Private equity firms don’t have a marketing problem. They have a value creation execution problem. During the hold period, marketing can’t just generate activity; ultimately, like any other part of the company, it needs to support revenue growth and a stronger exit narrative. Let’s break this issue down. Here are the biggest marketing challenges PE firms need to resolve across portfolio companies.
A polished deck can make almost any marketing agency look institutional for 45 minutes.
Most value creation plans assume growth has to be bought: more headcount, more spend, more activity. Often it’s already sitting inside the business, untapped and uncosted, waiting to be turned into EBITDA.
After investment or acquisition, marketing quickly becomes one of the areas leadership needs to make sense of.
Private equity has become less forgiving. Bain’s 2026 Global Private Equity Report argues that “12 is the new 5”, meaning deals that once needed around 5% annual EBITDA growth to generate target returns may now need closer to 10%-12%.
