Turning AI Into Measurable Value Across Business Operations

Description

Artificial intelligence has moved from boardroom conversation to operational expectation — and the people responsible for driving value across PE-backed companies are now on the hook for making it work. The real challenge isn't adoption. It's knowing which initiatives actually move EBITDA, which portfolio companies are ready, and how to build momentum without losing years to the wrong bets. And increasingly, the conversation is turning to a less visible but consequential challenge: the structural gap between value that gets negotiated and value that actually gets captured — a gap that lives in systems and processes, not in the performance of any one team. This discussion brings together senior value creation and portfolio operations leaders from U.S. private equity firms for a candid peer exchange on where AI is delivering measurable results, where it's falling short, and how leading firms are sequencing implementation across their portfolios.

Speakers

Divyabh Mishra

Founder & CEO, AllCaps

Michael Chiock

Global Co-Leader, Supply Chain & Operations Practice Group, Partner & Managing Director, AlixPartners

Eric Wiklendt

Managing Director, Speyside Equity

Tom Duncan

Operating Partner, Growth & Innovation, Summit Park

Guided Questions

Michael Chiock

Michael, you’ve argued that real value creation comes from optimizing the full value chain, not isolated initiatives. Across the PE-backed companies you’ve worked with at AlixPartners, where is AI genuinely showing up in EBITDA today—and where are firms investing heavily but seeing very little translate into actual performance?

Eric Wiklendt

Eric, you’ve spent years driving value creation across Speyside Equity’s industrial portfolio, often stepping in after close when the real operating work begins. Across the companies you’ve worked with, what tends to separate the operational initiatives that actually compound into measurable EBITDA improvement from the ones that lose momentum once management teams are back inside day-to-day execution?

Tom Duncan

Tom, in your role at Summit Park, you’re often responsible for turning growth and innovation initiatives into measurable outcomes across portfolio companies. When it comes to AI and operational programs, where do you see the gap between what gets prioritized at the fund level and what actually gets executed at the company level—and how does that gap show up in results?

Divyabh Mishra

Divyabh, you've built two AI companies in different industries, and both times you've had to make AI work against large volumes of messy, unstructured enterprise data, things like product catalogs, vendor contracts, invoices, documents that were never designed to be machine-readable. When PE firms invest in AI-driven value creation across their portfolio, what do most of them underestimate about getting that foundation right, and what does that cost them during the hold period?