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Private equity firms know what needs to be done. Portfolio companies have detailed value creation plans. So why is delivery still the bottleneck?
Renoir’s latest poll series asked PE professionals and senior leaders to identify where the real pressure points are. The answers reveal a stark reality: the constraint isn’t strategy, it’s execution. And the gap between plan and performance isn’t technical; it’s systemic.
When asked what’s holding portfolio companies back from delivering the plan right now, the responses split almost evenly between two fundamental issues: 33% identified slow decision-making as the primary obstacle, whilst another 33% pointed to misaligned incentives.
Inefficient processes captured 22% of votes, and lack of accountability came in at 11%.
The near tie between decision-making speed and incentive alignment reveals something important. These aren’t separate problems. Slow decisions often stem from unclear accountability, which itself reflects poorly designed incentives. Together, they form a governance system that simply wasn’t built for PE-level execution speed.
The leadership void poll produced the clearest result of the series. When asked where the biggest leadership gap is showing up, 41% identified change leadership as the critical missing capability.
Commercial rigour came second at 36%, finance discipline captured 18%, and operational drive registered just 5%.
The dominance of change leadership in these results is telling. Portfolio companies aren’t primarily struggling with technical skills in finance or operations. They’re struggling to drive transformation end to end: sequencing initiatives, cutting through resistance, aligning stakeholders, and maintaining momentum when the initial energy fades.
The strong showing for commercial rigour (36%) underscores a related challenge. PE sponsors want systematic, data-driven approaches to growth, not just selling more. They want leaders who think in unit economics, pipeline quality, and productivity metrics. That capability appears to be in short supply.
Before board and investor reviews, one issue stands out above all others: 40% said forecast accuracy is causing the most friction.
Management reporting speed captured 30%, data quality and integrity took 20%, and KPI alignment with the value creation plan registered just 10%.
The relatively low score for KPI alignment suggests sponsors generally know what to measure. The problem isn’t identifying the right metrics. It’s trusting the numbers and the process that produces them.
When forecasts shift dramatically late in the reporting cycle or actuals surprise versus plan, confidence erodes quickly. That fragility shows up precisely when scrutiny is highest: board meetings, investment committee reviews, and lender conversations.
The culture and alignment poll revealed no single dominant factor. Instead, three issues tied at 29% each: legacy leadership mindset, resistance to accountability, and misaligned incentives post-deal. Lack of pace and urgency captured 14%.
This distribution suggests culture isn’t creating drag in just one way. It’s a systemic issue manifesting across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Pre-deal behaviours, committee-driven norms, and incentive structures that don’t map tightly to value creation are all contributing to the same outcome: an operating system that can’t deliver PE-grade performance.
Taken together, the polls tell a consistent story. Portfolio companies are being asked to deliver PE-level value creation whilst still running a pre-PE operating system.
The execution gap shows up in three layers:
Governance and decision-making. Slow decisions, unclear decision rights, and consensus-driven cultures mean even good strategies stall. The 33% citing slow decision-making in poll one and the 29% identifying legacy leadership mindset in poll four are describing the same underlying problem.
Leadership capabilities. Finance and operations are largely adequate. What’s missing are leaders who can drive transformation programmes and bring systematic rigour to commercial execution. The combined 77% across change leadership and commercial roles in poll two makes this explicit.
Performance management infrastructure. Forecasting and reporting remain reactive and fragile rather than functioning as a forward-looking control system. The 40% citing forecast accuracy and 30% pointing to reporting speed indicate the current approach can’t support board-level confidence.
If these polls are treated as a diagnostic, they point to several priority interventions:
Reset governance post-deal – Clarify who decides what, on what timelines, with what information. Shorten decision cycles around pricing, hiring, capex, and market moves.
Hardwire incentives to the plan – Align management teams around clear targets per workstream, transparent KPIs cascaded through the organisation, and variable compensation that actually moves with delivery.
Upgrade leadership in commercial and change roles – Bring in or develop leaders who think in unit economics and productivity metrics on the commercial side and deploy transformation leaders with authority to drive cross-functional execution, not just manage project plans.
Industrialise forecasting and reporting – Make forecast accuracy a core leadership metric. Move from building board packs to maintaining a live performance view that feeds investor materials. Fix data quality issues but focus on accuracy and speed where it affects decisions and confidence.
Tackle cultural drag explicitly – Name and address legacy behaviours directly. Use the deal as a forcing function to articulate how a PE-backed business operates: faster decisions, tighter accountability, higher urgency.
The polls reveal where execution breaks down in portfolio companies today. It’s not primarily about market conditions or strategic clarity. It’s about decision speed, leadership strength in transformation and commercial roles, incentive alignment, and performance management systems that can support board-level scrutiny.
The opportunity lies in rapidly upgrading these foundational elements. Portfolio companies that close the execution gap don’t just deliver the plan. They create the operating system that makes sustained value creation possible.
The data shows where the pressure points are. The question is which firms will act on them first.
It’s not the strategy, it’s the execution system. Portfolio companies are being asked to deliver PE-level performance whilst still running pre-PE operating models. The polls show this clearly: 33% cite slow decision-making, another 33% point to misaligned incentives, and 22% identify inefficient processes. These aren’t separate problems. They’re symptoms of governance structures that weren’t built for PE execution speed.
Change leadership, by a significant margin. 41% identified this as the critical missing capability. Portfolio companies aren’t struggling with finance or operations knowledge, they’re struggling to drive transformation end to end. Sequencing initiatives, cutting through resistance, maintaining momentum when the initial energy fades. That’s where execution breaks down, and it’s precisely the skillset most companies lack internally.
Because it directly impacts confidence when scrutiny is highest. 40% said forecast accuracy is the biggest reporting issue, more than double any other factor. When forecasts shift dramatically late in the cycle or actuals surprise versus plan, trust erodes fast. The problem isn’t identifying the right KPIs. It’s trusting the numbers and the process that produces them, especially during board reviews and lender conversations.
Culture isn’t creating drag in just one way, it’s systemic. The poll results split evenly: 29% cited legacy leadership mindset, 29% pointed to resistance to accountability, and 29% identified misaligned incentives post-deal. Pre-deal behaviours, committee-driven norms, and incentive structures that don’t map to value creation are all contributing to the same outcome: an operating system that can’t deliver PE-grade performance.
Reset the fundamentals. Clarify who decides what and on what timelines. Hardwire incentives directly to the value creation plan with transparent KPIs cascaded through the organisation. Upgrade leadership in change and commercial roles, bring in people who think in unit economics and can actually drive cross-functional execution. Industrialise forecasting so it’s a forward-looking control system, not just a board pack exercise. And tackle cultural drag explicitly rather than hoping it resolves itself.
PE sponsors want systematic, data-driven approaches to growth. That means leaders who think in unit economics, pipeline quality, and productivity metrics, not just revenue targets. 36% identified commercial rigour as a critical gap, second only to change leadership. The capability to bring disciplined commercial thinking appears to be in short supply, and it shows up in execution quality.
Because slow decisions often stem from unclear accountability, which itself reflects poorly designed incentives. The fact that these 2 issues tied at 33% each isn’t coincidental, they’re describing the same underlying problem. Together, they form a governance system that simply wasn’t built for PE timelines. Fix one without fixing the other, and you’ll still have an execution bottleneck.
Stop treating the deal as just a financing event. Use it as a forcing function to articulate how a PE-backed business actually operates: faster decisions, tighter accountability, higher urgency. Shorten decision cycles around pricing, hiring, capex, and market moves. Make forecast accuracy a core leadership metric. Deploy transformation leaders with authority to drive results, not just manage project plans. The companies that close the execution gap don’t just deliver the plan, they build the operating system that makes sustained value creation possible.
To discuss how interim executives can help close the execution gap in your portfolio companies, contact Jennifer Brook-Botfield at jen.brook-botfield@renoirinterim.com
