Private Equity FunCast

Paul and Ryan break down what PE-backed executives should know about their management equity: how the economics work, what's worth negotiating, and how you can use it to start things off the right way with your PE sponsor.

What if the future of private equity looks exactly like its past? The days of cheap debt and multiple expansion are over, so the only way to win going forward is to operate your way out. Buy well, execute, and exit well. In this episode, Devin and Paul sit down with Lee McCabe — recovering operating partner, Facebook and Alibaba alum, and Founder of Claymore Partners — to unpack what the new playbook for PE actually looks like.

Paul and Lee share stories about Operating Partner roles inside private equity funds, how to bond with management teams so you can...

Cass sits down with Angela McCoy, Managing Director at May River, a private equity firm investing in lower middle market industrial businesses. Angela shares her journey from leveraged finance at Bank of America through the 2008 financial crisis, to a family office, and ultimately to May River, where she started remotely during the pandemic while pregnant. 

They dig into why Angela believes sector-focused strategies are winning in today's PE landscape, how May River approaches portfolio management, and why the "private equity = cost cutters" stereotype couldn't be further from her reality. She also opens up about the power of p...

What if the thing founders are proudest of in diligence — "AI wrote most of our code" — is actually the reason investors should worry?

Jim sits down with Jason Gill and Kirby Montgomery of Code & Co. to talk about what happens when vibe coding meets private equity due diligence, why every diligence summary suddenly looks identical, and why the old scars (custom integrations, undocumented paths, the stuff nobody wanted to deal with) just became the most valuable thing a company owns. We break down the one question that separates real engineering from AI smoke and mirrors and lay out...

In this episode of Parker Gals, Liz Xu sits down with her former JPMorgan colleague and friend Caroline Carman, Senior Associate at Rallyday Partners, a lower middle market private equity firm based in Denver, Colorado.

Caroline shares her journey from leveraged finance analyst to becoming Rallyday's first associate, building the firm's junior team from the ground up. We dive into what drew her to private equity, the transition from heads-down number crunching to providing strategic thought partnership to portco management teams, and the mentor who shaped her career along the way. Plus, why the "PE guy" stereotype...

Devin and Cass sit down with Kate Hopkins, founder of OneGuide, to break down the 36 AI value creation plays private equity firms and portfolio companies are running right now. From TAM mapping and list building with AI to revenue leakage detection, workflow automation, and agent ecosystem strategy — this episode covers what's actually working, what's not, and what's coming next.

OneGuide's "Top 36 AI Value Creation Plays" report: https://connect.askoneguide.com/hubfs/OneGuide%20-%20AI%20Value%20Creation%20Plays%20-%202026.pdf

This episode is sponsored by NetSuite Next. Try it free at netsuite.ai/funcast.

In this episode, host Cass Ziebel sits down with Frontenac VP Maggie Pugel for a candid conversation about breaking into private equity the non-traditional way. Maggie shares how she went from buy-side equity research at Ariel Investments to private equity at Frontenac — without the classic investment banking pedigree — and why she's glad she took the "career switcher" route. 

They dig into what makes PE uniquely demanding and rewarding, how AI is changing the deal process, the value of great mentorship, and the mindset shift that comes with learning to let go of what you can't control. Plus: favor...

The private equity market in 2026 was supposed to rip. So why has it fallen flat?

Devin sits down with Steven Buibish, CFA, Director of US Private Equity Research at PitchBook, to break down the first half 2026 data. Deal value in Q2 dropped 38% from Q1. Software dealmaking froze. Mega deals are doing all the heavy lifting, distorting every headline number, and yet prices haven't budged. We're sitting at 2021 valuation peaks while volume collapses and leverage dries up.

They dig into what's actually happening beneath the surface: the HALO rotation into hard assets and data centers, the...

Welcome to Parker Gals — the podcast by and for women in private equity. Hosts Cass Ziebel and Liz Xu kick off the very first episode from ParkerGale HQ in Chicago, introducing themselves and the show.

In this debut episode, you'll hear how Cass stumbled into PE after a 2.5 hour "networking lunch" that turned into an accidental interview, and how Liz almost talked herself out of the job before Cass convinced her she was more than ready. Other agenda items include butter-to-egg ratios, Gilmore Girls VHS tapes, a pair of auction-won sunglasses, and two very different answers to "wh...

40% of PE firms and 60% of credit funds still track their portfolios on spreadsheets. That's now a way to monitor a few trillion in AUM. Private equity (and credit) are about to get way more transparent as retail investors get access to PE, and the tools you need to monitor and report your exposure must evolve. The products are way ahead of the plumbing. 

Devin sits down with Kevin Hsu, founder of Lumonic, a portfolio monitoring software company now part of PitchBook. We discuss Kevin's early career in private markets technology and what that taught him about the d...

PE GUY turned a Snapchat filter into millions of views and a seven-figure business. Host Devin Mathews (a real PE guy) conducts due diligence on Johnny Hilbrant Partridge's background, business model, and the wealthy towns he's taking on next.

We sat down with Johnny in PE GUY's natural habitat -- a Winnetka, IL pool house to figure out how a goofy internet character became an oddly accurate and honest mirror of the private equity industry. Johnny grew up in Winnetka and now lives in Wellesley (two classic PE Guy towns). He went to New Trier (the affluent...

Sam Levy's first sales job involved a phone book, a rotary phone, and 200 cold calls for one yes. He was still in college when he started a telemarketing gig with no playbook, no CRM, no email. Eighteen months in, the company went public, and the telemarketing kid was sipping champagne in the boardroom. This episode reveals everything that happened between that room and the one he sits in now: head of go-to-market strategy and execution at Oracle NetSuite, running a business that's grown from $250 million to $4 billion.

Sam walks Devin through how to build a career in...

The deep Rolodex model for headhunters doesn't cut it anymore. PE's cookie-cutter hiring scorecards now miss the best candidates in a complex world. And more and more funds are hiring internal teams to source CEOs. The executive search business is under pressure and has to adapt to survive. In this episode, Devin sits down with Nick Cromydas, to answer the question: how does executive search stay relevant?

Nick is the co-founder and CEO of Hunt Club, an AI-enabled search firm that pairs a GLG-style expert network with first-party data from countless executive searches. His team has conducted th...

In the past year, Excel AI plugins have become increasingly powerful, raising the question: Are Analysts and Associates about to become obsolete, or are we entering the age of the 10x modeler? On this episode, Devin and Caroline Phipps, a ParkerGale VP, go deep on AI and how it's changing the game. They're joined by Tarun Amasa, Founder & CEO of Endex, an OpenAI-backed startup automating modeling for private equity and investment banks.

We discuss building models from scratch, automating workflows, and auditing it all so you don't look bad in the IC. Learn about our use cases...

Your 401(k) is about to get access to private equity, but how, in what form, and at what price are all still TBD. Which is kind of a problem for such a big change. The pitch for putting private markets in retirement accounts is all about fairness: regular people got locked out of the hottest private companies, such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stripe. But the products actually getting built are something else entirely. They are semi-liquid, evergreen, with various fee wrappers, and most of what you'll be offered is actually private credit rather than private equity or venture...

AI is reshaping the consulting industry faster than the internet or remote work ever did. Some say the industry's days are numbered. So why are Anthropic and OpenAI building PE-backed consulting firms of their own? And how will private equity firms and the companies they own feel the change?

We get into what AI is actually doing to the consulting industry, why it's hitting faster than any tech shift before it, and how consulting firms are using AI to transform themselves to stay ahead of their clients. If you're an investor, an operator, a consultant, or just...

Artificial intelligence is changing the rules of software investing, forcing private equity firms to adapt quickly and carefully. In this episode, we're joined by the team from Code & Co., one of the leading AI and tech due diligence firms serving private equity investors, to discuss how AI is transforming the way software companies are evaluated before a deal closes. Jim sits down with Code & Co. Managing Partners Dan Bender and Lukas Ingelheim along with Head of North America Kirby Montgomery to explain why tech due diligence is no longer just a checkbox exercise.

Dan, Lukas and Kirby...

It's hard to execute today. Growth has slowed, and costs are up. If you own, advise, or operate a PE-backed company, this episode offers a behind the scenes look at some plays you can run to execute your way through the chop.

Paul Stansik and Jim Milbery cover sales training, customer support data, weekly go-to-market reporting, speed-to-lead, AI-assisted engineering, video marketing, release velocity, and other practical moves that are improving execution.

These are all moves you can make that we've seen make a difference. Try some out yourself and let us know how it goes.<...

Everyone says they are one-shotting workflows with AI. We brought on the guy who can tell us what's actually happening in middle-market private equity companies. Kyle Roemer, Head of Data & AI at Accordion, has a unique view because his firm advises over 350+ private equity clients. He can see what's real and what's hype, and Accordion has the Ramp data to tell the difference. Kyle walks Devin through the rapid changes over the past year, function by function, so you can decide if you're ahead or behind. One prediction: the Office of the CFO will go through the biggest revolution...

How do you make the leap from the college quad to private equity? Associates Liz Xu and Niko Ivanisevic share their unexpected journey to the offices of ParkerGale. They get honest about imposter syndrome, the myth of the "perfect path," building a personal story beyond your resume, and why you should never chew gum in a job interview. Whether you're an undergrad planning your career or a junior banker wondering what's next, this episode is full of practical advice for how to break into the industry.

Most B2B software companies have more growth left in what they already sell. This framework shows exactly where to find it — and where to stop looking. Jim Milbery and Paul Stansik walk through the Ansoff Matrix, a simple four-quadrant tool for organizing every growth conversation a software company will ever have. New market or existing market? New product or current product? Sounds obvious, but it's an argument that can derail board meetings, kill roadmaps, and send sales teams down blind alleys. What if chasing new markets and new products is actually the thing slowing you down? Jim and Paul ma...

Most B2B sales reps are professionally trained to make you like them in 30 minutes. But when you're recruiting salespeople, likability doesn't guarantee success. Make the wrong hire and you can lose two years and a chunk of your growth plan. In this episode, Devin and Paul walk through the five qualities ParkerGale tests for (customer focus, structure, accountability, problem-solving, drive), the specific questions we ask in a panel interview, and the trick question that breaks through every rapport-building defense salespeople can muster.

Most private equity firms claim to use a leather-bound "value creation" bible nobody's allowed to touch. The truth? It's more of a Cheesecake Factory menu. In this episode, Paul and Jim break down what operating partners actually do once the deal closes — the three buckets that matter (revenue, cost, risk), why many software companies leave revenue on the table with their existing customers, and what "don't buy a company you can't sell" looks like in practice.

In 1995, the typical "PE operating team" was a few old-timer ex-CEOs. Today there are 20,000 of them. Cass and Paul from ParkerGale's ops team sit down with Devin to walk through how private equity operations actually evolved — from the "I got a guy" Rolodex era, to the captive consulting model, to today's proliferation of professional operators. Plus hot takes on the AI-specialist hiring boom, why a lot of operating teams will get skinnier, and how to know if you're helping or propping up a company.

Do operating teams matter? Why is sourcing broken? Are add-ons a strategy or a crutch? What firms have actually "stayed small?" In this episode, Devin and Jim get introspective, reflecting on their biggest lessons to mark the 10-year anniversary of the final close of ParkerGale's first fund. Tell us what you've seen change over the past ten years, and what has stood the test of time.

LPs. GPs. Carry. Waterfalls. Pari passu. The unlock. Quantum. De-Risk. Niko originally thought one of these was a French dish. Liz wants to ban another from all future meetings.

In their PE Funcast debut, ParkerGale Associates Liz & Niko join Devin to demystify the private equity alphabet soup, breaking down everything from formal vocabulary to finance bro speak. Whether you're a first year Associate or a founder looking to sell, this is the lingo you should know.

In February of this year, an obscure research report triggered a $1 trillion wipeout in software stocks in seven days. In this episode we decipher what actually happened — and why AI is more likely to be a gift to enterprise software than a death sentence.   Devin and Jim have invested through every major tech transition: PCs, client-server, the browser, mobile, the cloud. This time, they're breaking down the four bear cases for enterprise software (private credit, seat licensing, vibe coding, the AI bubble) and sharing what's actually happening inside their portfolio. The ghost shows up every decade. Here's how not to get...

Selling a company isn't just about price - it's about timing, preparation and process. In this episode, Devin sits down with Ryan Milligan to break down how to sell a company - from timing the exit to running a competitive process and getting a deal across the finish line. They walk through the full private equity playbook including when to sell, whether or not to hire a banker and how deals move from early conversations to signed LOIs and closing.

If you've ever wondered how exits happen behind the scenes, this episode illustrates how it really goes...

Everyone loves the chase but what happens when the ink dries on the deal and you actually own a company?

In this episode, Jim sits down with Paul Stansik to pull back the curtain on how the combined deal, ops, and management teams come together in the first few weeks and months post-close.

They break down what life looks like immediately after an acquisition, including setting up governance, identifying talent gaps and figuring out where the real opportunities (and risks) are hiding.

Jim and Paul also hit on the softer side of what...

It all starts with an acquisition, but most people don't understand how private equity firms actually find and buy companies. Devin sits down with Ryan Milligan to break down the mechanics of deal sourcing, banker-led processes and direct founder relationships. 

From the early days of rotary phones ringing with deals to today's hyper-competitive sourcing environment, we discuss how firms build pipelines, win founders over, and decide which companies to buy. 

If you've ever wondered how private equity truly functions behind the scenes, this is your go-to guide for the entire process.

Raising your first private equity fund is humbling. Like Lloyd Dobler holding a boombox outside an LP's window, you need to be committed and creative.

It took us over 150 meetings and almost 2 years to get to the finish line. One LP fell asleep mid-pitch. We got stranded in a monsoon in Connecticut. Kenny the Associate torpedoed us in Manhattan. Jim got locked out, and Devin had to fly solo.

We survived. You can too.

From hiring a placement agent to practicing your pitch to getting LPs to tell you what they want, to...

In this episode, Devin and Jim rewind to 2014 — and a $12 bottle of Cabernet at the Macaroni Grill — where they hatched the plan to leave their firm and build a new private equity firm from nothing. This is the insider's guide they wish they'd had.

It's our annual Predictions episode (and by annual, we mean just the years we remember to record one).
Devin and Jim offer their hot takes on fundraising, liquidity, why artificial general intelligence (AGI) is still years away, and whether or not the world is officially "over-softwared."

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Devin sits down with Funcast listener and Terem Capital CEO Scott Middleton. Terem is a software holdco in Australia, and Scott shares his strategy, investment criteria, sourcing approach, and the difference between US holdcos. 

Jim sits down with Sean Lucq (Partner at SPMB Executive Search) to talk about the art of hiring senior engineering and product leaders—especially now that every job description on Earth has "AI" duct-taped to it.

We get into why sticking with one great search firm beats "random recruiter roulette," why tech interviewing is tough (spoiler: engineers aren't always born interviewers), and the eternal tension between the two key roles - CTO (big brain science/vision) and VP Engineering (keep the trains running, preferably on the tracks).

Then it's on to the AI gold rush: wh...

In this episode of The Private Equity Funcast, Jim Milbery sits down with Jennifer Nelson (CEO of Izzy Software), Richard Malone, Rob Swanson (co-founders of CNX Corporation), and Iwona Montgomery to talk about CNX's nearly 30-year glow-up — from green screens to the cloud. After almost three decades in the biz, CNX just joined forces with Izzy Software, and the result? Legacy systems that finally got the spa day they deserved. We dive into how moving to the cloud has made life easier for developers and why low-code tools are giving old-school software a serious second act.

Jim and Leah dive headfirst into a whirlwind chat that covers everything from the fine distinctions between puppets and marionettes to the equally delicate art of building great user experiences. Leah shares her fascinating journey from a Medieval French literature course at Berkeley to leading UX research at companies like Slack, Spotify, Instagram, and Mozilla. Along the way, they tackle why users often don't honestly know what they want, how to avoid building a product no one asked for (looking at you, Juicero), and why good design begins with understanding both people and teams.

It's a conversation...

Paul Stansik sits down with Shiv Narayanan—founder of How to SaaS and author of Exit-Ready Marketing—to break down what most private equity firms and portfolio companies get wrong about marketing. They explore how to make marketing a measurable, scalable lever for value creation, from diligence to exit. Shiv shares the frameworks he's used across countless engagements to tie marketing strategy, budget, and team structure to real business outcomes.

If you're tired of vague brand goals and unaccountable spend—or you're just trying to figure out what "good marketing" looks like in a PE context—this epi...

Devin sits down with Sameer Shamsi, Co-Head of Houlihan Lokey's GP Led Secondaries group. We cover everything you want to know about continuation vehicles, but were afraid to ask (or too dumb to ask?). What is the difference between LP-led and GP-led? How should GPs talk to their LPs about it? What assets are best suited for CVs? How does company management get treated in a CV? Plus so much more you didn't even pay for.

In this episode of the Private Equity Funcast, host Ryan Milligan speaks with OpenBrand CEO Greg Munves and Chief Economist Ralph McLaughlin about their innovative approach to tracking inflation through the OpenBrand Consumer Price Index for Durable and Personal Goods (CPI-DPG). The CPI-DPG is updated weekly, providing a third independent data point for measuring inflation. Its accuracy has been validated with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) as low as 1.6% in specific categories. Additionally, OpenBrand offers scenario-based inflation forecasts, enabling companies and investors to tailor predictions to their expectations and market views.

Munves and McLaughlin also outline...