By Angela Lurie, Executive Director, Robert Half Management Resources
The private equity (PE) industry is poised to undergo a period of transformational growth. Global assets under management are projected to soar to nearly $12 trillion by 2029, driven by institutional capital inflows, a wave of generational business transitions and a steady stream of innovation—particularly across sectors like technology, healthcare and energy. In the U.S. alone, the PE market is expected to reach $765 billion by 2027, supported by an annual compound growth rate of 11%.
Meanwhile, venture capital (VC) continues to drive progress in frontier fields such as AI, biotechnology and sustainable technology. As these innovations mature and move toward commercialization, VC-backed companies are poised to become even more integral to the broader private markets ecosystem.
But capital alone isn’t enough to convert opportunity into performance. The next wave of value creation will depend on the ability to scale portfolio company operations, improve execution and drive efficiency, fast. That’s a tall order for many portfolio companies, which are designed to run lean and often lack depth in critical functions like finance and accounting, operations management, and audit and compliance. And in an environment marked by cost pressures and economic uncertainty, few organizations are willing to build large internal teams ahead of demand.
This is where scalable contract talent and strategic resourcing can help. From engaging project-based consultants to tapping interim management professionals, a flexible approach to staffing allows PE and VC-backed firms—including midsize and emerging players—to quickly access specialized expertise and scale capabilities in their portfolio companies as needed. It’s a highly efficient way for these businesses to accelerate impact by boosting capacity and subject matter expertise without committing to permanent, fixed-cost resources.
Scaling up without slowing down—or undermining cost-efficiency
Portfolio companies rarely follow a predictable growth pattern. Instead, growth tends to come in bursts, driven by shifting market dynamics, the need for process and cost optimization, strategic pivots, and inflection points like mergers and acquisitions (M&A), international expansion, heightened regulatory scrutiny, or exit preparation. Each of these moments can introduce complex operational demands that quickly exceed internal subject matter expertise and bandwidth.
Hiring full-time employees for every scenario isn’t efficient. It can also hinder agility. The time and expense involved in recruiting, onboarding and integrating permanent staff can slow progress at precisely the moment speed is essential. Worse, if conditions change, companies may find themselves burdened with underutilized headcount and rigid organizational structures.
The strategic resourcing of talent through interim, project-based and consulting roles offers a more effective solution. Whether a portfolio company needs an interim chief financial officer (CFO) to support post-merger integration, a systems expert to manage a finance transformation or a full project team to strengthen internal controls across global offices, this approach delivers targeted expertise where needed, on demand. It can be especially valuable for cross-border projects and newly acquired entities that require the rapid deployment of consistent leadership and operational processes.
For smaller and midsize PE firms lacking a deep operating partner bench or internal shared services teams, project-based consulting offers immediate access to highly skilled and seasoned professionals. By engaging external resources, smaller firms can increase their agility and rival—and perhaps even outperform—their larger peers both operationally and strategically.
Execution: the real competitive differentiator
For PE and VC firms, delivering returns increasingly depends on the ability to scale operations across portfolio companies quickly and efficiently. That requires a flexible talent strategy, which is even more important in a labor market where skilled talent is hard to find.
Consider findings from Protiviti’s* 2025 Executive Perspectives on Top Risks Survey of more than 1,200 global executives. Board members and executives from PE firms and portfolio companies reported that talent and labor availability, the ability to attract, develop and retain top talent, and increasing labor costs were among the top 10 risks for their businesses for both the near and long term. These and other top risk issues for the PE industry point to the need for an embrace of more adaptive, cost-conscious operating models.
In response, many leading organizations are shifting to an elastic approach to talent management. They are maintaining lean internal teams but bringing in high-caliber and highly specialized project professionals on demand—professionals who can deliver immediate value, then roll off once the work is done. This strategy aligns well with the core principles of PE and VC investing: speed, flexibility, efficiency and return on investment.
Here are some examples of high-impact scenarios where interim talent and consulting solutions can add measurable value—helping to propel portfolio company transformation while supporting those key investment principles for PE and VC-backed firms.
How Talent Strategy Fuels Growth in Private Equity and Venture Capital-Backed Companies
Finance transformations
As companies modernize or build out their finance functions, they adopt more advanced technology systems, automate workflows, and improve business analytics capabilities and reporting accuracy. These projects often demand support from professionals with expertise in enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, business process improvement and data integrity. Companies can hire project-based consultants to serve as implementation leads and business analysts and interim controllers to assist in guiding transformation and making sure new systems will support real-world processes. These roles can help organizations avoid costly delays, minimize disruptions and deliver a return on invested capital.
Process reengineering
Portfolio companies preparing for growth need to build more efficient and scalable operations first. This work may include redesigning procurement workflows, optimizing the order-to-cash cycle or creating dashboards that improve performance visibility. Management consultants can help organizations of all sizes with strategic transformation by benchmarking against best practices, identifying bottlenecks, implementing targeted process improvements and more—all while enabling core teams to stay focused on day-to-day execution.
M&A transactions
M&A deals and carve-outs create immediate, high-stakes execution demands. PE-backed companies may need an interim finance leader to oversee Day 1 readiness or seasoned consultants to drive integration planning, coordinate audits and establish reporting structures. By tapping professionals with deep transactional experience, companies can reduce risk, maintain deal momentum and accelerate synergy capture, without the burden of building an internal M&A team from scratch.
Divestitures
Spinning off a business unit or portfolio company often requires standing up independent operations quickly. That includes establishing finance systems, compliance protocols and reporting structures from the ground up. Strategic talent resourcing can ease the transition by providing access to highly skilled consultants who can serve in interim leadership roles (e.g., CFO, director of finance), design scalable processes and help maintain business continuity. With experienced guidance, organizations can hit key milestones, avoid regulatory missteps and set the new entity up for long-term success.
IPO readiness
Preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) is one of the most complex transformations a company can undertake. From drafting S-1 filings and upgrading internal controls to adopting public company reporting standards, the pre-IPO workload can easily overwhelm internal teams. Consultants with IPO experience can help teams manage timelines, align workstreams across functions, improve governance and ensure the company is ready to meet regulatory scrutiny—and investors’ expectations. Support from these highly skilled resources can help streamline the path to the public markets.
Restructuring or workforce reductions
Economic headwinds or strategic shifts may lead to difficult decisions around workforce realignment at portfolio companies. These decisions also carry operational, legal and reputational risk. Contract talent with human resources, compliance or change management experience can assist in planning and guiding these transitions with sensitivity and rigor—helping companies protect their brand, maintain employee morale and preserve institutional knowledge during times of disruption.
AI adoption and digital initiatives
Launching AI tools in critical functions like finance often requires specialized expertise that internal teams may not have—such as data governance, model validation or integration architecture. Rather than slowing innovation, companies can engage consultants and scalable contract talent, including entire teams, who understand the technology and its broader regulatory and strategic implications. These resources, working on a project basis, can help businesses make sure their AI and other digital transformation initiatives are not only effective, but also responsibly designed and aligned with long-term value creation.
Strategic talent resourcing requires the right partner
Private equity and venture capital firms are reshaping industries, from healthcare to manufacturing and technology. But achieving growth and driving value creation is more complex than ever, and success increasingly hinges on effective execution. That’s why portfolio companies of all sizes need scalable talent solutions that can enhance performance without sacrificing speed or quality of work.
Making the most of strategic talent resourcing requires the right partner—one with proven expertise, a broad network and a strong bench of senior-level professionals who can step in quickly and scale quickly, flexing resource levels for as long as needed. From interim finance executives and transformation specialists to full project teams supporting ERP projects, business process improvement initiatives, or divestitures, consulting solutions from Robert Half can help companies move faster and operate more cost-effectively.
Our full-time engagement professionals—senior-level consultants who are Robert Half employees but work across multiple clients and projects—can be especially valuable for firms managing growing portfolios. Over time, these professionals can develop a deep understanding of a firm’s investment philosophy, reporting preferences and operating cadence. That institutional knowledge can be redeployed across portfolio companies, enabling faster onboarding, more consistent execution and reduced risk.
With the ability to scale trusted talent up or down as needs evolve, PE and VC-backed firms can build a reliable, scalable talent layer that’s always deal- and exit-ready. Contact Robert Half today to learn how our world-class consulting solutions for finance and accounting, operations management, audit and compliance, and other critical functions can help support your firm as it seeks to manage immediate challenges while positioning portfolio companies for long-term success.
Follow Angela Lurie on LinkedIn.
*Protiviti is a global consulting firm and Robert Half subsidiary. Protiviti’s 2025 Top Risks survey was created in collaboration with NC State University.
