Making Talent a Competitive Edge for Private Equity

Making Talent a Competitive Edge for Private EquityBetter Hiring, Higher Retention, Stronger Execution

Client Case Study

Making Talent a Competitive Edge for Private Equity

Situation

This lower middle-market private equity firm focused on industrial and automotive Manufacturing  across North America & Europe.  Their portfolio companies had complex, operationally intensive footprints.  To meet growth targets, they wanted to aligning leadership capability to strategy execution demands.

Complications

The private equity Director knew its value creation plans wouldn’t succeed without the right leaders in place—especially at the executive and operational levels where leadership execution risk tends to hide. Yet traditional methods — interviews, resumes, reference calls — couldn’t predict who would actually lead under pressure.

Their founding partners had experience with behavioral assessments, but needed a solution built for scale, speed, and depth. They turned to our leadership simulation assessments to strengthen hiring and promotion decisions across both portfolio companies and their internal team.  They knew talent decisions in PE-backed companies couldn’t be left to gut feel. They needed real data on whether someone could actually lead in a plant or a dynamic ops environment.

Approach: Making Talent a Competitive Edge for Private Equity

We delivered highly targeted simulation-based assessments that mirrored the real-world scenarios faced by their leaders — conflict, ambiguity, change management — allowing operating partners to assess how candidates actually behave under pressure. Their implementation included:

  • Executive and Mid-Level Simulations: C-suite, CFOs, and plant/ops leadership.
  • Internal Talent Development: Integrated simulation assessments into the hiring process.
  • Scalable Rollout: Used across multiple portfolio companies and geographies.

Results: Better Hiring, Higher Retention, and Stronger Execution
By replacing their unstructured interviews with behavior-based data, the Private Equity firm was able to surface both red flags and high-potential leaders early — often before day one on the job.  The assessments are being used as a roadmap that identifies where to support a new leader and where they may face friction.

  • Retention Uplift:  +26% retention among assessed leaders.
  • Benchmark Performance: 44% higher retention above financial industry norms.
  • Faster Hiring:  24-hour assessment turnaround enabled nimble hiring.
  • Scalable Across Levels: Used from frontline to C-suite across multiple sites.

Related Information

You have become our premier change leadership strategic partner. Your expertise in the human side of change is unparalleled and enabled our company to successfully implement our ERP Solution under challenging and ever-changing circumstances.

Thank you for your practical and outcome-oriented approach.

Ted Ramlet
CIO & SVP

McKesson

What a refreshing change from the half-baked psycho-babble you normally get from training and consulting organizations. LSA gives you the practical and results-oriented assistance you need to define and reach your goals.

Their leadership, management, and sales expertise has been invaluable.  They think strategically and provide a results driven plan – not just a temporary fix.

They are great to work with, and even more importantly, they “get it!”

David Fiano
Director of Merchandising

After a difficult search to find a partner that could address a very specific leadership development need, we chose LSA Global. They were responsive to our needs and created a highly customized solution that we continue to see results from. It is nice to know we have access to their expertise with a simple phone call.

Valerie Blackburn
Director of Business Operations

Thanks for your incredible patience and passion working with our leadership team to create alignment.

Your leadership and executive coaching services have been one of the most effective I’ve ever known.

Debbie Von Raesfeld
Director and HR Business Partner

AMD

Thank you to LSA Global for their partnership and support in helping us to design and roll-out highly needed and valuable leadership and management development programs that fit our unique situation.

I personally have partnered with LSA Global at four of my previous companies. It continues to be a delight.

We look forward to partnering with them for a long time to develop our managers and leaders.

Suzanne Kinner
VP Human Resources

Blackhawk Network

We turned to LSA to help us custom design and deliver a action leadership and management development curriculum to help drive performance across the company.

They have done an excellent job diagnosing the business situation, designing an approach that fits our unique culture, and delivering first class solutions.  Thank you!

Sally Buchannan
VP Human Resources

The customized leadership program was very practical and achieved our goals. LSA adapted very well to our group and the situation and helped us build trust and awareness of successful leadership styles. We look forward to the next steps.

Erik Okholm
Director of Software Development

The quality of LSA’s Leadership Training Programs and facilitators is always top notch. We recognize and appreciate the hard work LSA always goes through to align to our unique culture and meet our specific requirements. Thank you for regularly going above and beyond. Your support and dedication, both on the strategic and tactical side, have been outstanding!

Anna Meyer
Leadership Development

Intuit

LSA consistently delivers for me and my team.  Recently they demonstrated the criticality for executives to look beyond current ethics topics and focus on applying fundamental values in everything they do to demonstrate true leadership. They successfully delivered in two hours what most leadership development facilitators would spend an entire day trying to communicate.

Nick Voyvodich, SPHR
HR Manager

Fujitsu

At the onset of our engagement with LSA, I was skeptical that an outside firm would be able to understand and dissect our organization’s highly complex and technical business challenges.

However, through the leadership team interview and strategy retreat processes that LSA utilized, they provided a fresh, innovative, and practical perspective that created tremendous strategic value and focus for our executive leadership team.

As a result, I would highly recommend LSA Global to any leader struggling with building the strategic alignment and high performance teams necessary to generate sales growth, in a way that fits their unique corporate culture.

Robert Laudati
Managing Director

L3Harris_Logo-LSAGlobal

LSA is an excellent sales and leadership outsource partner! They listen to our needs, are responsive, and work at a pace that keeps up with our rapid speed.

We have found LSA to bring strategic, innovative, and practical solutions to meet our business priorities by partnering effectively with our key staff. I consider them to be an important external extension of our team.

Thank you!

Wendy Chinn
Sr. Director, Global Sales Enablement

We partnered with LSA Global to help us invest in our people. LSA custom designed an impactful management curriculum to help upskill our key managers and leaders.

We consider LSA to be our trusted learning and development partner and a valued extension of our team as we rapidly scale.  Thank you LSA!

Lisa Bruun
SVP Human Resources

Ellie Mae

LSA’s executive coach based his approach on understanding our business circumstances and strategy, as well as our leadership aspirations. The customized coaching covered all aspects of leadership; it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor.

In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me as a senior leader to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business.”

Janet Pagano
Managing Director

Ovid

Having taken on a new executive leadership role, one of my first calls was to LSA Global to help my leadership team to design, implement, and cascade clear strategic plans.  First, LSA helped our leadership team identify the strategy, culture, and talent areas that mattered most to create organizational alignment.

Then they helped facilitate the design of a strategic growth plan that is clear, compelling, believable, and implementable. We now have 100% commitment from an aligned leadership team and key stakeholders going forward.

I would recommend LSA to anyone who wants to create high levels of strategic alignment, growth, and performance.

Erik Arvesen
Vice President, General Manager

L3Harris_Logo-LSAGlobal

As a high growth agency with cutting edge talent, we hired LSA Global to help clarify our strategy and work with our executive leadership team to help implement strategic changes in a way that made sense for our unique culture.

The work was so successful that we also hired them to coach our key leaders. LSA has been instrumental in helping us transition to a new leadership team and triple revenue.  In this age of useless consultants, I highly recommend their practical and business-oriented approach to strategy, culture, and talent.

David Bentley
General Manager

AKQA

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