Private equity firms don’t struggle with strategy—they struggle with execution at speed.
The gap between underwriting assumptions and realized results widens when portfolio companies lack the operating discipline, leadership behaviors, and systems required to convert plans into performance. Too often, value creation depends on heroic efforts, fragmented initiatives, or short-term fixes that fail to compound over the hold period.
Lean Focus addresses this breakdown by embedding proven operating capability into portfolio companies. Rather than relying on episodic projects or advisor-led initiatives, we help PE firms build repeatable systems that stabilize execution, accelerate improvement, and make value creation durable across ownership transitions.
A Repeatable Value Creation Operating Model for Private Equity
Value creation in private equity is situational—but execution must be systematic. Each portfolio company presents a different set of constraints, risks, and opportunities. Lean Focus does not apply a one-size-fits-all methodology. We deploy the right combination of operating, commercial, leadership, and talent capabilities based on where value is trapped and how quickly it must be realized. Our Private Equity Practice is built around three operating realities:
Value creation must start immediately.
Delays erode returns. Lean Focus mobilizes early—during diligence, Day 1 planning, or the first 100 days—to establish execution discipline, leadership clarity, and operating cadence before momentum is lost.
Execution requires cross-functional capability.
Sustainable value is rarely unlocked through operations, growth, or leadership alone. Lean Focus integrates expertise across Operations, Supply Chain, Growth, Innovation, Leadership, and Talent—deploying only what is required to convert strategy into results.
Results must be repeatable across the portfolio.
Private equity value creation cannot depend on heroics. Lean Focus installs management systems and behaviors that scale across sites, teams, and acquisitions—providing operating partners with visibility, control, and the ability to replicate success.
Lean Focus supports private equity firms across the full investment lifecycle—without changing the execution model every time.
Pre-Acquisition:
Diligence and underwriting pressure-testing
Day 1–100:
Stabilization, execution cadence, early EBITDA impact
Hold Period:
Cross-functional value creation and add-on integration
Pre-Exit:
EBITDA durability, cash conversion, leadership readiness
What changes is where value is trapped.
What stays constant is the execution system used to unlock it.
The Lean Focus Business System™ (LBS™) Enables Repeatable Value Creation in Private Equity
Private equity value creation demands more than initiatives—it requires a system that translates intent into execution across portfolio companies. The Lean Focus Business System™ (LBS™) provides that system. It is how Lean Focus mobilizes, integrates, and scales operating capability to deliver results under compressed timelines and real ownership pressure.
Applied side-by-side with seasoned, senior-level practitioners, LBS™ establishes execution cadence, management visibility, and leadership behaviors that convert value creation plans into measurable outcomes. The result is not one-time improvement, but a repeatable approach that operating partners can deploy across companies, stages, and hold periods—regardless of industry or geography.
How We Support Private Equity Firms: Pre-Acquisition Diligence & Underwriting Support
Lean Focus supports private equity firms during diligence by pressure-testing operational and commercial assumptions against real execution capability. Our work is grounded in how value is actually created inside operating companies—through flow, discipline, and management systems—not spreadsheets alone. Diligence support commonly includes:
Assessing gross margin assumptions and cost structure sustainability
Reviewing R&D and innovation portfolio health, prioritization, and capital efficiency
Identifying working capital, EBITDA, and free cash flow opportunities tied to execution—not one-time fixes
Evaluating commercial execution reality across pricing discipline, sales process effectiveness, funnel health, and go-to-market alignment
Evaluating leadership capability and the presence (or absence) of operating discipline required to deliver results
The output is an execution-grounded view of value creation—what is achievable, how quickly, and what operating capabilities must be in place post-close to realize the model.
How We Support Private Equity Firms: Post-Close Value Creation & Portfolio Company Execution
Post-acquisition, Lean Focus partners with private equity firms and portfolio company leadership to convert value creation plans into repeatable operating results. Our approach focuses on installing the execution discipline, management cadence, and leadership behaviors required to deliver under compressed timelines. Post-close engagements commonly focus on:
Day 1–100 stabilization, execution cadence, and management visibility
Leadership alignment and operating discipline that reduce reliance on heroics
Operating model integration following carve-outs and add-on acquisitions
EBITDA expansion, working capital release, and cash flow improvement driven by improved flow and decision-making
Commercial acceleration through pricing discipline, sales execution rigor, and GTM alignment
Lean Focus works side-by-side with management teams inside portfolio companies to build systems that make execution predictable—so value creation compounds throughout the hold period rather than resetting each quarter.
Value creation accelerates when execution risk is addressed early.
A conversation with Lean Focus is a practical discussion about where value is trapped, how quickly it must be realized, and what operating capabilities are required to deliver results across the portfolio. Our senior-level practitioners bring decades of hands-on experience deploying execution systems inside PE-owned companies—under real timelines and ownership pressure.
Lean Focus helps private equity firms move beyond episodic initiatives to a repeatable value creation engine built for their operating companies. The focus is speed, discipline, and results that hold through the investment period.
Industries We’ve Helped to Accelerate Value Creation
SOFTWARE
CHEMICALS
HVAC SERVICES
ENERGY SERVICES
CAPITAL EQUIPMENT
FINANCIAL SERVICES
AEROSPACE & DEFENSE
BUSINESS SERVICES (B2B)
CONSUMER PRODUCTS & SERVICES
DISTRIBUTION & LOGISTICS
INDUSTRIAL DISTRIBUTION
HEALTHCARE SERVICES
BUILDING MATERIALS
MEDICAL DEVICES
AUTOMOTIVE
PACKAGING
PLASTICS
& MORE
A Selection of Firms Our Private Equity Practice Has Served
Our Private Equity Practice Regional Leaders
DAVID ALLEN
Senior Vice President,
Private Equity Practice
Lean Focus North America
+1 (630) 800-8519
[email protected]
About David
David is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of leadership experience in highly engineered product businesses, spanning commercial functions, general management, and executive leadership at the group level. His career began as an Army Officer and management consultant, where he developed a strategic mindset and operational discipline that would later define his approach to business transformation.
Transitioning into manufacturing, David built a track record of driving growth, operational excellence, and Lean transformations as a product manager, sales and marketing executive, and business portfolio leader. His leadership spans global markets, with hands-on experience leading teams in China, the UK, and the U.S. Over the past 25+ years, he has led and facilitated numerous kaizen events, including leveraging Lean Focus as a key partner in his corporate transformation efforts.
David honed his Lean process improvement expertise at Danaher, where he held executive roles across the Product Identification platform and Danaher Sensors & Controls. His ability to apply Lean principles to commercial and operational strategy has driven sustained impact across multiple industries.
He holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Economics and History from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.
MANUEL JANS, PHD.
CEO & Managing Partner
Lean Focus Europe
Lean Focus Europe
+49 173 2505762
[email protected]
About Manuel
Manuel has over 20 years of experience in Human Resource Management and Organizational Development. He has initially provided support for lean business transformations at all levels as a HR Consultant and later by leading customer-focused Talent and HR organizations in multi-national companies (up to $2.2B and 40+ locations). His assignments include various Talent leader roles at Danaher´s Water Quality Business and Head of HR positions in Pharma and Biotech. As an entrepreneur he has (co-)founded start-up businesses and professional networks. He is passionate about applying lean and agile thinking to build, improve and sustain impactful HR and talent practices, placing and developing key talent to drive the transformation journey, and building a lean leadership culture at all levels of the organization. Manuel holds a MBA (Diplom-Kaufmann) and Ph.D. in Business Administration (HR focus) from Essen University.
About Michael
Michael is the CEO of Lean Focus Nordic, bringing over 25 years of leadership experience. His career includes ~18 years at Danaher Corporation, where he held multiple executive roles, including General Manager/Managing Director Dentistry and Biotech businesses, as well as several VP Operations & Supply Chain and VP of Lean Business Transformation. In his role as Danaher Corporate Director, he was responsible for Danaher Business System implementation in EU. Most recently, he led Operations & Supply Chain of a $1B acute care diagnostics business, transforming it into one of Danaher’s most Lean-mature organizations.
An expert in driving transformational change, Michael specializes in implementing Lean practices and applying Lean business systems in large-scale organizations to enhance quality, delivery, innovation speed, and cost efficiency. He has successfully led cross-functional Lean transformations across diverse industries, cultivating high-performing, problem-solving cultures on a global scale.
Michael is renowned for driving radical business transformations and delivering impactful results. He excels in building enduring cultures of Continuous Improvement, anchored in collaboration, empowerment, and mutual respect.
Contact Our
Private Equity Practice Today.
Private Equity Practice Case Study
Copeland (a Blackstone portfolio company): Turning Operational Excellence into a Value Creation Engine
40+
Countries Served
15,000+
Employees
1. Challenge
As a newly independent enterprise in the HVAC and refrigeration systems industry, Copeland needed to unify how the business operated. Leadership recognized that years of growth across multiple facilities had created variability in performance, accountability, and improvement capability. Without a consistent operating system, scaling productivity gains and cultural alignment would be difficult.
Blackstone’s Portfolio Operations team partnered with Copeland leadership to introduce a standardized, scalable business system rooted in Lean—enabling consistent execution, efficient cost structure, and readiness for future growth.
2. Opportunity
Leadership saw an opportunity to deploy a custom business system that would define how performance is managed and problems are solved daily across the enterprise. By establishing enterprise governance and leadership accountability, Copeland could create visibility from the shop floor to the executive level.
A lighthouse deployment would prove what “good” looks like in practice, demonstrating measurable improvements in productivity, quality, engagement, and material flow while building the internal capability needed to sustain and scale transformation across the global network.
Private Equity Practice Client Testimonials
“Lean Focus has been instrumental in helping Foundation Risk Partners rapidly identify and eliminate waste in their end-to-end commercial and operations processes. Through collaborative value stream mapping and clear prioritization, they helped their teams uncover substantial efficiency gains through standardization, automation, and intelligent workflow redesign. Their real-world expertise has allowed us to move faster, align stakeholders, and build the operational foundation needed to scale profitably.”
“Lean Focus has been an exceptional partner in building the Copeland Business System and accelerating operational excellence across the business. Their customized approach — not just tools, but governance, leadership behaviors, and capability building — helped Copeland establish a common operating model that improves performance at the plant level while strengthening accountability and alignment across the enterprise. The impact has been clear: greater execution discipline, enhanced productivity, and a stronger foundation for growth. Lean Focus understands how to make Lean practical, scalable, and part of how an organization truly operates.”
“Without Lean Focus, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We’re closing in on our year-end goal: two standalone businesses, each with committed management teams and each having worked through a real strategic plan. We have the people to build the process, and we expect performance to soon follow.”
“Lean isn’t just for factories — it’s a leadership system that drives business performance. When we brought Lean into the Marketing organization at BMC, it gave us the discipline, transparency, and customer focus required to shift from a cost center to a growth engine. Lean Focus helped us build a marketing operating system grounded in data, accountability, and continuous improvement — and the results spoke for themselves. It was proof that if you want marketing to contribute real enterprise value, Lean is how you get there.”
Start A Conversation With Our Private Equity Practice
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Lean Focus North America
P: +1 (630) 800-8519
E: [email protected]
Lean Focus Europe
P: +49 173 2505762
E: [email protected]
Lean Focus Nordic
P: +45 4030 3080
E: [email protected]
International Phone Number: +1 (630) 800-8519
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