Private Equity Data Guy

Private equity meets data. Conversations with deal teams, operating partners, and portfolio company leaders about the data problems that kill deals, slow exits, and destroy value.Hosted by Graeme Crawford, founder of Crawford McMillan. 20 years leading data programs at Fortune 100 companies. Now helping PE-backed companies fix data before exits so the numbers hold up under scrutiny.New episodes cover diligence red flags, value creation playbooks, and the real stories behind successful (and failed) transactions.

Private Equity Data Guy is a business podcast hosted by Graeme Crawford, with 42 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Graeme Crawford hosts Private Equity Data Guy, a business show with 42 episodes published.

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  Episode #40

  Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem

  Aug 13, 202644 minS1

  Philip Curran has spent four decades inside the rooms where leadership either holds together or quietly falls apart. In this episode, we get into the half of the story that most data people never see: the hidden emotional contract between leaders and the people they lead, and why ignoring it costs PE portfolio companies real money before and during exit. We cover the eight promises leaders make every day whether they know it or not, how leadership misalignment shows up as data problems, and why the hero culture inside PE-backed companies is more of a liability than an asset. If you care about what actually drives returns, this one connects dots you have probably felt but never named. --- Chapters: 00:03 - The Role of Leaders in Shaping Culture 11:41 - Understanding the Hidden Emotional Contract 16:33 - Understanding Leadership and Decision Making 29:40 - Understanding Leadership through Hidden Emotional Contracts 43:06 - The Hidden Emotional Contract in Work **Guest Information** Phillip Curran is the founder of Renova, a senior human capital advisory firm providing interim CHRO leadership and strategic counsel to CEOs and private equity operators. He is the creator of the ARC Diagnostic, a tool that measures leadership reliability at the enterprise level. His first book, The Hidden Emotional Contract, publishes August 17th. - Company: Rinnova HR - LinkedIn: Phillip Curran --- **Companies Mentioned** - Renova - IBM - Capital One --- **Websites Mentioned** - Rinnova HR - Phillip Curran on LinkedIn --- **Key Takeaways** - Culture is the lived experience of the people working for you, driven by the exhibited behaviors of leaders. HR cannot create it. - When five executives hold five different definitions of an active customer, the cost is not just a reporting issue. It slows decisions, breaks operations, and shows up as eroded exit value. - The eight promises: dignity, clarity, safety, meaning, growth, recognition, belonging, and agency. Breaking any of them causes people to pull back long before the numbers reflect it. - Decision velocity always matters in private equity. Anything that puts a foot on the brake, whether role confusion or lack of strategic clarity, destroys value. - The hero culture PE environments breed is a single point of failure, not a feature.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #40

  Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem

  Aug 13, 202644 minS1

  Philip Curran has spent four decades inside the rooms where leadership either holds together or quietly falls apart. In this episode, we get into the half of the story that most data people never see: the hidden emotional contract between leaders and the people they lead, and why ignoring it costs PE portfolio companies real money before and during exit. We cover the eight promises leaders make every day whether they know it or not, how leadership misalignment shows up as data problems, and why the hero culture inside PE-backed companies is more of a liability than an asset. If you care about what actually drives returns, this one connects dots you have probably felt but never named. --- Chapters: 00:03 - The Role of Leaders in Shaping Culture 11:41 - Understanding the Hidden Emotional Contract 16:33 - Understanding Leadership and Decision Making 29:40 - Understanding Leadership through Hidden Emotional Contracts 43:06 - The Hidden Emotional Contract in Work **Guest Information** Phillip Curran is the founder of Renova, a senior human capital advisory firm providing interim CHRO leadership and strategic counsel to CEOs and private equity operators. He is the creator of the ARC Diagnostic, a tool that measures leadership reliability at the enterprise level. His first book, The Hidden Emotional Contract, publishes August 17th. - Company: Rinnova HR - LinkedIn: Phillip Curran --- **Companies Mentioned** - Renova - IBM - Capital One --- **Websites Mentioned** - Rinnova HR - Phillip Curran on LinkedIn --- **Key Takeaways** - Culture is the lived experience of the people working for you, driven by the exhibited behaviors of leaders. HR cannot create it. - When five executives hold five different definitions of an active customer, the cost is not just a reporting issue. It slows decisions, breaks operations, and shows up as eroded exit value. - The eight promises: dignity, clarity, safety, meaning, growth, recognition, belonging, and agency. Breaking any of them causes people to pull back long before the numbers reflect it. - Decision velocity always matters in private equity. Anything that puts a foot on the brake, whether role confusion or lack of strategic clarity, destroys value. - The hero culture PE environments breed is a single point of failure, not a feature.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #40

  Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem

  Aug 13, 202644 minS1

  Philip Curran has spent four decades inside the rooms where leadership either holds together or quietly falls apart. In this episode, we get into the half of the story that most data people never see: the hidden emotional contract between leaders and the people they lead, and why ignoring it costs PE portfolio companies real money before and during exit. We cover the eight promises leaders make every day whether they know it or not, how leadership misalignment shows up as data problems, and why the hero culture inside PE-backed companies is more of a liability than an asset. If you care about what actually drives returns, this one connects dots you have probably felt but never named. --- Chapters: 00:03 - The Role of Leaders in Shaping Culture 11:41 - Understanding the Hidden Emotional Contract 16:33 - Understanding Leadership and Decision Making 29:40 - Understanding Leadership through Hidden Emotional Contracts 43:06 - The Hidden Emotional Contract in Work **Guest Information** Phillip Curran is the founder of Renova, a senior human capital advisory firm providing interim CHRO leadership and strategic counsel to CEOs and private equity operators. He is the creator of the ARC Diagnostic, a tool that measures leadership reliability at the enterprise level. His first book, The Hidden Emotional Contract, publishes August 17th. - Company: Rinnova HR - LinkedIn: Phillip Curran --- **Companies Mentioned** - Renova - IBM - Capital One --- **Websites Mentioned** - Rinnova HR - Phillip Curran on LinkedIn --- **Key Takeaways** - Culture is the lived experience of the people working for you, driven by the exhibited behaviors of leaders. HR cannot create it. - When five executives hold five different definitions of an active customer, the cost is not just a reporting issue. It slows decisions, breaks operations, and shows up as eroded exit value. - The eight promises: dignity, clarity, safety, meaning, growth, recognition, belonging, and agency. Breaking any of them causes people to pull back long before the numbers reflect it. - Decision velocity always matters in private equity. Anything that puts a foot on the brake, whether role confusion or lack of strategic clarity, destroys value. - The hero culture PE environments breed is a single point of failure, not a feature.

  ListenShow Notes
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  Episode #39

  Why 80% of Founder CEOs Fail After PE Buys Their Company

  Aug 6, 202640 minS1

  Behind every value creation plan, there is a data problem. But behind every data problem, there is a people problem. In this episode, I sat down with Kit Lisle, a former US Army intelligence officer turned middle market M&A veteran, who spent 30 years watching private equity backed executives succeed and fail in the same environments for the same reasons. Kit built The Operators, a peer community now nearly 800 members strong, because he got tired of watching talented executives get dropped into hostile ownership transitions with no map, no lexicon, and no honest conversation about what they were walking into. He also spent six months building his own definition of value creation because he got tired of getting 23 different answers every time he asked the question. What came out of that work is a six-lever framework that reframes how operating teams and deal teams should think about performance inside a portfolio company. We go through every lever, including the one most people skip straight past, which is alignment, and I push back on a few of his points with what I have seen on the data side inside portcos that are two to three years into a hold and running out of runway. We also get into why the wait-and-see doctrine is costing PE firms real money, why the definition of "operator" shifts entirely depending on whether the board is happy with you, and what founder CEOs consistently get wrong in the first 90 days after taking institutional capital. This one is practical, direct, and pulls no punches. 0:00 - Private equity is under real pressure 1:18 - Kit Lisle and his background 2:14 - Defining value creation clearly 3:25 - Alignment as the first lever 8:12 - Operational improvement and change management 11:09 - Fact-based decision making in portcos 14:30 - The Operators community and what sponsors never hear 20:28 - The tension between operating partners and deal teams 25:04 - Why the 80% misalignment rate persists 32:32 - What founder CEOs must do to survive PE Companies Mentioned Capital One IBM A Claro Growth Partners The Operators Websites Mentioned theoperators.pe (Kit Lisle's peer community for private equity backed executives) Guest Information Kit Lisle is the founder of A Claro Growth Partners, a growth strategy firm, and the builder of The Operators, the peer community for private equity backed executives. He spent 30 years in the middle market M&A space and began his career as a US Army intelligence officer. After years of watching misalignment crater value creation plans, he developed his own six-lever framework for defining and delivering value inside PE-backed companies. He is also the author of the Strategic Growth Council advisory group and a regular speaker and contributor inside the PE operating partner community. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kit-lisle/ Website: theoperators.pe

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  Episode #38

  The Compliance Reality Nobody Tells You About AI

  Jul 15, 202640 minS1

  Brandon Micci has spent his career inside some of the largest financial institutions in the world, deploying AI and data infrastructure at a scale most companies only talk about. In this episode, we go into what it actually takes to get AI into production inside a regulated organization, where most initiatives stall before they ever reach users, and what the right sequencing looks like when budget and time are limited. We cover the lessons from building a 30,000-user analytics culture at Capital One, the compliance reality of deploying a language model to 27,000 people at JPMorgan, and the practical advice any mid-market company can act on right now to get AI working in the right direction. TIMESTAMPS [0:52] Welcome to The PE Data Guy [1:18] Brandon Micci's Career Background [3:01] Tableau and Capital One Culture [8:25] Safe AI Rollout Best Practices [13:41] Building the CEO Dashboard [17:40] JPMorgan 27,000 User Deployment [22:25] AI Strategy on a Smaller Budget [33:50] Investing with a Long-Term View COMPANIES MENTIONED Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Southwest Airlines, PwC, Booz Allen Hamilton, Alteryx, Tableau, Oracle, Meta, Palantir, SpaceX, Micron, SanDisk, Lovable, Cursor WEBSITES MENTIONED No specific websites were referenced in this episode. GUEST INFORMATION Brandon Micci is a data and AI executive who has led large-scale initiatives at Capital One, Citigroup, Southwest Airlines, and JPMorgan Chase. At JPMorgan, he oversaw the deployment of an LLM assistant to 27,000 users across the payments organization. He focuses on helping organizations build a clear ROI case before committing resources to AI.

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