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News & Updates · March 2026
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Message from our CEO
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The exit window is reopening. Is your leadership team ready?
After two years of recalibration, private equity is moving again. Deal value surged last year. Exit expectations are the highest they have been in three years. Capital is flowing.
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But here is what I am hearing in every conversation with PE operating partners and mid-market CEOs: the market that is reopening is not the market that closed. The playbook that worked in 2021 will not work now. Leverage is no longer the primary return driver. Execution is. And execution is a leadership problem.
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We are in one of the most active periods in our firm's history right now, helping clients place leaders who can drive value creation plans from day one. The demand is not for seat-fillers. It is for builders, operators, and implementers who have done this before. That is exactly who we find.
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This issue of our newsletter is built around one question: does your current leadership team match the operating reality you are about to face? If you are not sure, keep reading.
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Warmly,
Johanna Watson
President & CEO
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Right Leader.
Right Seat.
Right Results.
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Does Your Leadership Team Match Your Value Creation Plan?
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94%
Two-Year Placement
Success Rate
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In This Issue
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→ What We Are Seeing in the Market
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→ 3 Shifts Redefining Executive Hiring
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→ Is Your Leadership Team Exit-Ready?
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→ How Artemis Works
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The Market Has Reopened. The Rules Have Changed.
Deal activity is accelerating, but the leaders who drove value in the last cycle may not be the ones who drive it in this one.
U.S. private equity deal value surged more than 35% last year. Nearly 80% of general partners expect acquisitions to increase over the next six months. Exit expectations are at their highest point in over three years. After a prolonged reset, capital is moving with conviction.
But the portfolio companies coming to market look very different than they did three years ago. Nearly a third of U.S. PE-backed companies have been held for seven years or longer. Hold periods have stretched. Leverage, which accounted for roughly 45% of buyout returns over the prior decade, is no longer the primary return driver. What has replaced it? Operational execution. And operational execution requires a caliber of leadership that many portfolio companies simply do not have in place.
The result is a market where the quality of your leadership team has a more direct impact on enterprise value than at any point in the last decade. The firms that are winning right now are the ones treating executive talent as a strategic investment, not a transactional hire.
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By The Numbers
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• PE deal value rose to $1.2 trillion in 2025, the second-highest on record
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• Nearly 12,900 U.S. PE-backed companies in inventory, many approaching exit readiness
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• 73% of PE firms now expect exit deals to increase, the highest reading in three years
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• Execution gaps are now cited as the primary driver of portfolio company underperformance
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Three Shifts Redefining Executive Hiring
What the new operating environment means for your next leadership decision
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Shift #1
From Seat-Filling to Value-Creation Roles
When capital was cheap and multiples were expanding, you could paper over leadership gaps with financial engineering. That era is over. With buyers contributing more equity per deal and leverage playing a smaller role in returns, the margin for error on leadership is razor-thin. Sponsors are no longer asking "who can fill this role?" They are asking "who can execute this value creation plan?"
Research across the industry confirms it: execution gaps are now the primary driver of portfolio company underperformance, particularly in organizations that scaled rapidly earlier in the decade. The leaders who grew the business from $20M to $80M are often not the same leaders who can professionalize it for a $200M exit.
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What This Means for Your Next Hire
→ Define the role around outcomes, not job descriptions. What must be different in 90 days?
→ Screen for proof of execution, not pedigree. Ask what they have built, not where they have worked.
→ Accept that the leader who got you here may not be the leader who gets you there. Act early.
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Shift #2
The CFO Has Become the Most Consequential Hire
The modern CFO in a PE-backed environment is no longer a reporting function. They are a strategic operator: translating the investment thesis into actionable initiatives across pricing, margins, cost optimization, and scalability. Sponsors increasingly view the CFO as their most critical lever for driving EBITDA growth. They need someone who can build real-time financial infrastructure, embed technology into core finance operations, and prepare the business for exit from day one.
This is a dramatically different profile from the "controller who grew into the title" that sits in many portfolio companies today. In 2026, a high-performing CFO must be commercially minded, operationally grounded, and technology-forward. If your CFO cannot speak credibly to AI-driven analytics, cloud cost structures, and data-as-an-asset strategy, you have a gap that will show up at the worst possible time.
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What This Means for Your Next Hire
→ Evaluate whether your current CFO can lead value creation, not just report on it.
→ Look for candidates who have managed through a full hold-to-exit cycle in a sponsor-backed environment.
→ Do not wait until exit preparation to discover your CFO cannot tell the value creation story.
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Shift #3
Extended Holds Are Rewriting the Leadership Equation
When hold periods were three to five years, a leadership mis-hire was expensive. When hold periods stretch to seven years or longer, it becomes devastating. Sponsors are reporting that they are less willing to "wait and see" on talent. If a leader is not scaling with the business or with the market, they are being replaced faster than at any point in the last cycle.
At the same time, this dynamic is creating an exceptional talent pool. High-performing executives are being displaced from major companies due to organizational restructuring, not performance. These are the operators we specialize in finding: people who have built, scaled, and transformed organizations and are ready to do it again.
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What This Means for Your Next Hire
→ Assess leadership durability, not just leadership brilliance. Can this person sustain performance over a longer timeline?
→ Move decisively when you identify a gap. The cost of waiting compounds monthly.
→ The best talent is available right now. Companies that act while others hesitate will capture it.
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Is Your Leadership Team Exit-Ready?
A diagnostic for PE partners, CEOs, and board members
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For each statement below, ask: can I answer yes with confidence? Any hesitation is a signal worth exploring.
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Our CEO/GM can articulate the value creation plan in terms a buyer would find credible, with specific metrics and milestones.
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Our CFO is a strategic operator, not just a reporting function. They can lead exit preparation, tell the value story, and engage credibly with sophisticated buyers.
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We have a commercial leader who owns the revenue engine, with a go-to-market playbook that would scale through an acquisition or add-on integration.
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Our leadership team has experience operating in a sponsor-backed environment and understands the pace, reporting cadence, and accountability expectations that come with it.
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If our top two leaders left tomorrow, we have a succession plan or know exactly who we would call to replace them within 30 days.
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We have separated "loyal and familiar" from "capable and scalable" in how we evaluate our current leadership bench, and we are honest about the difference.
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If you paused on more than one: You are not alone. Most leadership teams were built for a different market. The question is whether you address that before or after it shows up in your valuation. We are having these conversations every day, and we would welcome the chance to have one with you.
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How Artemis Works
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We do not send resumes. We send leaders we have personally vetted through one- to two-hour interviews, assessed for execution capability, and matched to your specific operating environment. Every candidate is A.I.: Actually Interviewed by our team. That is our standard, not our upsell.
We specialize in finding implementers: high-performing executives displaced from major companies due to organizational changes, not performance. Product managers, global department leaders, and behind-the-scenes builders who deliver results that show up in the financials.
Right now, we are in the middle of several active searches across the C-suite and critical VP-level roles for PE-backed companies and growth-stage organizations. The pace of client engagements this quarter reflects what the data confirms: companies that delayed leadership decisions during the market pause are now moving with urgency. We are grateful to be the partner they trust to get it right.
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Retained Executive Search
C-suite, VP, and critical leadership roles placed with a 94% two-year success rate. We find the operators who execute.
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Pre-Vetted Executive Candidates
A curated pipeline of A.I. (Actually Interviewed) executives ready to deploy. Faster access. Lower risk.
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Leadership Advisory
Diagnose leadership gaps, assess your bench, and build a talent strategy aligned to your value creation plan.
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Ready to Assess Your Leadership Bench?
Schedule a 25-minute leadership gap conversation. No pitch. Just a candid look at whether your current team matches the market you are about to face.
Not ready to talk yet? Stay connected.
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A Note from Johanna
There is no shortage of market commentary right now. Every fund, every advisory firm, every consultant has a take on what is happening in PE and what it means. I get it. The noise is real.
What I try to do with this newsletter is cut through that noise with what I am actually seeing on the ground: the conversations happening in boardrooms, the leadership gaps showing up in portfolio reviews, and the decisions that are separating companies that create value from companies that just hold assets and hope. If any of this resonated, I would love to hear from you. A reply to this email reaches me directly.
To your next great hire,
Johanna
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Develop. Empower. Retain.
Artemis Executive Partners | 1800 Bering Dr Suite 940 | Houston, TX 77057
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