I believe that Private Equity provides the right balance between a start-up organisation and a corporate, particularly as it allows you to make an impact on the wider business.

You reach a point in your career where making an impact is the most important aspect of your role and I believe this is something a lot of senior finance professionals truly care about, often more than anything else.

Start-ups can help you to make this impact but it carries a lot of risk. It is well-documented that something like 90% of start-ups fail in their first year. They are extremely exciting but the survival rate paired with the fact that you have to focus on putting in place all of these processes, wearing all of these hats and in most cases, sourcing funding, the focus sometimes shifts from making that impact and more about keeping your head above water.

I thought Private Equity had a compelling case for offering you the ability to make an impact while avoiding the slowness of corporate reporting and responsibility. In large companies, your focus may not always be on the long-term health of the business but rather how you will get through the next shareholder meeting or analyst presentation. In Private Equity, once you have your investors on board you don’t have to worry about monthly meetings, you have a longer exit strategy and as long as what you are doing is on track and as long as you are convincing your partners that you are doing the right things to bring it on track, you can focus on the business and make that impact.

Rather than wearing several hats, your job typically involves turning around an organisation or fixing one issue and then your job is done whether it’s an investment issue, acquisition challenge or growth question. Generally speaking, your focus is on a small number of things, most importantly, at the end of a Private Equity cycle for that investment you can see the small impact you have made. In a corporate, it’s not just difficult to see your impact but also to identify how much of that impact is attributable to you. In the corporate world you are never a sole decision-maker or the single person able to make a massive impact yet in smaller companies, you can be.