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

We greatly value our relationship with LSA Global.

They focused on understanding our unique culture and helping us to move our strategic priorities forward.

LSA continues to deliver top quality executive coaching, consulting, and leadership development solutions that are highly customized for our unique situation.

I highly recommend LSA Global to anyone looking to greatly improve their leadership, management, and project capabilities.

Bonnie S. Olson
Vice President of Human Resources

LSS

We selected LSA Global over 5 other companies to help our key executives improve their overall communication and executive presentation capabilities. LSA exceeded our expectations.

I highly recommend LSA to any executive team looking to better organize and more effectively deliver key executive-level messages — especially when the stakes are high.

Todd Power
Office of the CEO

LSA’s approach and ability to bring the right leadership and management expertise and approach to eBay has been a great asset.

They really focus on helping us succeed in any way they can and definitely lifted up our leadership and management development capabilities.

Mike Normant
Learning & Development

ebay

Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant.  The team got a lot out of it (as did I).

I believe it will help us create an even higher performance culture by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

Simon Jefferson
Managing Director

AKQA

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

Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, to solidify our new direction, and to push our agency forward.

As we look to rapidly scale, the clear, actionable, and critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves to our top accounts and target clients has really set us on a great path to success.

This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level. Thank you LSA!

Matt Britton
CEO

MRY logo LSA Global

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

It was a challenge to find a consultant with an approach to performance improvement that fit our unique performance culture and style. We were pleasantly surprised to discover LSA’s depth of expertise in the fields of motivation, developmental coaching, performance management, and measurement.

LSA seamlessly integrated those components without our folks feeling like the intervention was forced. They understood what we were trying to accomplish, helped us clarify our objectives, and created a solid, refreshing approach that quickly got us moving and engaged at all levels across the organization.

Overall, I couldn’t be happier that we found a true strategy and implementation partner in LSA.

Doug Hansen
President and Director

Redwood Trust

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

Working on our HR Strategy was so eye opening.  I feel so much better prepared to be successful as a leader individually and collectively.

Now the entire HR leadership team can drive our growth strategy forward in a way that makes sense.

Kristin Talastas
Director, HR Shared Services

lucid-motors-logo-LSA-Global

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

The strategy and alignment work with our leadership team was absolutely transformational.  The decisions we made combined with the transparency, communication, and accountability were exactly what we needed.  Thank you!

Dr. Raphael B. Merriman M.D
Medical Director, Liver Transplantation

Sutter Health Logo LSA Global

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

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

LSA’s approach has certainly brought value to Knight Ridder Digital. They were laser focused on our goal and determined to meet all of our Leadership development program needs. Their flexibility and commitment were keys in making our program successful.

Dipik Rai
Director of Marketing

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