Summit Leadership Partners, a leadership advisory firm that works with private equity sponsors and portfolio-company CEOs, today released The Right CEO for the Moment: What Private Equity Leaders Say Separates CEO Success From Struggle. The report draws on a survey of nearly 200 private equity partners as well as interviews with experienced private equity-backed CEOs with numerous successful exits to their credit. It finds that the fit between a CEO and a company is not fixed at the time of hire. It shifts as the business scales, the strategy evolves, and the hold period extends.

Longer holds and stalled exits are stretching CEO tenures beyond what many sponsors and leaders expected, while AI is changing what portfolio companies need from the person in the seat. Against that backdrop, Summit set out to examine how CEO requirements change over the course of an investment and where a leader’s capabilities can begin to diverge from what the business needs.

The most cited challenge is the evolving role itself: 52% of PE leaders say the CEO role can change enough that the leader may no longer be right for the company’s current stage. CEO burnout (46%) and fading relevance of the CEO’s original strengths (44%) follow.

“Few decisions carry more weight in a private equity investment than who is sitting in the CEO seat, and the job rarely stays the same from close to exit,” said Dan Hawkins, Founder & CEO of Summit Leadership Partners. “Assessment matters because it gives boards and sponsors an honest read on whether a leader’s strengths match what the business needs now and what it will need next. When that conversation happens early, there are more ways to support the CEO and protect the value of the investment.”

Key Findings

  • There is no universal profile of a great PE-backed CEO. The capability that matters most shifts across the hold and no leading capability draws more than 30% at any stage.

  • Outgrowing the role is the most widely cited reason for replacing a CEO. 39% of PE leaders name a CEO who was right for an earlier stage but could not scale with the company among their top three reasons. Missed targets and other performance issues also matter.

  • Under pressure, focus matters most. One-third of PE leaders say strong CEOs dial in on the few priorities that move value.

  • Leadership is decisive in both directions. 62% say their most successful investment was driven mainly by CEO and leadership factors, and 54% say the same about their most challenging one.

  • AI is part of the CEO mandate, but execution lags. Four in five PE leaders call AI a core or primary value-creation lever, and about two-thirds formally evaluate a CEO’s ability to lead it. Yet only 31% say their CEOs are managing AI transformation very effectively.

From CEO Selection to Ongoing CEO Assessment

The findings point to a shift in how sponsors approach portfolio leadership: from selecting the right CEO at investment to continuously evaluating whether that leader remains the right fit as the business evolves. That requires more than assessing the CEO in isolation at hire. Boards and sponsors must consider the company’s changing strategic priorities, leadership team, governance structure, and decision-making environment. Regularly revisiting CEO fit, particularly at major transitions, can help identify emerging risks earlier and create more opportunities to support the leader before performance deteriorates.

“A CEO can be highly capable and still be mismatched to what the company now needs,” said Liz Salib, PhD, Principal Consultant at Summit Leadership Partners. “Some gaps can be closed through development, a stronger team, or clearer decision rights. Others point to a deeper mismatch. The earlier a board recognizes the difference, the more options it has, and the more time the CEO has to respond.”

Methodology

Summit’s PE-backed CEO survey was fielded in August 2026 by Rabin Roberts Research, an independent market research firm. The data includes responses from 176 private equity partners. In-depth interviews were also conducted with six private equity partners and five PE-backed CEOs with numerous successful exits.

About Summit Leadership Partners, LLC

Summit Leadership Partners is a leadership advisory firm that helps private equity investors, CEOs, and executive teams accelerate performance and create enterprise value. Combining behavioral science, proprietary leadership data, and practical business expertise, Summit advises clients on talent assessment, executive coaching, leadership development, team effectiveness and organization performance. Summit has been recognized as one of America’s Best Management Consulting Firms by Forbes for five consecutive years. For more information, visit summitleadership.com and follow Summit on LinkedIn.

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