Private Equity Data Guy

Graeme Crawford
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  • Business

Private equity meets data. Conversations with deal teams, operating partners, and portfolio company leaders about the data problems that kill deals, slow exits, and destroy value. Hosted by Graeme Crawford, founder of Crawford McMillan. 20 years leading data programs at Fortune 100 companies. Now helping PE-backed companies fix data before exits so the numbers hold up under scrutiny. New episodes cover diligence red flags, value creation playbooks, and the real stories behind successful (and failed) transactions.

  1. 5d ago

    Why Private Equity Operating Partners Can't Trust Their Own KPIs

    This week I sat down with Vinay Raman, the CEO of CAARMO, to talk about the gap between what leadership teams believe is happening inside their company and what is actually happening on the ground. Vinay has spent thirteen years studying that gap. He walked me through the fifteen questions his firm uses to score where a leadership team agrees and where members quietly disagree, and the map his team builds to show exactly where the disagreement lives. We talked about what happens after a private equity firm buys a company and replaces its leadership team, why a system built for twenty three employees can break at one hundred thirty nine, and why placing AI on top of a broken process only makes the process fail faster. Vinay closed with a daily private equity news product he calls the Pulse, built to hand operating partners one sharp question before they walk into a room. TimestampsChapters: 00:03 - Common Sense: Why It's So Uncommon01:02 - Meet Vinay Rahman — Measuring the Gap Between Belief and Reality12:29 - From Misalignment to Coherence18:42 - Leadership: The Biggest Challenge in Portfolio Companies25:20 - Private Equity Analogy: Why 'Copilot' Alone Won't Deliver38:42 - The Future of Private Equity: Value Creation, AI, and the Shift to Effectiveness Companies MentionedCAARMO - Vinay's company scores leadership teams on fifteen questions and builds a map of where the team agrees and where it splits. Bain & Company - named for research on how much of a strategy actually reaches execution. McKinsey - named alongside other firms publishing reports on private equity value creation. KKR - named alongside other firms publishing reports on private equity value creation. Tesla - referenced through a story about a meeting practice from Tesla's early growth years. Websites Mentionedcaarmo.com Vinay Raman on LinkedIn Guest InformationVinay Raman is the CEO of CAARMO, a firm that studies execution friction inside growing service businesses. He spent more than twenty years working in data analytics and artificial intelligence before building CAARMO's fifteen question survey and cohesion mapping tools. He produces a daily private equity news product called the Pulse.

    Why Private Equity Operating Partners Can't Trust Their Own KPIs

  2. Sep 9

    Why Private Equity Firms Call Customers Before Closing

    I sat down with Dan Grainger, who runs the private equity practice at T4, a voice of customer research firm that ended up in private equity almost by accident. He spends his time inside letter of intent windows, calling the customers of companies my listeners are trying to buy or fix. We talked about what those customers say once nobody from the target company is on the line. Dan walked me through real deals where customer interviews changed the outcome. One packaging company lost twenty five million dollars off its price after customers described new competitors already undercutting them. Another deal died after a flooring company's dealers reported a failed software rollout that nobody in the boardroom had flagged. We also talked about where artificial intelligence helps his research team and where it still falls short. Timestamps Chapters: 00:14 - AI's struggle to connect unstructured data01:08 - Guest Introduction — Dan Granger & T4's Private Equity Practice10:59 - Case Study — Hidden Competitive Threats Uncovered Through Customer Interviews19:38 - Customer Diligence Red Flags28:24 - AI in Customer Research — Tools, Limits, and Human Judgment34:50 - Closing Remarks and Contact Info Companies Mentioned T4, T4 Associates, Medallia, SAP, ChatGPT Websites Mentioned https://www.t4associates.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielgrainger/ Guest Information Dan Grainger leads the private equity practice at T4 Associates, a voice of customer research firm found at t4associates.com. He previously worked in customer research consulting and spent time at Medallia during its time as a private technology company before moving into private equity diligence work. He interviews target company customers during letter of intent windows to surface risks and growth opportunities before deals close.

    Why Private Equity Firms Call Customers Before Closing

  3. Sep 3

    The Feeling Every Operator Has Before the Numbers Turn

    In this episode I sat down with Regan Inkster, a strategist who has spent 25 years building strategy for Global 1000 companies and served three times as a chief architect. We talked about a pattern he found in his own research on organizational coherence: the distance between what a company says internally and what employees actually experience appears in performance data before it appears in the financial numbers. He calls this warning window about two quarters, and he built an AI model that reads language across a company to measure it. We covered real cases, including a merger that destroyed about 75 percent of the deal's value and a widely recognized coffee company where the space between leadership and frontline teams matched swings in market value for years. Regan shared advice for private equity operating partners: close the loop between decisions and the reasons behind them, and check whether the dashboard rewards match what leadership wants the business to improve. Timestamps 00:02:26 Coherence drifts before financial results 00:04:13 Sensing dysfunction inside an organization 00:08:00 Building the coherence measurement platform 00:16:30 CEO strategy rollout builds agreement 00:18:24 Starbucks coherence linked to market value 00:21:23 Private equity ownership raises mismatch risk 00:32:59 Many AI initiatives fail to deliver 00:41:16 Closing the loop after decisions Companies Mentioned IBM Capital One Oracle Starbucks Fidelity International Systems World Pay Netflix Blockbuster The New York Times HBO Websites Mentioned Amazon: https://www.amazon.com Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com Glassdoor: https://www.glassdoor.com Reddit: https://www.reddit.com Indeed: https://www.indeed.com Guest Information Regan Inkster spent 25 years building strategy for Global 1000 companies and served three times as a chief architect. He worked as a global go to market and value creation leader at Oracle and as a country lead for emerging tech and AI at a global systems integrator. He wrote the book Two Quarter Warning, which describes how organizational coherence drops about two quarters before financial results do.

    The Feeling Every Operator Has Before the Numbers Turn

  4. Aug 26

    What Buyers Actually See Before the LOI (And What the SIM Hides)

    Jeremiah Wanzell has spent over two decades scaling consumer brands inside Fortune 100 companies like Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, and Steve Madden before moving into private equity as an operating partner. In this conversation, he breaks down what buyers actually see in consumer deals before the LOI, what the CIM almost never tells you, and why he built Deal Reveal, a free self-service scorecard that grades a deal across six weighted value drivers in under ten minutes. We get into the data gap between large enterprise and mid-market portfolio companies, the real reasons Allbirds collapsed and Nike stumbled, and what multi-channel diversity actually means in practice. Jeremiah also walks us through the Capezio acquisition, a fifth-generation family brand that another firm passed on, and why a clear deal thesis and niche market dominance made it one of the best deals in the consumer PE space. Chapters: 00:08 - Understanding Customer Base and Product Value07:27 - Understanding the Gaps in Revenue Stories12:16 - The Digital Opportunity in Business18:22 - Navigating Business Sales: Understanding the Wave of Institutional Capital24:38 - The Importance of Channel Diversity in E-Commerce34:05 - Cautionary Tales: Lessons from Allbirds and Nike40:57 - The Future of CPG Brands and Market Opportunities Guest Information Jeremiah Wanzell is a consumer brand operator and private equity advisor with 22 years of experience at Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, and Steve Madden. He works as an operating partner with PE firms in the consumer sector and originated the Capezio acquisition for Argon, which won M&A Deal of the Year. He recently launched Deal Reveal, a consumer M&A scorecard available at growthmindsetadvisors.com. Company: Growth Mindset Advisors LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremiah-wanzell/ Website: https://growthmindsetadvisors.com/ Companies Mentioned Hugo Boss Calvin Klein / PVH Steve Madden Capezio Allbirds Nike Adidas On Running Hoka Brooks Skims Warby Parker Amazon / Whole Foods DSW Macy's Shopify Websites Mentioned growthmindsetadvisors.com (Deal Reveal scorecard) Key Takeaways The CIM shows revenue. It rarely shows revenue quality by channel, customer concentration, or margin by door. That gap is where deals get repriced or killed. Multi-channel diversity is non-negotiable. Brands that lean entirely on DTC or heavily on Amazon carry structural risk that buyers will price in. A clear deal thesis before you enter a process is what separates a fast pass from a real opportunity. Capezio got passed by one firm simply because they did not understand the dance wear category. Start the exit preparation process one to three years before you want to sell. The difference between a 2x and an 8x is often just how ready the business is when it hits the market.

    What Buyers Actually See Before the LOI (And What the SIM Hides)

  5. Aug 20

    The Metrics Look Fine. So Why Is the Business Stalling?

    David Newcomb has done something rare in private equity. He operated through two separate transactions at the same company, including the founder exit, and watched the second buyer walk in and say they were acquiring the business because of what he had built. That vantage point gave him a phrase every operator, board member, and sponsor should carry: value drift. We spent this conversation unpacking what value drift looks like from the inside, why the board pack stays green while the real signals are moving in the wrong direction, and what happens to organizations when leadership changes come faster than the business can absorb them. David also shared what kept him through two holds: doing what he said he would do, quarter over quarter, with whoever was sitting across the table. Chapters: 00:08 - The Transformation of Private Equity03:54 - Understanding Value Drift in Private Equity10:50 - Navigating Founder Exits and Business Value Drift22:22 - Understanding Misalignment in Business Metrics27:23 - The Dynamics of Change in Private Equity31:06 - Navigating Change Fatigue in Private Equity Guest Information David Newcomb is a seasoned operator who managed through two private equity transactions at the same company, including the founder exit. He originated the term value drift to describe the erosion of intangible business value that follows leadership transitions and founder departures. He is active on LinkedIn and welcomes conversations from operators, sponsors, and advisors working through similar dynamics. Companies Mentioned Bawdy AI Not Very Private Equity Websites Mentioned LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com Bawdy AI: https://www.bawdy.ai Key Takeaways Value drift begins before anyone can measure it and compounds quietly until the damage is visible. Board metrics can signal health while the underlying business is losing the qualities that made it attractive in the first place. Replacing operators repeatedly without identifying the root cause does not solve the problem and adds real cost and fatigue to the organization. Doing what you say, consistently, across multiple sponsors and holds, is what separates operators who survive transitions from those who do not.

    The Metrics Look Fine. So Why Is the Business Stalling?

  6. Aug 13

    Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem

    Philip Curran has spent four decades inside the rooms where leadership either holds together or quietly falls apart. In this episode, we get into the half of the story that most data people never see: the hidden emotional contract between leaders and the people they lead, and why ignoring it costs PE portfolio companies real money before and during exit. We cover the eight promises leaders make every day whether they know it or not, how leadership misalignment shows up as data problems, and why the hero culture inside PE-backed companies is more of a liability than an asset. If you care about what actually drives returns, this one connects dots you have probably felt but never named. --- Chapters: 00:03 - The Role of Leaders in Shaping Culture11:41 - Understanding the Hidden Emotional Contract16:33 - Understanding Leadership and Decision Making29:40 - Understanding Leadership through Hidden Emotional Contracts43:06 - The Hidden Emotional Contract in Work **Guest Information** Phillip Curran is the founder of Renova, a senior human capital advisory firm providing interim CHRO leadership and strategic counsel to CEOs and private equity operators. He is the creator of the ARC Diagnostic, a tool that measures leadership reliability at the enterprise level. His first book, The Hidden Emotional Contract, publishes August 17th. - Company: Rinnova HR - LinkedIn: Phillip Curran --- **Companies Mentioned** - Renova - IBM - Capital One --- **Websites Mentioned** - Rinnova HR - Phillip Curran on LinkedIn --- **Key Takeaways** - Culture is the lived experience of the people working for you, driven by the exhibited behaviors of leaders. HR cannot create it. - When five executives hold five different definitions of an active customer, the cost is not just a reporting issue. It slows decisions, breaks operations, and shows up as eroded exit value. - The eight promises: dignity, clarity, safety, meaning, growth, recognition, belonging, and agency. Breaking any of them causes people to pull back long before the numbers reflect it. - Decision velocity always matters in private equity. Anything that puts a foot on the brake, whether role confusion or lack of strategic clarity, destroys value. - The hero culture PE environments breed is a single point of failure, not a feature.

    Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem

  7. Aug 13

    Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem

    Philip Curran has spent four decades inside the rooms where leadership either holds together or quietly falls apart. In this episode, we get into the half of the story that most data people never see: the hidden emotional contract between leaders and the people they lead, and why ignoring it costs PE portfolio companies real money before and during exit. We cover the eight promises leaders make every day whether they know it or not, how leadership misalignment shows up as data problems, and why the hero culture inside PE-backed companies is more of a liability than an asset. If you care about what actually drives returns, this one connects dots you have probably felt but never named. --- Chapters: 00:03 - The Role of Leaders in Shaping Culture11:41 - Understanding the Hidden Emotional Contract16:33 - Understanding Leadership and Decision Making29:40 - Understanding Leadership through Hidden Emotional Contracts43:06 - The Hidden Emotional Contract in Work **Guest Information** Phillip Curran is the founder of Renova, a senior human capital advisory firm providing interim CHRO leadership and strategic counsel to CEOs and private equity operators. He is the creator of the ARC Diagnostic, a tool that measures leadership reliability at the enterprise level. His first book, The Hidden Emotional Contract, publishes August 17th. - Company: Rinnova HR - LinkedIn: Phillip Curran --- **Companies Mentioned** - Renova - IBM - Capital One --- **Websites Mentioned** - Rinnova HR - Phillip Curran on LinkedIn --- **Key Takeaways** - Culture is the lived experience of the people working for you, driven by the exhibited behaviors of leaders. HR cannot create it. - When five executives hold five different definitions of an active customer, the cost is not just a reporting issue. It slows decisions, breaks operations, and shows up as eroded exit value. - The eight promises: dignity, clarity, safety, meaning, growth, recognition, belonging, and agency. Breaking any of them causes people to pull back long before the numbers reflect it. - Decision velocity always matters in private equity. Anything that puts a foot on the brake, whether role confusion or lack of strategic clarity, destroys value. - The hero culture PE environments breed is a single point of failure, not a feature.

    Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem

  8. Aug 13

    Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem

    Philip Curran has spent four decades inside the rooms where leadership either holds together or quietly falls apart. In this episode, we get into the half of the story that most data people never see: the hidden emotional contract between leaders and the people they lead, and why ignoring it costs PE portfolio companies real money before and during exit. We cover the eight promises leaders make every day whether they know it or not, how leadership misalignment shows up as data problems, and why the hero culture inside PE-backed companies is more of a liability than an asset. If you care about what actually drives returns, this one connects dots you have probably felt but never named. --- Chapters: 00:03 - The Role of Leaders in Shaping Culture11:41 - Understanding the Hidden Emotional Contract16:33 - Understanding Leadership and Decision Making29:40 - Understanding Leadership through Hidden Emotional Contracts43:06 - The Hidden Emotional Contract in Work **Guest Information** Phillip Curran is the founder of Renova, a senior human capital advisory firm providing interim CHRO leadership and strategic counsel to CEOs and private equity operators. He is the creator of the ARC Diagnostic, a tool that measures leadership reliability at the enterprise level. His first book, The Hidden Emotional Contract, publishes August 17th. - Company: Rinnova HR - LinkedIn: Phillip Curran --- **Companies Mentioned** - Renova - IBM - Capital One --- **Websites Mentioned** - Rinnova HR - Phillip Curran on LinkedIn --- **Key Takeaways** - Culture is the lived experience of the people working for you, driven by the exhibited behaviors of leaders. HR cannot create it. - When five executives hold five different definitions of an active customer, the cost is not just a reporting issue. It slows decisions, breaks operations, and shows up as eroded exit value. - The eight promises: dignity, clarity, safety, meaning, growth, recognition, belonging, and agency. Breaking any of them causes people to pull back long before the numbers reflect it. - Decision velocity always matters in private equity. Anything that puts a foot on the brake, whether role confusion or lack of strategic clarity, destroys value. - The hero culture PE environments breed is a single point of failure, not a feature.

    Why Your Data Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem
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About

Private equity meets data. Conversations with deal teams, operating partners, and portfolio company leaders about the data problems that kill deals, slow exits, and destroy value. Hosted by Graeme Crawford, founder of Crawford McMillan. 20 years leading data programs at Fortune 100 companies. Now helping PE-backed companies fix data before exits so the numbers hold up under scrutiny. New episodes cover diligence red flags, value creation playbooks, and the real stories behind successful (and failed) transactions.

Information

  • Creator
    Graeme Crawford
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    47
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Graeme Crawford
  • Show Website
    Private Equity Data Guy