For private equity

The returns moved. From the deal to the people who run it.

Q: How fast can you fill a revenue role in a portfolio company?

Because Revenue Bench keeps a pre-vetted bench, a shortlist often exists before the search formally begins, removing the two-quarter restart most portfolio companies absorb when recruiting a sales leader from scratch.

Q: How do you reduce the risk of a mis-hire?

Selection runs on objective assessment with Objective Management Group rather than interviews alone. Each placement includes a 90-day onboarding coach and a replacement guarantee if the hire is not performing within that window.

Q: Can you work across an entire portfolio?

Yes. Revenue Bench standardizes the assessment bar and talent bench at fund level, then deploys per company, giving an operating partner one comparable standard for revenue talent across every portfolio company.

For two decades, a good entry multiple and cheap debt did most of the work. That market is gone. What remains is the harder kind of value creation: getting the operating company to sell more, profitably, quarter after quarter. The shortest path to that growth runs through the revenue engine, and the revenue engine runs on the people in the roles. That is what we staff and ramp, across the portfolio.

Talk to the founders → Read the playbooks

12% is the new 5%

The annual EBITDA growth a 2.5x now demands, more than double the 2015 bar.

Bain, Global PE Report 2026 ↗

16,000 companies

Buyout-backed businesses held past four years, 52% of global inventory and a record.

McKinsey, 2026 ↗

Low double digits

The earnings growth Goldman Sachs says returns now require, with little help from multiples.

Goldman Sachs, 2026 ↗

The shift

Financial engineering built the last decade of returns. It will not build the next one.

Bain put a number on what every deal team already feels. A 2015 deal could reach a 2.5x with roughly 5% annual EBITDA growth, because multiples and leverage covered the rest. The same return today needs 10 to 12 percent, year after year, from operations.

McKinsey is blunter. Operational value creation is now the primary source of alpha, and more than half of the world's buyout-backed companies are waiting for an exit story their current growth rate does not support. Inside the operating company, that growth runs through the revenue engine. And no revenue engine outperforms the people running it.

Choose your role

The plan assumes growth. Someone has to be hired to produce it.

Three people end up owning that line. Each needs different talent, on a different clock.

Operating partner

Six companies, one of you. Whatever works has to travel between portcos, or it does not count. Re-running a sales-leader search from scratch at each company burns two quarters every time.

Needs: a vetted talent bench at fund level, deployed per company, with one standard for what good looks like.

Portfolio company CEO

Diligence stress-tested your contracts, your churn, your concentration. It never stress-tested the sales team. The plan assumes it performs anyway, and the clock started at close.

Needs: the right sales leadership and reps, assessed objectively, onboarded fast enough to matter this year.

CRO / VP Sales

You inherited a number you did not set and a team you did not pick, on roughly eighteen months of patience. You cannot wait six months for a hire to ramp, and you cannot afford a mis-hire.

Needs: pre-vetted talent that fits your motion, plus coaching that gets a new hire performing inside 90 days.

What Revenue Bench does for the portfolio

Talent as a value-creation lever, run like a system.

A portfolio talent bench

We keep a pre-vetted bench of sellers and sales leaders, sourced continuously. When a portco needs a role, the shortlist already exists. No two-quarter restart per company.

Assessment, fund-grade

Every candidate runs through Objective Management Group, the most validated sales-specific assessment in the world, around 95% predictive validity. The same objective bar applies across every company you own.

90-day onboarding coach

A dedicated coach works with each hire and their manager weekly for 90 days. Under a hold-period clock, ramp speed is value, and early exits are expensive.

Sharpened on arrival

Hires arrive trained. Reps get a two-day skills refresher, leaders a leadership refresher, via Performance Edge and Sandler. They start to a method, not cold.

Replacement guarantee

If a hire leaves or is not performing within 90 days, we run the search again at no additional fee. The risk of the hire moves off your plan and onto us.

Built by operators

Founded by people who have built and exited revenue teams in PE-backed companies. We speak EBITDA, hold periods, and exit readiness, not just job descriptions.

Diligence stress-tested the contracts, the churn, and the concentration. It never tested the sales team, the asset your value-creation plan leans on hardest.

Of salespeople are elite. Half score weak, and diligence never told you which you inherited.

Of sales managers have what it takes to build an elite team.

~95%

Predictive validity, applied as one objective bar across the portfolio.

72%

Of recommended hires reach the top half of the team within 12 months.

Source: Objective Management Group, from nearly 2.4 million sales assessments.

Playbooks

The four conversations every portfolio has about revenue talent.

What we would tell you if you called us first, from the buying side and the building side.

Playbook 01

Hiring a CRO or VP Sales into a portfolio company

Why the portco hire is different, the criteria that actually predict performance, the red flags a resume will never show, and the reference questions that surface the truth.

Playbook 02

The first 100 days of revenue talent

Baseline before you build. Assess the team you inherited, decide leadership first, hire against written criteria, and report progress to the board in their language.

Playbook 03

Building a portfolio talent bench

Standardize selection at fund level, vet once and deploy per company, and keep a ready bench so a key departure does not cost you a quarter of pipeline.

Playbook 04

Ramping hires under a hold-period clock

Why onboarding is where the value-creation plan is won or lost, the 90-day coaching cadence that compresses ramp, and the quality-of-hire metrics a board will trust.

Read the full guides →

The evidence shelf

Read what the fund's own advisors are reading.

We did not invent the thesis on this page. Bain, McKinsey, and Goldman Sachs wrote it in their flagship research this year. None of it is gated.

BainGlobal Private Equity Report 2026The "12 is the new 5" EBITDA math, and why winners now build value-creation systems.↗ BainWelcome to a New Era in Private EquityWhy the conditions that amplified returns for two decades have ended, and what replaces them.↗ McKinseyGlobal Private Markets Report 2026Operational value creation as the primary source of alpha, and 52% of buyout inventory held past four years.↗ McKinseyPrivate Equity: Clearer View, Tougher TerrainLeadership quality and continuous operating work across the hold, not a 100-day sprint that fades.↗ Goldman SachsPrivate Markets Outlook 2026Low-double-digit earnings growth as the new bar, and AI as a genuine revenue lever.↗

Who is behind this

We are not neutral. We are operators.

Revenue Bench is run by two people who have built revenue systems and revenue teams inside founder-led and private-equity-backed companies, and watched the outcomes play out at exit. We speak the language of value creation because we have been measured by it.

Start a conversation →

Carlos Garrido

Co-Founder · Sales Systems & Performance

Founder of Performance Edge, owner of Sandler Miami, and a Vistage Chair. An investment-banking background and more than a decade installing sales systems for founder-led and PE-backed companies. $3B+ in client revenue supported, $6B+ in client exits.

Steve Swanston

Co-Founder · GTM Architect & Exit Executive

A three-time exit executive who has built revenue teams inside PE-backed SaaS, fintech, and technology companies that exited for more than $500 million. Founder of Swanston Growth Advisors and a Certified Partner of Objective Management Group.

Questions PE leaders ask

Talent and value creation, answered.

How does sales talent create value in a PE-backed company?

With multiple expansion gone, returns now come from operational EBITDA growth, and the fastest operational lever is the revenue engine. The right sales leadership and reps, ramped quickly and held to a system, move pipeline, conversion, and forecast accuracy, the metrics that lift both earnings and the exit multiple.

How fast can you fill a revenue role in a portfolio company?

Because we keep a pre-vetted bench, a shortlist often exists before the search formally begins. That removes the two-quarter restart most portcos absorb when they recruit a sales leader from scratch.

How do you reduce the risk of a mis-hire?

Selection runs on objective assessment, not interviews alone, every candidate is evaluated with Objective Management Group. Each placement then includes a 90-day onboarding coach, and a replacement guarantee if the hire is not working within that window.

Can you work across an entire portfolio?

Yes. We standardize the assessment bar and the talent bench at fund level, then deploy per company, so an operating partner gets one comparable standard for revenue talent across every portco.