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Leadership Transition in Private Equity

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Private Equity

  • 13 Accesses

Synonyms

GP experiences; Leadership transition; LP perspectives; Succession

Definition/Description

Leadership transition in private equity firms manifests very differently from those in well-studied public companies. Leaders, especially founders, stay for unusually long tenures. Decisions of when to make a change and the identity of the replacement are determined internally with little governance or external influence, either from boards or providers of capital. Processes are bespoke to each firm and generally extend over multi-years as consensus is sought among the senior team of the right leadership for the next period given external replacements are extremely rare. Apportionment of the large economic spoils plays a large part, often leading to friction and departures. This entry studies the history of such transitions through a combination of empirical, large data analysis and interviews with limited partners (LPs) and already departed leaders of general partners (GPs) reflecting...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA

    Josh Lerner

  2. Kirkos Partners, London, UK

    Diana Noble

Authors
  1. Josh Lerner
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  2. Diana Noble
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Diana Noble .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA

    Douglas Cumming

  2. Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, UK

    Benjamin Hammer

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© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Lerner, J., Noble, D. (2024). Leadership Transition in Private Equity. In: Cumming, D., Hammer, B. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Private Equity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38738-9_147-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38738-9_147-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-38738-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-38738-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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