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.

In the PE model, information flows much more freely to the PE board through multiple channels. Ops teams not only provide support for the CEO but also report directly to the deal lead and PE board about issues they’re uncovering. Members of those teams, as well as the deal lead and board members, can reach out directly to company managers at any time. Leaders who are keen to play the role of gatekeeper, particularly those who want to use it as a means of consolidating power, are not a good fit for the PE model.

For those who favor collaborative partnership, the trade-offs for less autonomy can be great benefits from much more intensive guidance than a public CEO can access.

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.

Improving the performance of companies that are performing fairly well is now the predominant objective, and PE firms have learned that a CEO’s people leadership abilities are the vital complement to strength in finance and operations for this new frontier of performance improvement.

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.