What is an operating partner?

The title was first used by venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms for a role entirely dedicated to working with the unlisted companies in their portfolio, in order to increase their value.

In practice, the operating partner does not decide which stakes to take. They work inside the company, alongside the CEO, to turn a strategic plan into operational results.

Where does the operating partner role come from?

The role appeared in the United States in the early 2000s. Large private equity funds created it when business transformation became a major source of value creation and financial engineering lost its central place.

In France, the role is more recent. Still little known ten years ago, it developed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. It is now growing fast: according to a France Invest study, the number of operating partners in investment funds multiplied by 2.3 between 2022 and 2023.

The operating partner’s role varies with each assignment, but it always rests on the same idea: moving the company forward on its priority issues. Their work usually covers:

• diagnosing what holds back performance and growth
• building a value creation plan with the management team
• delivering this plan alongside the teams
• tracking key metrics and adjusting priorities

Supporting without taking over

The operating partner often acts as a sparring partner for the CEO. They take a mentoring stance, build a relationship of trust with management and support the teams while leaving them their autonomy. This stance sets them apart from a board member, who oversees, and from an interim executive, who replaces.

Profiles vary: former consultants, former managers in industry and former CEOs. Whether employed by a fund or independent, they fall into three broad categories: generalists, functional experts and sector experts. Functional experts work on a specific function of the company, such as finance, supply chain, digital or sales.

→ In investment funds specifically, read What is an operating partner in private equity? and Operating partner vs general partner.

These three roles are often confused. The difference lies in their place in the company:

• the consultant analyses and recommends, then implementation is left to the company
• the interim manager temporarily fills a vacant position
• the operating partner works with the existing management and takes part in execution

→ For a detailed comparison, read Operating partner, interim manager or consulting firm: which should you choose?

The operating partner supports the CEO at turning points in development and structuring, and speeds up the teams’ work. Typical situations include:

• growth that plateaus with no clearly identified cause
• a strategic plan that has been approved but is not moving for lack of bandwidth
• a post-acquisition phase, when the value creation plan has to be rolled out
• an organisational transformation that goes beyond the current team’s experience

The deciding criterion remains the existence of a management team in place that needs reinforcement to execute.

At Atscale, we apply this model to a specific scope: your revenue function. A Revenue Operating Partner is a senior sales or Revenue Operations executive, embedded in your team to deliver your sales roadmap, alongside your sales director or your Revenue Operations lead.

Each Atscaler has 15 to 25 years of experience, including more than 10 years in leadership roles at high-performing companies, many of which have gone public. They work on site, with your teams, on your revenue targets, full time or part time. Their scope covers go-to-market strategy and planning, targets and compensation, sales execution, reporting and forecasting, the tech stack and client relationship.