Managing Partner – Value Creation — Research-Tools Business

The mandate

An investment and advisory platform has assembled a substantial portfolio of research-tools and laboratory-technology businesses across Europe and North America. The companies sell instruments, consumables, software and service in different combinations. Investment cases regularly assume pricing, recurring pull-through, service attachment and product rationalisation; once ownership begins, management teams discover that installed-base records are incomplete, channel data are delayed and gross margin is obscured by allocations designed for statutory reporting rather than decisions.

The value-creation team has delivered several strong cost and procurement programmes, but results vary by operating partner and portfolio-company sponsorship. Commercial and product levers are often diagnosed late, after a budget shortfall, and digital initiatives can absorb capital without changing customer behaviour. The partner council wants a leader who can make value creation specific to research tools rather than importing a generic industrial playbook or treating every science-led objection as resistance.

The Managing Partner – Value Creation will shape diligence, the first 100-day agenda and full ownership plans for selected investments. The mandate covers approximately 350 internal professionals, operating partners and material affiliates across the broader platform, with direct leadership of the research-tools capability. The appointee will be accountable for measurable portfolio outcomes and the accuracy of the operating assumptions presented to investment committees; they will not replace portfolio-company chief executives.

The role is based in Copenhagen with a hybrid pattern and frequent travel to businesses, customers and manufacturing or service sites. It reports to the Global Managing Partner and regional partner council and is structured as an advisory appointment. Independence, conflicts and the handling of portfolio-company information will be examined as closely as commercial credentials.

Why this seat is open

The incumbent Managing Partner is moving into a full-time operating position with one portfolio company after completing an agreed transition. That appointment creates an urgent replacement and a chance to broaden the model beyond functional cost work. Existing engagements will continue under named partners; the successor must review them without disrupting accountable management teams or recasting every target to establish personal authority.

What you will own

• Define a research-tools value-creation system covering installed-base quality, instrument placement, consumables pull-through, service attachment, pricing, channel economics, product complexity, working capital and digital adoption.
• Lead operating diligence on new investments, testing revenue and margin bridges against customer, service, product and operational evidence rather than management-plan averages.
• Convert each approved investment case into a sequenced ownership plan with named executive owners, resources, dependencies and value ranges that can be reconciled to the deal model.
• Oversee work across approximately 350 professionals and affiliates, selecting small expert teams appropriate to each company rather than deploying a standard transformation office.
• Support portfolio CEOs in choosing the few initiatives that merit scarce product, commercial and engineering capacity; close work whose evidence or economics no longer justify it.
• Build installed-base and product-profitability insight where source systems are incomplete, while ensuring interim analysis does not become a permanent parallel data estate.
• Report realised, forecast and at-risk value to the partner council and investment committees, distinguishing operational performance from market, currency and acquisition effects.
• Develop operating partners and portfolio executives who can carry the agenda independently, with clear boundaries between shareholder challenge and management authority.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Review active ownership plans and the evidence behind reported value. Visit a representative instrument, consumables and software business, identify recurring measurement failures and stabilise any programme dependent on the outgoing partner. Agree the platform’s research-tools value taxonomy and minimum diligence evidence.
• Months 4–9: Rebase selected plans, launch two or three high-value interventions with accountable portfolio leaders and integrate operational assumptions into new investment decisions. Build an installed-base diagnostic that can work with imperfect data, and recruit gaps in product, service and life-sciences commercial expertise.
• Months 10–12: Demonstrate realised EBITDA, cash or growth from the priority interventions with finance-owner reconciliation. Prepare at least one company for exit-quality evidence, show that management can sustain the changed routines, and close or redesign initiatives that have consumed capacity without clearing agreed proof points.

What the board will measure

• Value realised and independently reconciled against investment-case baselines, separated from price, market, acquisition and foreign-exchange effects.
• Quality of operating diligence, including the frequency and consequence of assumptions revised before final investment approval.
• Improvement in installed-base coverage, service attachment, consumables pull-through, product contribution or working capital in the companies where those levers were selected.
• Portfolio management ownership of initiatives, measured by decisions and routines continuing without operating-partner substitution.
• Exit readiness of evidence: consistent definitions, auditable benefit bridges and sustainable performance rather than a last-quarter acceleration.
• Development of a diverse expert and operating-partner bench, with reduced reliance on the Managing Partner for every investment committee or CEO conversation.

The person

You are currently a managing partner, senior operating partner, portfolio-operations leader or senior research-tools executive with at least 28 years of experience. You have influenced a portfolio or P&L of at least DKK 7.5 billion and led at least 200 executives, professionals or matrix contributors across multiple businesses. Direct investor and board exposure is required.

You understand research-tools economics at the level of installed instruments, protocols, consumables, service events, channels and scientific customer switching. You can distinguish genuine recurring revenue from purchase patterns that depend on new placements or distributor inventory. You have improved value through product and commercial choices as well as cost, and can describe an initiative you stopped when the evidence did not support the original case.

Relevant backgrounds include private-equity portfolio operations, specialist advisory, laboratory technology, diagnostics, analytical instruments or connected industrial platforms. Candidates from pure financial diligence must show subsequent execution accountability. Operating executives must demonstrate that they can advise several management teams without assuming line authority or treating their own former playbook as universally applicable.

The role is centred in Copenhagen and supports a purposeful hybrid arrangement, but portfolio travel is frequent. The partner council expects intellectual independence, discretion and a willingness to revise an investment thesis in light of operational facts. Personal relationships are valuable only when developed without breaching obligations to current investors, clients or employers.

Compensation and terms

The anticipated base or drawings range is DKK 3,700,000–5,200,000, with annual incentive and long-term participation under the platform’s partnership arrangements. Economics will reflect realised portfolio value, investment quality, collaboration, leadership development and responsible risk judgement. The advisory appointment may involve partnership capital and deferred awards; detailed treatment will follow mutual diligence.

Confidentiality

The platform, portfolio companies, investment cases and individuals are confidential. Access to identifying information will be staged after fit and confidentiality obligations are established. Candidates may not bring restricted deal materials, solicit portfolio executives or use the mandate to speculate about current ownership activity.

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