INSIGHTS
The COO search is rarely about operations
When a sponsor decides it’s time to hire a COO, the instinct is to reuse the job description from the last search. That instinct is usually where the search starts to go wrong.
The Chief Operating Officer mandate in a PE-backed company is rarely a straightforward operational question. Yet private equity COO executive search almost always begins there, with a title and a familiar job description rather than a diagnosis. It’s almost always a diagnostic signal. Something in the business, the board relationship, or the investment timeline has surfaced a need. But until that underlying condition is named, the search is organized around the wrong problem.