Executive Search Success Story: Recruiting a CEO for a PE-Backed Business Services Company

How JRG Partners ran a confidential CEO search for a private equity-backed business services company scaling through acquisitions toward an exit.

This was a private equity-backed value-creation mandate; ownership and identifying details are withheld at the client’s request.

The Challenge

A private equity-backed business services company had grown rapidly through acquisitions but needed a CEO who could bring operational discipline, integrate acquired businesses, and drive value creation toward a future exit. The board identified several critical pressures:

• Integration issues following multiple historical acquisitions
• A pressing need for stronger operational discipline across the platform
• Limited scalability within the existing leadership team
• Increasing pressure from sponsors to achieve aggressive EBITDA targets
• A requirement for net-new strategic growth initiatives
• Succession concerns developing among senior executive ranks

The board and sponsor set out to recruit a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) — a leader spanning operational discipline, M&A integration, and value creation. The organization required a strategic talent partner with deep, specialized PE-backed CEO search expertise.

Why They Chose JRG Partners

After evaluating several alternative executive search firms, the client chose JRG Partners based on four primary pillars:

Deep PE-Backed Leadership Specialization

Our dedicated practices span private equity, business services, and value-creation leadership frameworks.

Real Access to Passive Talent

Many of the strongest value-creation CEOs are actively managing successful portfolio companies and are not looking for a new role. JRG Partners drew on long-standing relationships and proprietary market intelligence to reach leaders invisible through conventional channels.

Confidential Search Execution

With an exit in view, we executed a highly discreet process that successfully protected operational continuity and investor confidence.

Broad Reach

The global search successfully leveraged built-in relationships throughout the private equity, business services, and technology sectors.

Our Executive Search Strategy

Phase 1 — Leadership Assessment

We worked directly with the board and executive team to map existing organizational gaps, succession risks, growth objectives, and the exact competencies the business would need as it scaled. The ideal candidate profile was built strategically against the company’s long-term strategy rather than a legacy job description.

Phase 2 — Market Mapping

JRG Partners conducted a targeted search mapping across private equity-backed organizations, business services firms, growth-stage companies, middle-market organizations, and high-performing portfolio companies. More than 900 senior executive profiles were evaluated.

Phase 3 — Executive Engagement

Our consultants discreetly engaged proven leaders with documented records of driving corporate value creation and M&A integration. Only candidates with clear, measurable impact advanced through the pipeline.

Phase 4 — Assessment & Selection

Each finalist underwent an extensive evaluation process covering strategic and functional capability, executive leadership and team-building history, cultural alignment, and long-term platform retention.