When a private equity firm buys an owner-managed manufacturer, one of the first decisions is who chairs the board. It is often made quickly, from the investor’s own list, and it is often the wrong call for a business of this size. Having been on the management side of that decision, and on the board side since, here is what I think an investor should be looking for.
Someone the management team will listen to
The owner who just sold you the business has run it for twenty years without a board. The new chair’s first job is to earn enough respect from that owner, and from the people under them, to be allowed to change things. A chair from a FTSE background rarely manages this. A chair who has run a £10M factory and knows what a bad month feels like has a chance.
Someone who has been through an integration
Most deals in this space are platform and bolt-on. The value is in putting businesses together without losing the customers, the key people or a year of management attention. When WILA was sold to private equity in 2016 I stayed on as CEO of the WILA Group and became Chief Sales Officer across the investor’s six acquired businesses in Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK, bringing their sales teams together. It is harder than the deck says. A chair who has done it will spot the problems in the plan before you pay for them.
Someone who will tell you the truth early
Investors get surprised by bad news because nobody on the board wanted to be the one to say it. A good chair says it at the second board meeting, not the eighth. That means being independent of the management team as well as of the investor, and being willing to be unpopular with both.
Someone who understands the numbers you need
An owner-managed business reports what the owner wanted to see. An investor needs a monthly pack that shows cash, margin by product, order book and the handful of operational measures that predict next quarter. Building that pack, and getting management to run the business from it, is most of the first six months of any chair role I take.
Someone who is useful before the deal, not just after it
The best time to meet the chair is during diligence. Commercial due diligence from someone who has run the kind of business you are buying is different from a report written from desk research. I have done this work alongside corporate finance advisers, most recently on the acquisition of IBL Lighting by Inovara in 2025.
What this is not
It is not a seat for someone’s retirement. The role takes a day or two a month at board level, more in the first hundred days, and runs for the hold period. The measure of success is a better exit, not a quieter board meeting.
If you have a manufacturing or engineering business in the pipeline, I am happy to talk it through.