Momentum From Day One
Most value creation plans do not fail in the boardroom. They stall in the weeks after completion, when the urgency of the deal gives way to the routine of running a business.
It is an understandable moment. After months of diligence, negotiation and late nights, everyone takes a breath. Management turns back to the day job, the deal team moves on to the next opportunity, and the plan that was built so carefully sits waiting for someone to own it. Nothing has gone wrong, exactly. But nothing is moving either, and in the life of an investment, standing still is rarely neutral.
A window that does not stay open
The first 90 days after a transaction are unusual. Change is expected. Leaders anticipate new priorities and teams are braced for a different way of working. Decisions that would feel disruptive in year two feel entirely natural in month one.
That openness fades quickly. Old habits reassert themselves, and every change becomes slower, harder and more expensive to make. Delays also compound. A critical hire that slips by a quarter, a governance structure that never quite takes shape or a decision that nobody clearly owns may each seem minor in isolation. Together, they push value further out of reach and quietly reset the timeline for the whole hold period.
Research suggests many investors still let that window slip. A study by Alvarez & Marsal found that nearly half of private equity firms use the first 100 days mainly to protect business continuity and plan, with value creation work not starting until around six months in. Only around one in five launch value creation activity straight away, and among UK firms the figure falls to 16%.
From plan to practice
The businesses that build momentum early tend to start by testing the plan against reality. A value creation plan written during diligence reflects the best information available at the time, but within weeks of completion the people responsible for delivering it know far more. Revisiting priorities with them does two things: it sharpens the plan, and it turns an investor's document into a shared commitment.
From there, the plan needs a rhythm. Strategy on its own does not move a business forward; regular, disciplined routines do. Clear programme governance, a consistent cadence of reviews and simple delivery disciplines give the organisation a heartbeat, making progress visible and allowing problems to surface while they are still small.
Rhythm alone is not enough if the right people are not in place. Most plans quietly depend on leadership or expertise the business does not yet have, whether that is a commercial leader to open new markets, a finance function ready for institutional reporting or specialist skills to drive a transformation. The longer those gaps remain open, the more the plan slows. Addressing them early, through permanent appointments, interim leaders or specialist support, is often the single biggest lever on pace.
The cost of getting this wrong is well documented. AlixPartners' latest private equity leadership survey found that nearly two thirds of private equity firms replace a portfolio company CEO during the hold period. Earlier research by the same firm showed that unplanned CEO turnover affects around a third of investments, and that most businesses had no suitable successor identified for their CEO, CFO or COO roles.
The organisation itself usually needs attention too. Structures, decision rights and accountabilities tend to reflect what a business has done in the past rather than what it is trying to achieve next. Reshaping them around the growth strategy removes friction before it has the chance to become habit.
Finally, momentum needs to be measured. A small number of meaningful indicators, each with a clear owner, will tell leadership far more about whether value is being created than a sprawling dashboard ever could. The goal is not more reporting, but earlier warning of where performance is building and where risk is gathering.
Pace with discipline
None of this is about doing everything at once. Speed without structure simply creates noise, and a business asked to change on every front at the same time will usually change on none. The real skill lies in identifying the handful of decisions that unlock everything else, making them clearly, and then building the routines that keep the business moving.
The portfolio companies that emerge from their first 90 days with a validated plan, the right leaders in the right roles and a shared understanding of what success looks like rarely spend the rest of the hold period catching up. Momentum, once established, is far easier to sustain than to recover. The trajectory set in those first three months tends to carry all the way to exit.
Written by Will Hartley
