Richard Ward: The Road to CEO in PE-Backed Tech – and How Consultants Can Get In

A big share of our community says they ultimately want to run a business, and private equity-backed companies are one of the most common destinations after consulting. Richard has been on both journeys. Here is what his experience says about getting to the top job, and about getting into PE-backed businesses in the first place.

Part 1

The road to CEO

Have a direction, not a script

Richard planned to be an engineer, and realised early on that it wasn't for him. A handful of sales jobs while studying pulled him into a commercial role straight out of university, which suited both his character and his appetite for "really clear accountable results".

His conclusion is that very few careers follow the plan. What matters is having "a broad idea of the direction of travel", then spotting the stepping stones and near-term opportunities that move you along it. One of his was spending nearly a decade in the US. It was never part of the plan, it came at a real personal cost (missed weddings, time away from friends and family), but he saw it would set him apart later on. It did.

Do more than the job asks

Throughout his career, Richard tried to "compact as much into any working period as possible". Every role came with its required responsibilities, and he always took on the ones beyond it too. That meant regularly working outside his comfort zone, but it let him learn faster than his peers and, just as importantly, prove that he could pick up new things quickly.

Be the person sponsors want to back

Experience alone doesn't get you promoted. Richard pairs it with a simple set of operating values: do what you say you're going to do, with real attention to detail; act with pace and urgency; keep a growth mindset; and deal with facts, so nobody has to dig for answers. Working that way makes you "highly predictable, highly capable and also trustworthy", and that reputation is what sponsors notice.

It paid off directly. A sponsor put him forward for his first divisional CEO role: full responsibility for one part of the business, with shared services around him so he could learn the other functions without owning them on day one. Later, his network and the sponsors within it backed his application for his current role at Avolution.

What a CEO appointment process really tests

Richard's most recent process involved the chair, the board and the product officer. They started with his track record, looking at two things: the results, and the circumstances he delivered them in. Plenty of people can point to a business that grew from 100 million to 500 million. The question boards ask is how much of the infrastructure, systems and team were already in place, and whether you built that growth or simply rode the wave.

Next came a chemistry check, in both directions. Richard rates curiosity highly, so for much of the process he was the one asking questions about the people and the business. Finally, he was asked to play back a plan to the board: where he saw the value creation levers, based on everything he had learned.

For consultants, the lesson is to be ready to separate your own contribution from the context around it. Boards will probe exactly that.

The habits that make the top job harder

Richard believes anyone can become a CEO with enough commitment, but two tendencies make the role harder. The first is a control bias: wanting things done your way. Having grown up in sales, he has to remind himself to step back and let his commercial leaders run their function, coaching them rather than inserting himself.

The second is being an exceptional individual contributor. When doing it yourself is quicker, it is hard to invest in building and guiding a team. He points out that this is especially relevant for people from intense, output-driven environments like consulting, who "naturally become those doers". (This is the clip at the top of the page.)

Part 2

Getting into PE-backed businesses as a consultant

Understand how PE-backed businesses think

Everyone in a PE-backed business thinks about the exit. In Richard's experience, fixating on a three, five or seven-year timeline means missing the point, which is to build a great business. Get that right and "the inevitable will come".

What investors track is the "glide path" towards that outcome. That means financial metrics, such as ARR growth and profitability, and also a qualitative story about where the business is heading and the impact it has on customers. At Avolution, for example, the story is about enterprise architecture becoming an essential tool for AI governance. Every PE owner he has worked with cares about both; what differs is how closely they monitor the business.

Where consultants tend to land

Richard sees a few natural entry points. Many PE-backed businesses have a Director of Strategic Programmes role, driving the initiatives behind the value creation plan, which can evolve into Chief of Staff. Operations roles are another, especially Revenue Operations (RevOps), which sits across sales, customer success, marketing and product and turns data into go-to-market and product decisions.

RevOps doesn't mean coding or wiring systems together. What Richard looks for is commercial acumen, the right questions, and the ability to spot patterns that help tune the strategy. Avolution recently brought in a RevOps consultant through Movemeon to lead a Salesforce overhaul, an ideal customer profile analysis and a data clean-up: classic consulting skills, applied inside the business.

Expect a pay trade-off, and negotiate the long term

Consultants are often paid more than their peers early in their careers, so moving into a PE-backed business can mean a salary cut. That is usually balanced by a long-term incentive plan (LTIP), although how freely LTIPs are handed out varies by business and region, with the US typically more generous than the UK.

If an LTIP isn't on the table from the start, Richard's advice is to ask the follow-up: "What would I need to accomplish, and in what time frame?" It may not happen in your first or second PE-backed business, but the experience builds towards it in your third or fourth. And don't undervalue the journey itself: learning from the people around you is "almost an LTIP in itself", because it compounds over time.

How to stand out in the interview

When Richard interviews candidates, he wants two things. First, clear examples of what you have achieved, and the environment you achieved it in, because people want to draw parallels. Avolution has around 100 people, so resourcefulness matters; someone who has only worked in organisations of thousands will find that a big shift.

Second, curiosity. Asking good questions shows you are diligent about what you are getting into, rather than chasing a brand or rushing into the first offer. It also helps you work out whether the role will genuinely move you along your own career path, which is exactly how he approached his own CEO process.