Executive Search Success Story: Building the Executive Team for a Private-Equity-Backed Water Treatment Equipment and Services Platform

How JRG Partners executed a confidential, multi-role North American executive search strategy that equipped a private-equity-backed industrial and municipal water treatment platform with the chief executive, operations, engineering, service, and commercial leadership required to integrate five acquired businesses, build a recurring service and chemistry model, and capture demand driven by PFAS, reuse, and industrial water regulation.

The Challenge

A private equity sponsor had combined five water treatment businesses, spanning membrane systems, industrial pretreatment, specialty chemistry, and field service, into a platform positioned for regulatory-driven demand. The businesses still operated independently under their founders, product lines overlapped and competed, service was delivered inconsistently with no recurring contract model, engineering could not support the PFAS and water reuse solutions customers were requesting, and the sponsor had no consolidated financial or commercial view. Executive leadership and the sponsor identified several critical vulnerabilities threatening the thesis:

• Five founder-led businesses with no platform chief executive or shared operating model
• Overlapping and competing product lines with no unified roadmap
• Field service delivered inconsistently with no recurring contract or chemistry program model
• Engineering unable to deliver PFAS treatment and reuse solutions customers demanded
• Commercial teams selling single products with no solutions or key account approach
• No consolidated manufacturing, supply chain, or financial reporting across the platform

Recognizing that the thesis required a professional executive team, the sponsor engaged JRG Partners to recruit a Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Vice President of Engineering & Product Management, Vice President of Service & Aftermarket, and Chief Commercial Officer. The sponsor required an executive search partner with deep water industry expertise and experience building executive teams for newly formed platforms.

Why They Chose JRG Partners

Water & Wastewater Treatment Focus

JRG Partners maintains a dedicated practice serving water and wastewater companies, with deep recruiting expertise across treatment technology manufacturers, water services providers, utilities, and engineering and construction firms. This focus ensured an immediate understanding of regulatory demand drivers, treatment technology, service economics, and the leadership profiles that scale water platforms.

Private Equity Platform Experience

Our firm has extensive experience recruiting executive teams for newly formed private equity platforms in industrial technology and services, with a clear understanding of founder transitions, integration, and recurring revenue models.

Multi-Role C-Suite Execution

Our team specializes in running multiple C-suite searches in parallel with deliberate sequencing, placing the chief executive first so that subsequent hires are made with the new leader’s input.

Our Executive Search Strategy

Phase 1 — Platform Thesis Alignment

Our consultants partnered directly with the sponsor’s deal team, operating partner, and the five founders to review the value-creation plan, product portfolios, service operations, customer demands, and integration priorities, defining five executive profiles sequenced around the chief executive placement.

Phase 2 — Talent Identification & Mapping

Our research team performed an extensive talent mapping initiative targeting chief executives, operating, engineering, service, and commercial leaders at water technology companies, treatment equipment manufacturers, water services providers, and industrial filtration businesses who had led documented platform integrations and recurring revenue builds. Over 440 executives were systematically assessed across these sectors.

Phase 3 — Candidate Engagement

Priority during outreach was given to leaders with a documented history of integrating acquired water businesses, rationalizing product portfolios, building recurring service and chemistry programs, developing PFAS and reuse solutions, and establishing solutions-based commercial organizations. Only candidates meeting these strict performance baselines advanced.

Phase 4 — Selection Process

Finalists presented integration and growth plans to the sponsor and founders, completed structured leadership assessments, and underwent reference verification focused on quantified integration, service, and growth outcomes, with later hires interviewed by the newly placed chief executive.

Key Outcomes

• 440+ water technology and industrial services executive profiles mapped across North America.
• Successfully placed a synchronized C-suite spanning chief executive, operations, engineering, service, and commercial within eight months.
• Consolidated manufacturing from seven sites to four within fourteen months.
• Won 30 PFAS and reuse projects on a unified product roadmap.
• Grew recurring revenue from 18% to 42% of sales.
• Grew revenue 35% and improved EBITDA margin by 480 basis points within two years.