your network of operating partners within similar areas of expertise. There will be a series of working groups set up as roundtable discussions covering a broad array of topics. Each table will have its own room.
Working groups will provide a maximum of 2 working groups per series to select. Participants are granted an opportunity to participate in an off-the-record discussion with operating partner peers.
For more information about this event, please contact Marc Mele at marc.m@peimedia.com or call +1 646 581 9295.
2022 Agenda
View agenda page
Agenda
Day One - Tuesday 26th
11:00 - 11:30
Registration and opening remarks
Interactive Working Group Series 1
11:30 - 12:30
Working Group 1 | Evaluating your sales organization’s readiness: due diligence and assessment best practices
Troy Kanter
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Understanding traits of salespeople that are so critical
- Mapping a sales organization: evaluating sales leaders, traits, competencies, and culture
- Looking at historical performance and financial results of sales readiness
- Improving the readiness of your salesforce
- Selecting the right sales talent and leadership
- Coaching: helping sales leaders and executives to run a salesforce
- Uncovering great sales data and reporting
Facilitator:
Troy Kanter, CEO and Co-Founder, AuctusIQ
11:30 - 12:30
Working Group 2 | Creating an impactful portfolio company CFO
Richard Jenkins,
Paul Kosturos,
Paul Ruh
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Finance function assessment: factors to assess in creating a value generating function
- CFO key skills for portfolio company growth and management
- How operating teams can position the CFO for success
- Establishing roadmaps for CFOs: digitizing your finance practice and reporting best practices
Facilitators:
Richard Jenkins, Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal
Paul Kosturos, Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal
Paul Ruh, Operating Advisor, Berkshire Partners
12:30 - 13:30
Networking lunch
Interactive Working Group Series 2
13:30 - 14:30
Working Group 3 | Practical steps to embedding ESG within value creation
Tanay Shah
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Putting ESG at the heart of your business strategy in the new sustainable economy
- Mapping out and engaging with all key stakeholders on ESG
- What is the role of the operating partner in driving ESG initiatives?
- How do your portfolio companies think about ESG in looking at climate change, and their carbon footprint? Any other specific areas within ESG?
- What are the implications of not adequately addressing ESG?
- ESG due diligence best practices
- ESG reporting: what is the level of rigor needed? How are ESG based KPIs, and metrics being used?
Facilitator:
Tanay Shah, Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting
13:30 - 14:30
Working Group 4 | Working with CEOs: dos and don’ts
Ted Bililies
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Sharing of lessons learned and do overs: what works and what doesn’t?
- Setting up productive relationships with CEOs across the deal lifecycle
- Supporting new CEOs as well as CEOs new to PE: helping them to operate at full power
- How do you do good CEO performance reviews: what is the right process for it
- How to best partner with CEOs in creating value in an inflationary environment
- Managing tension and helping to bridge alignment
- If you had to hire a new CEO today what profile and characteristics would you prefer?
Facilitator:
Ted Bililies, Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer, AlixPartners
14:30 - 14:45
Networking coffee break
Interactive Working Group Series 3
14:45 - 15:45
Working Group 5 | Carveout challenges in tech and ops: operating partners share their thoughts
Paul Dhaliwal,
Ravi Narayanan
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Deciding priorities: transition and/or transformation
- Tracking and overcoming tech stack integration challenges
- Thumb rules, if any, for Tech or Ops set-up
- Best practices in governance and risk management
- How to get the portco team aligned on key initiatives
Facilitators:
Paul Dhaliwal, Director, KKR Capstone
Ravi Narayanan, Head Americas, Market Development, Wipro
14:45 - 15:45
Working Group 6 | Architecting, activating, and energizing the organization around enhanced Sales & Marketing KPIs
Scott Sands
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- How to map the value tree for a new portfolio company in either the due diligence stage or the first 100 days after close
- Using the value tree and sensitivity analysis to identify the most critical KPIs that should be monitored on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis to flag issues early
- Delegating ownership and review processes to functional leaders to create empowerment and accountability (especially around forecasting)
- Using KPIs, value trees to quantify synergies for add-on acquisitions
- Supporting technology to make KPIs more accurate and effective with data visualization
- Determining the right KPIs to tie to goals and incentive compensation for enhanced behavioral traction
Facilitator:
Scott Sands, Partner, Simon-Kucher & Partners
Interactive Working Group Series 4
15:45 - 16:45
Working Group 7 | SaaS companies: managing growth and unlocking hidden value
Chris Kitching,
Hal Polley
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- What does a sophisticated RevOps function look like? And why is the RevOps model a critical growth-hack for SaaS companies?
- Following a series of acquisitions and roll-ups, how can the “Frankenstein” SaaS business efficiently clean up its tech stack?
- How can the office of the CFO consolidate unit economics to reduce operating contracts? (e.g., cloud providers)
- How can PE sponsors and management teams illuminate, evaluate, and measure the ROI of engineering/DevOps spend?
- How can SaaS companies monetize their data to scale from a single format product to an autonomous, commercial platform with multiple revenue streams?
Facilitators:
Chris Kitching, Operating Partner, HighBar Partners
Hal Polley, Managing Director and Co-Head of Western Region, Accordion
15:45 - 16:45
Working Group 8 | Value creation for enterprise software companies — war stories in working with tech portfolio companies
Punit Kulkarni,
Nitish Shrivastava
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators in looking at identifying value levers that work for technology portfolio companies:
Historically, PE firms have employed “Buy & Build” strategies with a philosophy of buying, restructuring, and holding assets — all with a plan to sell at the right time. Yet increasingly, enterprise software companies are creating value beyond quick fix initiatives to leverage multiple value creation levers and capitalize on digital transformation. These PEs are now expanding their focus to accelerate product modernization, invest in product line expansion, and address operational challenges like talent sourcing for their portfolio companies. Join this interactive discussion to share knowledge and get inspired about the best practices, challenges, and benefits of building effective value creation strategies.
Facilitators:
Punit Kulkarni, Vice President, Private Equity, Persistent Systems
Nitish Shrivastava, Head of Products, Persistent Systems
16:45 - 18:00
Operating Partners West Coast Welcome Reception
2022 Speakers
For information about sponsoring opportunities, please contact Lawrence Dvorchik at Lawrence.D@peimedia.com or call +1 646 545 4429.
Venue
JW Marriott
515 Mason St
San Francisco, CA 94102
To reserve your room at the hotel please use the link below or call reservations & mention PEI Operating Partners Working Groups at +1-800-228-9290.
The cutoff date to reserve your room is Monday, April 11.
View agenda page
Agenda
Day One - Tuesday 26th
11:00 - 11:30
Registration and opening remarks
Interactive Working Group Series 1
11:30 - 12:30
Working Group 1 | Evaluating your sales organization’s readiness: due diligence and assessment best practices
Troy Kanter
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Understanding traits of salespeople that are so critical
- Mapping a sales organization: evaluating sales leaders, traits, competencies, and culture
- Looking at historical performance and financial results of sales readiness
- Improving the readiness of your salesforce
- Selecting the right sales talent and leadership
- Coaching: helping sales leaders and executives to run a salesforce
- Uncovering great sales data and reporting
Facilitator:
Troy Kanter, CEO and Co-Founder, AuctusIQ
11:30 - 12:30
Working Group 2 | Creating an impactful portfolio company CFO
Richard Jenkins,
Paul Kosturos,
Paul Ruh
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Finance function assessment: factors to assess in creating a value generating function
- CFO key skills for portfolio company growth and management
- How operating teams can position the CFO for success
- Establishing roadmaps for CFOs: digitizing your finance practice and reporting best practices
Facilitators:
Richard Jenkins, Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal
Paul Kosturos, Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal
Paul Ruh, Operating Advisor, Berkshire Partners
12:30 - 13:30
Networking lunch
Interactive Working Group Series 2
13:30 - 14:30
Working Group 3 | Practical steps to embedding ESG within value creation
Tanay Shah
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Putting ESG at the heart of your business strategy in the new sustainable economy
- Mapping out and engaging with all key stakeholders on ESG
- What is the role of the operating partner in driving ESG initiatives?
- How do your portfolio companies think about ESG in looking at climate change, and their carbon footprint? Any other specific areas within ESG?
- What are the implications of not adequately addressing ESG?
- ESG due diligence best practices
- ESG reporting: what is the level of rigor needed? How are ESG based KPIs, and metrics being used?
Facilitator:
Tanay Shah, Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting
13:30 - 14:30
Working Group 4 | Working with CEOs: dos and don’ts
Ted Bililies
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Sharing of lessons learned and do overs: what works and what doesn’t?
- Setting up productive relationships with CEOs across the deal lifecycle
- Supporting new CEOs as well as CEOs new to PE: helping them to operate at full power
- How do you do good CEO performance reviews: what is the right process for it
- How to best partner with CEOs in creating value in an inflationary environment
- Managing tension and helping to bridge alignment
- If you had to hire a new CEO today what profile and characteristics would you prefer?
Facilitator:
Ted Bililies, Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer, AlixPartners
14:30 - 14:45
Networking coffee break
Interactive Working Group Series 3
14:45 - 15:45
Working Group 5 | Carveout challenges in tech and ops: operating partners share their thoughts
Paul Dhaliwal,
Ravi Narayanan
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- Deciding priorities: transition and/or transformation
- Tracking and overcoming tech stack integration challenges
- Thumb rules, if any, for Tech or Ops set-up
- Best practices in governance and risk management
- How to get the portco team aligned on key initiatives
Facilitators:
Paul Dhaliwal, Director, KKR Capstone
Ravi Narayanan, Head Americas, Market Development, Wipro
14:45 - 15:45
Working Group 6 | Architecting, activating, and energizing the organization around enhanced Sales & Marketing KPIs
Scott Sands
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- How to map the value tree for a new portfolio company in either the due diligence stage or the first 100 days after close
- Using the value tree and sensitivity analysis to identify the most critical KPIs that should be monitored on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis to flag issues early
- Delegating ownership and review processes to functional leaders to create empowerment and accountability (especially around forecasting)
- Using KPIs, value trees to quantify synergies for add-on acquisitions
- Supporting technology to make KPIs more accurate and effective with data visualization
- Determining the right KPIs to tie to goals and incentive compensation for enhanced behavioral traction
Facilitator:
Scott Sands, Partner, Simon-Kucher & Partners
Interactive Working Group Series 4
15:45 - 16:45
Working Group 7 | SaaS companies: managing growth and unlocking hidden value
Chris Kitching,
Hal Polley
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators:
- What does a sophisticated RevOps function look like? And why is the RevOps model a critical growth-hack for SaaS companies?
- Following a series of acquisitions and roll-ups, how can the “Frankenstein” SaaS business efficiently clean up its tech stack?
- How can the office of the CFO consolidate unit economics to reduce operating contracts? (e.g., cloud providers)
- How can PE sponsors and management teams illuminate, evaluate, and measure the ROI of engineering/DevOps spend?
- How can SaaS companies monetize their data to scale from a single format product to an autonomous, commercial platform with multiple revenue streams?
Facilitators:
Chris Kitching, Operating Partner, HighBar Partners
Hal Polley, Managing Director and Co-Head of Western Region, Accordion
15:45 - 16:45
Working Group 8 | Value creation for enterprise software companies — war stories in working with tech portfolio companies
Punit Kulkarni,
Nitish Shrivastava
This deep dive session will allow the audience to join an interactive roundtable discussion with designated facilitators in looking at identifying value levers that work for technology portfolio companies:
Historically, PE firms have employed “Buy & Build” strategies with a philosophy of buying, restructuring, and holding assets — all with a plan to sell at the right time. Yet increasingly, enterprise software companies are creating value beyond quick fix initiatives to leverage multiple value creation levers and capitalize on digital transformation. These PEs are now expanding their focus to accelerate product modernization, invest in product line expansion, and address operational challenges like talent sourcing for their portfolio companies. Join this interactive discussion to share knowledge and get inspired about the best practices, challenges, and benefits of building effective value creation strategies.
Facilitators:
Punit Kulkarni, Vice President, Private Equity, Persistent Systems
Nitish Shrivastava, Head of Products, Persistent Systems
16:45 - 18:00
Operating Partners West Coast Welcome Reception
2022 Sponsors
For information about sponsoring opportunities, please contact Lawrence Dvorchik at Lawrence.D@peimedia.com or call +1 646 545 4429.
