Surviving on a VUCA environment: Private Equity Firms (I)

One can get the impression that there is enough money in the world to invest nowadays. The “Private Equity” firms are ready to invest in projects that guarantee good profitability. And lately, these firms have been balancing that objective with sustainable and long-term projects as well. They have been changing their agressive behaviours that caused both a massive talent escape and a serious difficulty to find talent willing to have the pressure of living (and dying) exclusively to reach their financial goals.


Nevertheless, the “Private Equity” firms keep having a bad press amongst board members and executives.


At the same time as one of these “private equity” firms becomes a shareholder of a company, the executives in charge start their search for a better job opportunity (This even happens when this is just a rumour). Then, the uncertainty grows. And this is why in the current VUCA environment, it is a must to be able to manage this changing and unpredictable environment when you are one of those executives leading the company. Sadly, the reality automatically pushes them to search for new horizons that bring them more peace in the long-term.


In the same way, the last year was very intense in terms of investment and “M&A” operations, that equally affect the movements of first line executives that end up falling down into the “middle-management” area.


In this scenario, the flexibility and adaptation to change rise as 2 of the most valued competencies for the “Executive Search” firms regarding these top executive profiles.


Any change in the shareholders structure will bring talent change. However, this neither necessarily means a complete U-turn nor a whole management team restructure. In this scenario, you have 2 options: you either strive and boost those changes or (in the worst case scenario) you adapt to them. But if you become a “stopper” within this process of transformation, you won’t have much room in the working environment game board in 2019.


Antonio Sagardoy