What Private Equity Investors Look for in Marketing Leaders

What Private Equity Investors Look for in Marketing Leaders

Serent's Growth Team lead, Prital Kadakia, is a featured guest on The Get Podcast

February 11, 2020

Serent’s own Prital Kadakia, who leads the Growth team at Serent Capital, helps portfolio companies scale up,  drive results, and find the right leadership talent. As a sales and marketing expert at a private equity firm, Prital’s work with portfolio companies spans sales force effectiveness, pricing, operational efficiencies, strategic partnerships, strategy development, procurement, and digital marketing.

In this episode, Prital and Erica Seidel, host of the The Get podcast and founder at The Connective Good, discuss a range of topics around how private equity investors work side-by-side with portfolio companies, including:

 

  • How they look for the ideal marketing talent
  • What they expect the CEO and CMO to know about growth marketing
  • How to navigate the challenges of hypergrowth

Here are our top themes and takeaways from the conversation:

  1. THINGS FOR CEOS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN FINDING THE RIGHT MARKETING LEADER
    • Context in which the marketing leaders were successful in earlier roles
    • Ability to own the bookings and results (something which is not core to every marketer’s DNA, but is a crucial flag for PE investors, who are focused on close alignment between marketing and sales ability to forecast into the future – most B2B tech companies have long sales cycles, so focusing on the right metrics that will have a material impact in 6/12/18 months is crucial
  2. COMMON PITFALLS FOR CEOS TO AVOID AS THEY SEARCH FOR THEIR MARKETING LEADER
    • Not having clarity about what you want
    • Hiring a CMO when a VP of Marketing would be more aligned to the stage and pattern of growth
  3. TIPS FOR MARKETING LEADERSHIP CANDIDATES
    • What to keep in mind if you are a potential CMO being interviewed with someone from the PE investor side for your dream B2B SaaS job! (Hint: know thy investor, and thy ROI!)

Listen to the Podcast

Republished from The Get Podcast.

Serent Capital invests in growing businesses that have developed compelling solutions that address their customers' needs. As those businesses grow and evolve, the opportunities and challenges that they face change with them. Principals at Serent Capital have firsthand experience at capturing those opportunities and navigating these difficulties through their experiences as CEOs, strategic advisors, and board members to successful growing businesses. By bringing its expertise and capital to bear, Serent seeks to help growing businesses thrive. Learn more about our portfolio companies.

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