In addition to his remit at GSP, Chris serves as a consultant to the Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focused on entrepreneurship. Prior to joining GSP, Chris served in a public-sector capacity as Assistant Vice Chancellor for Industry Engagement and Economic Development at UW-Madison. Chris formerly served as Chair, President, and Chief Executive for Coors Distributing Company, as well as a senior executive with SabMiller plc, and a Partner with Accenture.
Chris, you’ve had a wide-ranging career across consulting, brand and transformation. What ultimately drew you to private equity and how has that experience shaped your perspective as an Operating Partner?
Like many others, I sometimes wish I knew back when I started my career, what I know now. Private equity clearly provides the opportunity to make a rapid, measurable impact. Consulting and client services prepared me well for private equity: you focus on other’s success, and the rest will take care of itself. My time as a public company executive also helped, but came with far more bureaucracy and at times, more resources. PE is all about relationships and results: it also requires a level of scrappiness that I think can be much more rewarding. If you focus on these things, you can make a real impact and have fun while doing it.
The prioritization of your time and energy is simpler. We focus on just a few things: supporting management in growing revenue, expanding margins, improving integration and reducing risk. If something we’re doing doesn’t directly impact one of those, we probably shouldn’t be doing it.
I think for those of us who’ve been building teams and businesses, being an Operating Partner is liberating. You reach a point where you just want to focus on where you can genuinely make a difference, and frankly, many of us are no longer trying to climb to the next rung on the ladder – you skip the other stuff and focus your attention on those things that create value for your investors, management teams and partners.
Lastly, and most importantly, our founders, Matt and Alex, were the big draw. I’ve known them for nearly a decade – they’re tough, smart, focused, and they visibly care not only about results, but the people that make it happen. They are incredible investors. They’ve built an amazing team. This group reminds me of my early days in consulting and client service: motivated, smart, hardworking, always learning, very principled and team oriented. I’ve worked with a lot of leaders but these guys are unique, and they’ve truly built a firm that reflects their values.
What was involved in building out the value creation function at GSP?
I was asked to build our Value Creation team, but in reality, of course, everyone is and was responsible for value creation. We were really looking to build up from the foundations that had already been laid. I play the role of quarterback for the team, but there is no hierarchy. We are all partners, and we all serve the management and deal teams. Our deal team is already so capable, so we want to complement, not duplicate, what we were already building to accelerate impact and reduce risk.
We collectively set a vision, piloted some ideas and built capability against it. We measure satisfaction and impact as we go. If something’s working, we do more of it. If it’s not, we pivot. And the deal and management teams will definitely tell us if we are helping, or not. We’re a scrappy, problem-solving firm. The most important aspect was aligning with the needs of the kinds of businesses and founders we invest in and supporting them. Our work is about support and helping others succeed – it’s not about us.
How have you structured the operating function at GSP? What’s worked well so far?
We’ve been building and deploying three main capabilities. The first is enhancing and leveraging the best of our supplier partners. We’re still working on that, and we’ve spent a lot of time in the last year investing more in our supplier partners – the people and firms that understand how we work, our portfolio and culture. Those that are executing with excellence each time we engage, they are becoming more important and present within our portfolio.
Second, we’ve built out an Operating Executive group from scratch. We were learning on some of our more complex deals that there was more to do; more capability needed on the front-end. We piloted bringing on a new group of operators. These are great professionals, earlier in their careers, usually with top-tier consulting special forces, or banking backgrounds and some operating experience. Each was and is looking to get more hands-on, to learn by doing, not just advising. Each is assigned to a specific platform or portfolio company, while staying close to GSP. They’re financially and operationally savvy and help drive 100-day plans and early-stage ramp up and execution. It’s been a lot of fun working with this group, and they are adding a lot of value in scaling and execution. We’re also becoming a team – and the collaboration is evident in how much faster information is shared. One of our team recently took on the role of the President at the company he was formerly supporting as an operating executive, so clearly the role has been good for the investment and individual.
Third, we have Operating Partners, like me. These are people with deep functional, leadership or industry expertise. We deploy a handful of these individuals based on need, which we assess roughly on a weekly basis. For example, we brought on a trusted friend, entrepreneur and executive recently – a cybersecurity partner – who brings a level of expertise and counsel that we did not have access to otherwise. She has already improved our standards, execution and expectations across the board. We also have a data science lead who has been instrumental in helping us not only focus on accelerated, data-driven decision making, but also helps us explore where AI and emerging technologies are – or aren’t – appropriate given our portfolio.
What kinds of themes or patterns are you seeing across the portfolio?
As an investor in consumer and business services, there are certainly some themes that are consistent. Tech and cybersecurity investments are both value drivers and risk reducers. We also see growing demand for finance and accounting professionalization and transitional services. Talent is of course another focus area, and a key value driver in most of our investments. Finding, deploying and developing talent is a common thread and one in which we continue to increase our investment. This is especially critical in rapid growth scenarios.
Commercial excellence and performance marketing are also themes: understanding the customer journey and data, driving conversion, measuring return and results. With the speed of technology and digital change accelerating, it can be tough for any one team and particularly for smaller businesses to stay ahead of that curve. We’ll continue to invest here too.
How do you manage relationships with founder-led businesses during and after the investment?
For the operating team, we definitely don’t drop in like a SWAT team, that’s not us. As I mentioned, we are there to serve and support management teams and founders. If they have a need, we do everything we can to help them fulfill it. Early on, we are learning, testing ideas, and building alignment. They’re choosing us to help them grow, and we have a massive sense of respect and appreciation for that.
Spending time together, helping where needed in the early days, builds trust and early alignment. That makes a big difference as we scale and grow, usually at an accelerated rate.
We work together and discuss where we might have seen success before – what has worked well and where there could be things done differently, where we’ve made mistakes, what benchmarks might be useful, and who might be a good partner or supplier for a particular opportunity or issue. Ultimately, the CEO and/or management team make the decisions, but we work together to support their success. That also means we stay out of the way where we are not needed – anyone who has run a business before not only appreciates people who genuinely can and want to help, but also those that don’t waste time.
You’ve recruited operators from very different background. What are some of the key indicators of success at GSP?
For us, fit is everything. Each of us may have professionally grown up through a different set of experiences, and we can find great skills and experiences in many different people. But if you don’t share the same cultural values – work ethic, integrity, accountability, an entrepreneurial mindset – it won’t work here. We begin with shared values. We’re looking for people who understand how to serve each other, their customers, their teams – those who know it’s a team sport and humility matters. It’s all about the success of the management team, their teams and the business. If you look at our roster, you see faces that represent shared values and trust, built over time.
How do you see the PE operating model evolving over the next 3-5 years?
I wish I had the answer to this! I don’t know exactly what the playbook looks like, and I’m a bit skeptical of anyone who says they do. I do think specific capabilities will always be needed – finance, technology, talent, etc. That said, emerging technologies like AI are incredibly interesting, and will change the way we approach our work and deploy resources. I’d also expect emerging technologies will help us improve our diagnostics.
We’re learning a lot, meeting new firms that are building and deploying new tools and ideas weekly. But it’s a double-edged sword – the ‘new and next’ can be distracting and a diversion from the execution plan if you’re not careful. We are using some models in our deal process and within our portfolio – but judgment is still critical. We run pilots, measure outcomes and scale what works. We also need to keep the problem we’re trying to solve at the front and center. We don’t see a lot of value in finding problems to match solutions. I think those that will be most successful will be the “fast followers” – those who adopt quickly, and focus on partners, people, and technologies that deliver some level of proven incremental value over novelty.
We’re also investing in people who can build repeatable playbooks and ecosystems – data scientists, tech-savvy leaders, amongst others – and that helps our portfolio companies get to the starting line faster.
And finally, on reflection, where do you think the model has evolved in the last two to three years?
The bar has gone up. It’s not just about capital of course, that’s been obvious for some time. It’s about bringing more capability to bear, but with humility. There’s plenty of capital in the market, but people want to work with partners they trust and people they want to spend time with.
In many ways, the businesses we buy make us better. We’re learning from each other. We’ve become better partners and operators with every relationship.
Chris Kozina was interviewed by Mark Sattin (Managing Director) in August 2025.