Diagnostic of skills and behavioral characteristics of leadership team of a top ed-tech venture

• Client description: A large, global private equity firm
• Opportunity: A top-tier PE firm wanted to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and skills of the top leadership team of a key ed-tech organization and assess their leadership qualities. PE firm wanted to incorporate this feedback in their decision to invest in the company

• Engaged in detailed conversations with the subordinates, supervisors, peers, and partners (including vendors and suppliers who have closely interacted with the leadership team) from previous career stints as well as close friends and batchmates from college
• Focused on the two-pronged approach: 

• Conducted in-depth interviews with current and former employees of the start-up who worked directly with the leadership team
• Assessed the leadership team’s online profile including a detailed review of social media posts, press articles, and conversations on review platforms like Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Quora, etc.
• Created a comprehensive leadership assessment framework to evaluate the team on key parameters including vision and mission, culture, emotional intelligence, communication, etc. This was further broken down to identify most crucial sub parameters which were subsequently rated on a weakness – strength scale, backed by detailed rationale for each parameter
• Charted leadership team’s career to trace the overall growth trajectory, establish key milestones, and ultimately understand the driving factors behind the decisions to start an ed-tech venture
  
• Deep dived on the leadership team’s weaknesses to identify the intensity of weaknesses, ability to correct them and possible implications for the company and its stakeholders
  

Key Insights / Outcomes

• Provided client with a comprehensive diagnostic of the leadership team of the investment target
• Gave a list of potential implications arising from the team’s weaknesses and broad sense of timelines required to fix them