Ep. 222: Alex (@aebridgeman) is joined by Dan Cremons (@DanCremons).

My guest today is Dan Cremons, author of Winning Moves, 105 Proven Ways to Create Value in Private Equity-Backed Companies, and founder of Accelera Partners where he focuses on helping private equity groups unlock people-powered value creation. Dan started at Alpine Investors for 12 years before leaving in 2021 to found Accelera, and his book is an incredibly thorough documentation of everything he learned about the private equity playbook and how it needs to evolve.

Dan and I talk about the five buckets of value creation and what the biggest drivers are, what great value creation looks like at a PE firm and company level, traps for first-time CEOs, and interviewing executives to make sure you have the right team in place.

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Learn more about Alex and Think Like an Owner at https://tlaopodcast.com/

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Links:

→ Buy Dan's bestselling book on PE value creation - Link

→ Resources for private equity professionals – Link

→ Resources for PE-backed executives – Link

→ Connect with Dan on LinkedIn – Link

Topics:

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:04:13) - Dan's career background and learnings from Alpine

(00:13:29) - How the Private Equity playbook has changed over time

(00:16:23) - What a 10/10 PE firm looks like

(00:25:40) - Categories of winning moves

(00:30:21) - What have been your biggest learnings about revenue growth?

(00:39:05) - First-time CEO traps

(00:46:36) - Identifying priorities

(00:53:39) - Alex's perspective on finding focus

(00:58:58) - Dan's formative experiences

(01:07:42) - Evaluating management teams

(01:15:36) - Upskilling team members

(01:20:02) - Winning the first few weeks in the CEO role