Emily McNeal

The deal market is recovering. The execution gap is not. According to Alvarez & Marsal's 2026 Value Creation Survey, 89% of PE investors, operating partners, and portfolio company executives describe the North America deal market as moderately or highly active. That headline reads as optimism. The data underneath it does not. Forty-one percent of those same respondents report realizing less than 75% of planned value creation over the last 12 months. In an environment where holding periods are already extended and exit windows remain narrow, missing three-quarters of your value creation plan is not a rounding error. It is the story of the hold. The gap is not a strategy problem. Most sponsors enter deals with credible theses. It is an execution problem, specifically the distance between what diligence assumes and what the organization actually delivers once the clock starts. Fewer than one in four respondents embed value creation planning before a letter of intent. That means the operational blueprint, the KPIs, the management bandwidth requirements, and the leadership profile needed to execute are all being defined after the commitment has been made. I've seen this sequence play out in healthcare services more than anywhere else. The complexity of running a multi-site clinical platform, managing payor relationships, and retaining a clinical workforce under cost pressure does not reveal itself in a financial model. It reveals itself in year two, when the original thesis meets operational reality and the leadership team that was right at close may not be the right team for what the business has become. The gap is rarely about effort or intent. It is almost always about whether the team's collective capability matches the operational demands of the next phase of the hold. The sponsors closing this gap are not doing anything exotic. They are building repeatable operating mechanisms, moving value creation planning earlier in the process, and treating leadership selection as part of the execution infrastructure rather than a separate workstream. That sequence is not optional anymore. In this environment, it is the margin of difference between a return and a recapitalization.

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More companies are betting on first-time CFOs - but what sets the successful ones apart? My colleague Matt Quinn shares his perspective, and Gabriel Ventura, first-time CFO of Mr. Greens Produce, offers five lessons from his first year in a PE-backed seat: https://lnkd.in/egxjbfUR

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More companies are betting on first-time CFOs - but what sets the successful ones apart? My colleague Matt Quinn shares his perspective, and Gabriel Ventura, first-time CFO of Mr. Greens Produce, offers five lessons from his first year in a PE-backed seat: https://lnkd.in/eUma_Wq3

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What Are the Costs of Weakening Shareholder Primacy? "The mainstream theory of corporate governance in the United States holds that the primary responsibility of the board of directors and management is to maximize the wealth of shareholders. This is the theory of shareholder primacy. If directors and officers stray from their duty, shareholders can constrain or remove them. "An alternative theory is that directors and management should consider all stakeholders, including employees, customers, and communities. This theory offers limited guidance when decisions affect stakeholders differently, so it gives much more discretion to directors and officers than the shareholder primacy theory. As a result, the stakeholder theory enables insiders to pursue their own interests and find excuses for underperformance. "In 2017, the Nevada legislature ended this practice by unanimously passing Senate Bill No. 203, which clarified that shareholder primacy does not apply in Nevada and that directors and officers are protected from shareholder litigation. "In sum, our findings provide robust evidence that weakening shareholder primacy imposes real costs on firms. The results contribute to ongoing debates in corporate governance and legal scholarship over the proper objectives of corporations, highlighting that shareholder primacy is central to accountability, efficiency, and value creation." #shareholderprimacy #stakeholdermodelfallacy #corporategovernance #corporatelaw #Delaware #Nevada https://lnkd.in/gBUZs4vj 

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I had a great conversation recently with Peter Lehrman on the Axial Masters in Small Business M&A podcast discussing how the lower middle market has evolved over the past couple of decades.   Over the last 25 years, the ecosystem has changed dramatically. Many funds outgrew the lower middle market, while additional equity sources like independent sponsors, family offices, new LMM funds, and large funds moving ‘downstream’ have expanded the participant pool.    Purchase multiples and equity contribution percentages have increased, adding pressure to returns, and the credit markets have evolved as well, impacting leverage rates and deal activity.    We talked about what this shift means for private equity value creation today. At Broadwing Capital, implementing platform growth tools in alignment with founders and management teams are more important drivers of return than financial engineering.    I also shared the investment thesis behind our recent acquisition of CloudScale365, Inc. and how we think about growth, culture, and stakeholder impact post-transaction.   Thanks to Peter for the thoughtful discussion. If you are interested in where the lower middle market is heading, it's worth a listen.   https://lnkd.in/gTaMcGAc

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Serial sponsors now account for 70-80% of new SPAC IPOs, reflecting an implicit acknowledgment that successful sponsorship requires distinctive experience and competencies that don't transfer from other segments of finance. SPACs have emerged as their own unique asset class. https://lnkd.in/eJDhM2tK  #SPAC

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I’m stepping more directly into interim and operating CFO work. Over the past decade, I’ve consistently been brought into sponsor-backed and growth-stage platforms at inflection points — acquisitions, liquidity pressure, lender negotiations, audit remediation, capital raises, or operational scale. I build institutional-grade financial infrastructure fast. That means: • Liquidity visibility and covenant discipline • Clean audits and lender credibility • Transaction-ready reporting (QoE, data rooms, integrations) • Repeatable forecasting and KPI frameworks I work where capital and operations intersect — ensuring companies are positioned to access funding, execute deals, and scale without losing financial control. I’m open to select interim and fractional CFO mandates where execution speed and clarity matter. If you’re a sponsor, CEO, or investment partner navigating one of those moments, let’s connect. — Ken Anthony Stanford MBA | CPA | Growth Infrastructure CFO

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What’s old is new. Funny to watch VCs flood back to out-of-favor business models—hardware-enabled software, marketplaces, consumer tech—which are now viewed as more defensible because AI can't easily replicate physical infrastructure, network effects, or brand.

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