As opposed to the hourglass model of the public company— in which the CEO controls the flow of information to the board— the PE model is a leadership triad. The PE firm deal lead and board directors have full access to information and are closely involved in the running of the company.

Public boards typically limit their interactions with CEOs and other company leaders to formal scheduled meetings. PE boards eschew that approach in an effort to stay deeply connected with company decisions. Courtney della Cava, global head of portfolio talent and organizational performance at Blackstone, shared, “We encourage our board members to interact regularly with their respective business and functional leads as well as the CEO and other board members.” She emphasized that, whereas public company CEOs tend to think of board relations as about managing the board, in the PE model, that approach won’t work. A partnership mentality is best in the public context, also, but under PE ownership, its imperative. PE firm boards aren’t interested in slide presentations or any of the theater of public board meetings.

In recent years, to further enhance the support the board can provide, some PE firms have been appointing a select number of independent directors to work directly with senior executives in addition to the CEO.

Opinion about the high-engagement PE model is not universally positive. Some criticize the intense involvement of PE firms for turning the CEO into more of a “COO plus.” In this view, PE firms are primarily interested in hiring executives great at execution, who will put strong emphasis on operational improvements. They aren’t looking for input— or not much— into the strategy for growth, and they curtail CEO power.

In all cases, an essential truth is that the CEO is still the one primarily in charge of running the company. The PE firm provides an idealized model of the transformation process, and the CEO brings the wisdom of experience in how to actually manage the messier, human process of execution.

When it comes to investing in leadership development, PE firms have thus far focused on providing executives of portfolio companies a richness of opportunity for networking and peer-to-peer exchanges with other leaders in their portfolio companies and their vast network of advisers. They’ve worked to create rich ecosystems to facilitate these kinds of opportunities. “We spend a lot of time nurturing our talent network,” Courtney della Cava shared. These networks provide entrée to hundreds of other C-suite leaders, board directors, and company stakeholders who can provide input, from customers to suppliers and regulators. “We actively cultivate communities among our various executive cohorts,” she explained. This may be done, for example, by hosting regular gatherings where leaders can confer about issues and build relationships. The firm may also take the lead in making introductions across the ecosystem. A CEO of a mid-cap health-care company might, for example, be introduced to her counterpart at a fast-growth tech company who has invaluable expertise in cybersecurity or AI implementation.