Chris Kenny discusses the operator led PE investor approach and why you might be hiring the wrong talent into your portfolio

Introduction to Chris

Chris is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of L5 Capital Partners. L5 Capital Partners is a business equity firm that invests in consumer businesses. These include, communications, lifestyle, and health. Chris, for the longest time has been in the operations side of organizations, and now he sheds light on how he migrated from ops to the investor side of his career.

What You Will Learn

Consumer Space

Transitioning from Operations to Investor

Quality Hiring Process in PE

Business Growth

Talent Cycles 

Breakdown

[00:28] Introduction of Chris

Early days in Corporate finance and worked through telecom 

[02:30] From Operator to Investor

[03:31] Mistakes of PE Firms and Portfolios

[04:55] Changes in the Hiring Process

[11:14] Focusing on Consumer Space

[14:29] Focusing and Defining Stage Growth

[19:52] Values in Operator-Led Firms

[23:58] Experiences Taken as a CEO

[28:54] Preparational Procedures for Promotions

[31:03] Three Attributes That Make a Top Performer

[33:33] Love and Dislikes About PE

[36:40] Other Media Literature

[40:55] How to Reach Chris

Talent Lifecycle

A giant factor that affects businesses is the lifecycle of talents that rotate inside the organization. Talents pertained here are the executives level or decision-making roles. Chris emphasizes the importance of the talent lifecycle due to many companies relying on just filling up the seat rather than considering other long term factors. As someone who’s experienced operations to investor, Chris is now well aware of the timeline and essentials candidates will need and bring in order to become an exceptional candidate for roles such as CEO, CFO, COO, etc. 

Consumer Space and Growth

In today’s episode, Chris talks about the consumer space in telecom and how elements such as proper business models, good relationships, and market adaptability enable companies to grow long term. These foundations that can accommodate a long term consumer journey are the key for a healthy business development. It’s not only about being adaptable to the market for the consumers, but also establishing the organization’s structure and see if the internal workflow is healthy as well. Aside from the internal relations, companies should also look out for the externals as well, building business relationships with other companies that could be also potential investors and partners for longer term projects.

Other Media References

Zora

How to Reach Chris

Chris’ Email: chris@lfivecapital.com 

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