Quoted on: private equity, leadership and management, value creation
Private EquityKarma School of Business
Sean Mooney breaks down BluWave's Q3 2026 Private Equity Insights Report, revealing how geopolitical friction, interest rates, and election cycles have extended portfolio hold periods and slowed full diligence. Despite…
- Third-party AI advisor engagements across private equity surged 175% year-over-year in Q3 2026, with the sharpest acceleration appearing in industrial services rather than softwar… Read →
- Human capital ranked as the single largest category of value creation across private equity portfolios in BluWave's Q3 2026 Private Equity Insights Report. Read →
- Value creation accounted for 84% of private equity scoping projects in Q3 2026, while due diligence dropped to 16%, down from 30% a year earlier. Read →
Private EquityKarma School of Business
Adi Filipovic, Managing Director at Resurgens Technology Partners, joins Sean Mooney to discuss his journey from Bosnian refugee and college athlete to software private equity investor. He details the operational value…
- Adi Filipovic arrived in the United States in December 1994 as a child refugee from war-torn Bosnia, settling with his family in Augusta, Georgia. Read →
- Adi Filipovic applies behavioral economics from Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler (whom he studied under at Chicago) directly to private equity deal screening. Read →
- Software returns have shifted entirely from multiple expansion at entry to operational execution during the hold period. Read →
Private EquityKarma School of Business
In this 10th-anniversary retrospective, BluWave founder and CEO Sean Mooney reflects on his journey from 120-hour investment banking workweeks to private equity partnership, and his decision to leave to build BluWave. H…
- Private equity firms operate as lean management organizations: a $1 billion fund generates roughly $20 million in annual fee revenue to support all overhead and headcount. Read →
- Sean Mooney walked away from a private equity partnership after logging tens of thousands of hours and surviving 120-hour investment banking workweeks to build BluWave. Read →
- Sean Mooney spent years working 120-hour investment banking weeks before becoming a private equity partner, eventually leaving the buy-side to found BluWave. Read →
Private EquityKarma School of Business
Carr Preston, Managing Director at Akoya Capital, joins host Sean Mooney to discuss how private equity firms evaluate founder-owned businesses and drive long-term value creation. Preston outlines the critical importance…
- Carr Preston, Managing Director at Akoya Capital, identifies commercial sales operations as the single highest-yield value creation lever in founder-owned buyouts. Read →
- Akoya Capital Managing Director Carr Preston treats solo plant tours as a major red flag when evaluating founder-owned businesses. Read →
- Carr Preston at Akoya Capital pairs investment teams with operating partners who carry 30 to 40 years of sector-specific operational experience. Read →
Private EquityKarma School of Business
Jon Haas, Managing Director of Portfolio Transformation at Clarion Capital, joins Sean Mooney to discuss how private equity has shifted from financial engineering to operational value creation. He outlines Clarion's eig…
- Clarion Capital focuses on founder-led and family-owned businesses, which make up roughly 80% of the firm's portfolio investments. Read →
- Clarion Capital generated an 8x return and tripled EBITDA over three years on Czech localization provider Moravia by rejecting consensus risk assumptions. Read →
- Institutional LPs demand top-decile performance while penalizing individual portfolio write-downs far more severely than they reward outsized winners. Read →
Private EquityKarma School of Business
Dave Santoni, Managing Director at Audax Private Equity, joins Sean Mooney to discuss Audax's strategic approach to deal sourcing, add-on acquisitions, and vertical market mapping. He details how the firm integrates a 6…
- Audax runs two distinct platform strategies: a lower middle market fund targeting $5 million to $20 million in EBITDA, and a middle market fund targeting $20 million to $75 millio… Read →
- Audax Private Equity pairs a 10-person business development team with a 60-person Strategic Resources Group (SRG) to run diligence and operations simultaneously. Read →
- Dave Santoni spent nine years in legal training (three years in law school and six years as a corporate lawyer) before realizing his core interest sat in private market dealmaking. Read →