Private equity technology advisory is a specialist field, and one that is easy to describe vaguely and hard to describe precisely. This is our attempt at the precise version: what the work actually is, why it is difficult, and the roles that carry it.
The problem it exists to solve
When a private equity firm buys a business that is being carved out of a larger parent, it is not buying a finished company. It is buying a division that was never designed to stand on its own. The systems, data, contracts and back-office functions are still tangled up with the seller. Someone has to separate all of it, and stand up a company that can run independently, usually against a hard deadline.
That deadline is the Transitional Services Agreement, or TSA. For a fixed window after the deal closes, the parent keeps providing shared services like IT, HR and payroll while the new owner builds its own. Every month on a TSA costs money, so the pressure to exit it is real and constant.
Technology is usually the hardest part of this. IT separation sits on the critical path of most carve-outs, and it is the single most common cause of delay. Untangling shared applications, migrating data, separating networks and identity, standing up standalone infrastructure, none of it is optional, and all of it has to happen while the business keeps trading.
Why private equity cares so much about it
Because technology is no longer a back-office cost. It is where value in a deal is made or lost. In FTI Consulting's 2025 Private Equity Value Creation Index, a survey of more than 500 private equity leaders, technology and IT was identified as the most effective lever for creating value across the deal lifecycle.
The flip side is the risk. McKinsey has found that roughly 70 percent of mergers fail to deliver the revenue synergies they promised. KPMG attributes 40 percent of integration failures to inadequate IT assessment during the deal. Gartner reports that 83 percent of data migration projects fail or exceed their budget and timeline. The technology is where the value is, and it is also where the deal most often comes undone.
The lifecycle, in plain terms
The work runs across the whole deal, not just after close.
- Before close. Technology due diligence assesses the target's systems, cost and risk, and shapes the TSA scope, the standalone operating model and the order in which separation happens.
- Day 1. Continuity. The lights stay on, customers and staff are reassured, nothing breaks.
- The first 100 days. Standing up the spine: standalone finance and reporting, a credible plan to exit the TSA, and the value-creation plan that justified the price.
- Year 1 and beyond. The company gets built, the TSA gets exited, and technology shifts from separation to growth.
Who actually does the work
There are two sides to it, and understanding the difference is the whole point.
The advisory side is the specialist firm the PE sponsor brings in. It has three tiers. At the top, the Technology M&A advisory leadership run the due diligence, the deal-lifecycle strategy and the client relationships. Beneath them, the Control Tower provides independent programme governance and assurance, the sharp challenge and intervention that protects value when delivery gets messy, sitting above the PMO and reporting into the boardroom. Beneath that, the programme delivery leads, PMO, ERP, applications and infrastructure, own the individual workstreams and carry delivery through to TSA exit.
The portfolio company side is different. Here a Chief Information Officer is placed directly into the business, interim for the carve-out or permanent for the carve-out and the run beyond it. The CIO leads the separation, TSA exit and standalone build, then the value-focused technology strategy that follows. Where a carve-out needs more than one hire, the CIO builds out the wider technology team.
Why the people are hard to find
Because the work sits at an unusual intersection. It needs someone who can hold a boardroom and deliver in the detail at the same time, who understands the commercial value story a sponsor cares about and can also stand up an ERP platform or negotiate a TSA exit. Advisory pedigree alone is not enough. The people who do this well have delivered it, not just advised on it. And the best of them are rarely looking, because they are too busy delivering.
That is the gap we work in.