Overview

A mid-market private equity fund partnered with BoardClic to turn governance into a measurable lever for value creation. Through structured evaluations across portfolio boards, the fund gained data-driven insights into board effectiveness – and used them to drive faster execution, stronger leadership alignment and better investment outcomes.

The challenge

Even the strongest investment thesis can be derailed by governance blind spots: overstretched Chairs, misaligned Troikas, or boards that miss inflection points. Until now, most funds relied on instinct. But instinct alone doesn’t deliver alpha. What if governance could be measured – and managed – as precisely as financial KPIs?

Our solution

BoardClic deployed its proprietary 10-minute board assessment technology across the portfolio, capturing over 45 data points across five key areas:

• Chair & CEO performance

• Strategic alignment & oversight

• Risk governance

• Troika dynamics

• Board composition & skills fit

Results fed into dashboards, benchmarks, and action plans – delivered directly to company boards and deal teams.

What we found: Governance quality predicts execution success

• Top-performing boards were 2.3x more likely to meet value creation milestones

Compared to companies with low board performance, those in the top third hit critical operational and strategic targets – whether during early transformation, mid-cycle optimisation or pre-exit preparation.



• Companies with well-aligned Troikas showed 30% higher execution confidence

Where the Chair–CEO–Investor trio scored highly and were aligned, deal teams reported materially stronger momentum on transformation initiatives appropriate to that holding period stage.



• 1 in 3 boards made structural changes within 90 days of evaluations

Governance adjustments – including role clarity for Chairs, sharper agenda focus, and board refreshes – were implemented to better support the portfolio company’s current phase of growth or transition.



• 28% of companies resized their boards to better match strategic needs

Optimising board size – whether expanding or reducing – was linked to faster decision-making and clearer accountability, particularly in execution-heavy or pivot phases.



• Governance gaps were flagged up to 12 months before financial indicators showed stress

Early signals such as overloaded Chairs or unclear strategy accountability were detected long before performance issues appeared in P&L metrics.



How do you build a high-performing board?

There’s no universal formula for board success in private equity. What works in a turnaround may fail in a growth-phase scale-up. A Chair who thrives in one investment might underperform in another without the right Troika chemistry or governance structure.

That’s why BoardClic doesn’t prescribe a “best board” model. Instead, we help you define what high performance looks like for your fund based on data from your portfolio.

Our platform evaluates boards across key leadership and governance dimensions, then cross-analyses that data against company context: investment thesis, holding period stage, sector dynamics, and leadership model. Over time, this builds an analytics-driven profile of what board success looks like in your world.



What we uncover:

• Leadership dynamics that correlate with outcomes in each stage of the hold

• Whether board structure and skills fit the strategic focus of the company

• Where risks or gaps exist – from Troika misalignment to succession blind spots

• How to evolve governance to support execution, not slow it down



By capturing what drives success in your actual portfolio, BoardClic turns governance from a check-the-box exercise into a repeatable source of alpha.

This isn’t a silver bullet – but it is a powerful compass, built for PE.





“We didn’t realise what great looked like until we saw the patterns emerge across the portfolio.”

– Managing Partner, Pan-European PE Firm

“This gave us a portfolio-wide x-ray of our governance health, and concrete actions to drive performance.”

– Operating Partner, Leading Mid-Market PE Fund

Why this matters for private equity

This wasn’t a compliance exercise. It was a value creation engine. And in a market where true alpha is rare, governance can be a differentiator. PE firms that take governance seriously build:

• Stronger CEO-Chair-Investor dynamics

• Better resilience through cycles

• Higher trust with LPs and co-investors



This approach echoes best practices from EQT, Carlyle, Bain Capital and others – but adds scalability and automation.

Ready to explore BoardClic for Private Equity? Simply sign up to experience our platform in action at boardclic.com/demo – or learn more at boardclic.com/private-equity.