Insights from our recent discussions with Private Equity Operating Partners and Talent Executives on hiring a human capital operating partner.
We recently wrapped a search that put us in front of Human Capital Operating Executives, chief talent officers, and portfolio company CHROs across middle-market and large-cap firms. A few things came up on nearly every call: how firms should scope the role, how thin the real candidate pool is, and what actually gets a strong candidate to say yes.
#1: Almost every search like this starts the same way
This search often exists because a firm already tried filling the seat once, usually with someone too junior or too execution-focused, and it didn’t work. As one operating partner described it, the first person in this seat tends to inherit everyone’s pent-up idea of what the role should be, all at once, which is exactly why the first attempt rarely holds.
What to do about it:
- If this isn’t your first attempt, say so with candidates. It builds credibility and leads to a more honest conversation.
- Build the job description around what failed the first time, not around what sounded good on paper.
- Get your own house in order before the search starts. If your stakeholders don’t agree on what this person should do, your candidate will find out, and it will cost you the hire.
#2: There are two flavors of this role, and the difference matters
Human capital operating partner can mean two different jobs. One leans on talent acquisition: an in-house executive search function that takes on some searches directly and manages outside vendors for the rest. The other is the broader seat: organizational assessment, succession planning, leadership development, and building the frameworks for how the firm assesses, hires and keeps talent, including in diligence.
Plenty of firms want some of both, but you need to know where you land. As one candidate who’s interviewed for these roles put it, firms use the same title for very different seats, and the people they want vary from search backgrounds to assessment specialists to former CHROs.
What to do about it:
- Decide where on the spectrum your role sits before you write the job description: in-house search, the full assessment and framework mandate, or a deliberate mix.
- Put that choice in the title and the first conversation. Candidates will ask whether this is a real strategic mandate or a talent acquisition role under a bigger title, so have a clear answer ready.
- If you want the broad version, spell out what’s in scope and what comes first. A mandate that covers everything with no priorities sets the hire up to try to do it all at once.
#3: The internal-vs-portfolio design fork
Every firm running this search has to decide whether the role is about building teams inside the firm itself, or about driving talent work across the portfolio. As one portfolio-side operator put it, the two are simply different jobs, and trying to hold both without designing for it means neither gets accomplished well. This isn’t a universal rule: some of the best people doing both built the combination themselves, report straight to the top of the firm, and treat it as an advantage. The difference isn’t whether the role combines both; it’s whether you have the right person and framework built to do it that way.
What to do about it:
- Decide which side of the fork matters more before writing the job description. Some of the strongest human capital talent will walk if the role includes internal responsibilities, because they’ve learned the real value is in building portfolio leadership teams, not running internal HR.
- If you want both in one seat, design for it on purpose, with a direct line to the top of the firm. Someone who’s built a strategic framework for portfolio talent doesn’t need prior internal-HR experience to run that function too.
- Be explicit with candidates about the split either way; vague scope is the fastest way to lose someone strong mid-process.
#4: The candidate pool isn’t thin because people lack the title; it’s because the role itself is new
This function has grown only as more firms have leaned on portfolio ops and value creation to drive returns, so there’s no deep bench built up over decades. Pick a flavor of the role and the pool shrinks; rule out people whose experience is only at a much larger firm with bigger portfolio companies, often a mismatch for them too, and it shrinks again. Most of those left are locked up by carry that’s expensive to walk away from, and by home-grown approaches that may not match how you operate.
There are roughly 200 to 250 true human capital operating professionals, and they vary widely in capability, industry background, and scope. One contact summed it up well: plenty of people know every framework and assessment tool, but far fewer have actually lived the job as a practitioner and built a function from nothing inside a PE-backed environment.
What to do about it:
- Choose your flavor before you start sourcing; each version of the role has its own shorter list of candidates, so a thin first slate is the market, not a sign something’s wrong.
- Look across backgrounds, not just titles; strong fits can come from adjacent seats, like a CHRO at a portfolio company, or from people already in this seat at another fund. Weight practitioner experience over pedigree.
- Know what you’re asking people to walk away from; many of them are locked up in carry, so have a clear answer on your own long-term incentive before the first call.
#5: There are several recurring types, and they want different things
Candidates for this role come from a handful of distinct backgrounds: search and recruiting, corporate HR, assessment and psychometrics, generalist consulting, or already operating in this exact seat at a different fund. As one senior practitioner described it, she could map four or five distinct types of people who land in this seat, each chasing something different. Pitch all of them the same way and you’ll lose most of them.
What to do about it:
- Identify which background you’re talking to early, and adjust the pitch for each one.
- Lead with ownership and upside for the corporate HR crowd. Lead with scope and visibility for search and recruiting backgrounds.
- Don’t assume title-to-title parity; not every firm uses a Partner title, and an internally focused “Chief Talent Officer” or CHRO may actually carry portfolio-wide responsibility.
#6: The role fails fastest when it tries to do everything at once
One operating partner described the role as a kitchen-sink job that swallows anyone who tries to do all of it at once: talent acquisition, org design, leadership development, diligence support, succession, internal and portfolio-facing, all together. The people who’ve done it well picked two or three things to nail in year one instead of standing up the full function immediately.
What to do about it:
- Ask candidates how they’d sequence the first year. The answer tells you how they think and whether they understand how to prioritize.
- Don’t hire someone whose instinct is to boil the ocean unless you’re genuinely prepared to give them the time and resources to do it.
- Set explicit 90/180/360-day priorities together before the offer goes out.
#7: Reputation moves faster than you’d expect in this world
This is a small, tight-knit community that stays in close touch. As one candidate told us, most people will already have a strong opinion about a firm’s culture, and about any open role, well before a recruiter contacts them.
What to do about it:
- Assume past turnover in this role will come up, whether you raise it or not. Have a straight answer ready.
- Use warm references, community connections, and recruiters with an existing network; a candidate who hears good things secondhand moves faster.
- Treat the process itself as part of your reputation; a slow, disorganized search gets talked about as much as a good one. If your leadership team can’t agree on what this role requires, that misalignment reaches the network too, and it tells candidates the search is going to be a hard one to win.
#8: AI is already part of the conversation, but not in the way most firms think
Operating partners are already using AI to move faster on the repetitive parts of the job: assessment write-ups, interview notes, candidate sourcing, market mapping, and evaluations. As one practitioner framed it, the tools speed things up, but they don’t pick the candidate for you. Adoption is also held back by real concerns about data sensitivity in HR and personnel conversations.
What to do about it:
- Ask candidates how they use these tools day to day. It’s a decent proxy for how modern their operating style is.
- Don’t expect this to be a differentiator yet. Basic fluency is table stakes, not a standout.
- Have a clear point of view on data sensitivity before candidates ask.
#9: Compensation structure decides more than base salary does
Cash gets candidates to the table. As one operating partner expressed, a vague answer on carry or long-term incentive is a flag and a quick turn-off, regardless of what the base salary looks like.
What to do about it:
- Have a specific answer on carry, profits interests, or equivalent LTI ready before you’re deep into a process.
- Don’t assume cash alone closes this search. The firms that move fastest can explain the full package clearly and early.
- If this is your first time hiring for this function, build in flexibility instead of forcing it into an existing comp grid.
The Mandate Is the Hard Part, Not the Search
You’re recruiting the person most intimate with your org design, your culture, your compensation structure, and how to attract talent into your portfolio. Get your own house in order before you go to market. Most firms treat this like any other executive search. The ones who land the right hire treat it as a role-design exercise first.
The candidates capable of doing this job well are out there, and most are willing to listen, if only to see what the market is offering. But the best talent is usually already locked up, by firms that got the role design right, pay real cash, and offer real carry. If you want a shot at them, be willing to flex the role around what the candidate actually needs, not just what you need, and be clear about the value you expect them to create in return.
Methodology & Sources
Primary research: conversations conducted over several months with operating partners, chief talent officers, and portfolio company CHROs across middle-market and large-cap private equity firms, in connection with an active retained search.