The race for operational alpha
Longer hold periods, complex transactions, a challenging exit environment and the rise of AI are reshaping how private equity sponsors create—and demonstrate—portfolio value.
In a Private Equity International magazine interview, KPMG leaders Carole Streicher and Brett Shisler discuss the growing pressure on private equity firms to create value over longer hold periods while navigating complex transactions, constrained exit markets, and rapid technological change. They share perspectives on how leading sponsors are pursuing operational alpha by transforming how portfolio companies grow, operate, and leverage emerging technologies such as AI.
Key takeaways
- Invest for long-term value: Build technology, data, controls, AI and operating capabilities that can make an asset more valuable over the hold period.
- Allocate capital asset by asset: Direct larger transformations toward high-conviction companies with the strongest growth potential and capacity for change.
- Engineer for exit: Maintain readiness and preserve optionality across an IPO, strategic sale, or sponsor-to-sponsor transaction.
- Use complexity to redesign: Treat public-to-private transactions and carve-outs as opportunities to modernize systems, simplify workflows, and build scalable operating models.
- Move AI from pilots to outcomes: Scale common governance, trusted data, and implementation capabilities across the portfolio—and measure process performance, not simply workforce productivity.
Dive into our thinking:
The question is not only how to improve next year’s EBITDA, but what will make the company disproportionately more valuable five years from now—and how to realize that value during the hold period.
— Brett Shisler
Principal, Advisory, Performance Transformation, KPMG US
Sponsors that move first will have an advantage. The firms building capabilities today will be better positioned to create value across their portfolios and differentiate themselves with investors over the next 5 to 10 years.
— Carole Streicher
Asset Management & Private Equity Advisory Practice Leader, KPMG US
Meet our team
