The pressure in PE can create clarity, but the speed and timeline of PE can also create tough conditions to make talent investment decisions. You closed 90 days ago, or you’re 18 months from exit, or the CHRO who got you here isn’t the one who gets you there. The stakes are high which actually can lead to an overly conservative view, when actually a small investment can yield a big payoff. We know how to find the right person for exactly this moment, and we can help you set them up to perform in it. When you want your talent to punch above their weight, you need a leader who can deliver outsized results.
Post-acquisition: the legacy HR team was built for a different company.
Rapid scaling: what worked at $250M is breaking at $800M.
Pre-exit: the buyer will look at the leadership team as a proxy for how well run the organization is and how committed the workforce is.
Many clients don’t come to us with a clean search brief. It often starts with a feeling that something is costing more than it should, that the team isn’t moving as fast and frictionless as it could, that the next phase of growth is going to require something the current people infrastructure can’t deliver. That’s the perfect time to call.
What worked at $80M is breaking at $250M. What worked at $250M is breaking at $500M. What worked at $500M is breaking at $1B+. The HR function has been so busy delivering on growth with sheer will (and we do love that scrappiness and effort!), but at some point it presents too much risk. What’s broken may be obvious, but the root cause often isn’t, because in complex systems it’s often a confluence of things. It could be the leader, the structure, the skills, the resources, the competing organizational goals, or some combination. We have an approach that gets deep quickly to understand the whole story, not just one piece of data, so you make a hire that fixes the actual problem.
Post-acquisition or carve-out, the legacy HR team was built for a different company. The organization you’re inheriting needs someone who can redesign the people infrastructure, earn board trust, and hit the ground before the first 100 days are up, then build the plane while it’s already flying. Customers have high expectations and your people can’t miss a beat. In these cases, we can put an on-demand team in to deliver quickly, find a fractional CHRO with prior experience to help you navigate what they’ve navigated before, and hire the right go-forward HR leader and team.
This is actually the most common call we get. The team is working hard. The numbers are ok, but not great. You were hired to unlock something bigger, faster. But something is off. We often find that it’s a people operating system problem that goes beyond the top leader and org structure, and increasingly with AI on the scene, it’s about the work itself. What is the best work split with humans and AI? How is quality measured? Was it actually good work or just fast and sounded good? For this situation, there is no playbook just yet, but an assembled team with the right intention, good questions, and sound backgrounds in organization development, systems-thinking, and HR can create clarity where today there is noise and confusion.
“I recently started working with Adrienne and her firm, Anso Partners, and they have been terrific at finding the right talent at the right time. They are my new go-to partner for talent.”
PE-backed CHRO
“Talent and culture are the true differentiators in company performance. Adrienne found us the right pragmatic People leaders who think about HR as a business with the goal of helping the people and company drive value. Finding the mix of strategic and tactical is key in the PE-backed companies I serve. Adrienne has gotten it right for me twice and I’m a tough customer.”
PE Company Board ChairFormer CEO
“I was thrown into the CHRO role for my company’s $2.5B carve out and had to build a team FAST. I was new to PE and Adrienne served as a trusted advisor in designing and filling two key roles: Global Total Rewards and Talent. They quickly understood our business and its unique challenges and made it a painless and efficient process.”
PE-backed CHRO
Tell us where you are in the cycle. We’ll tell you whether we’re the right fit, and what the right profile looks like for this specific moment.