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Graham Partners Operating Company developed GPS as a standardized operating model for value creation across its portfolio.
The model was designed to bring the rigor, accountability, and structured execution of a consulting engagement into every acquisition. But for that model to scale, Graham Partners needed more than a playbook. It needed an execution platform capable of making the model operational across different companies and sectors.
Before Conductor, GPS relied on spreadsheets and Smartsheet to manage value creation activity. As the portfolio expanded, maintaining the same level of governance and visibility across every acquisition became increasingly difficult.
- Spreadsheets and Smartsheet handled tasks, not value creation — with no portfolio-level visibility.
- The GPOC team had no real-time view of what was moving; progress depended on manual updates.
- Connecting individual initiatives to EBITDA was manual and lived with individual operating partners.
- One execution layer for GPS — initiative tracking, financial KPIs, and governance in one place.
- A real-time view across every holding, without disconnected spreadsheets.
- Every initiative connected to EBITDA outcomes, portfolio-wide.
Graham Partners implemented Conductor as the execution layer for GPS, bringing initiative tracking, financial KPIs, and governance into one platform.
The goal is to run value creation across the portfolio the same way we ran transformations when I was in consulting — with the same rigor, the same accountability, the same visibility into what's moving. Conductor is how GPS becomes operational, not just conceptual.
By making GPS operational through Conductor, Graham Partners achieved:
Value creation at portfolio scale requires more than a strong operating model. It requires a way to make that model repeatable.
Graham Partners used Conductor to turn GPS from a value creation framework into an operational system, giving each acquisition a consistent approach to governance, execution visibility, and financial accountability.
One operating model. Repeatable across every acquisition.
Frequently asked questions
What is a value creation operating model in private equity?
A standardized way of running value creation across every portfolio company, so each acquisition gets the same governance, accountability, and execution discipline. Graham Partners' version, GPS, has three pillars: Playbooks, People, and Delivery. The aim is to bring the rigor of a consulting engagement into every deal without rebuilding the approach each time.
Why don't spreadsheets and Smartsheet work for portfolio-wide value creation?
They handle tasks, not value creation. Graham Partners found that spreadsheets and Smartsheet gave no portfolio-level visibility, progress depended on manual updates, and connecting initiatives to EBITDA lived with individual operating partners. As the portfolio grew, maintaining the same governance across every acquisition became increasingly difficult on those tools.
How fast can a new portfolio company be onboarded onto a value creation platform?
Weeks, when there is a standardized deployment model. Graham Partners built a repeatable deployment for GPS on Conductor so new acquisitions go live in weeks with the full framework, governance, workflows, and financial tracking, rather than rebuilding the operating model from scratch for each company.
How do operating partners see what is happening across every portfolio company at once?
Through one real-time execution layer that every portfolio company runs on. Graham Partners' GPOC team monitors initiatives, milestones, and financial performance across all holdings from a single view, replacing manual status reporting and disconnected spreadsheets with live data that each company updates as part of its normal work.
How do you connect individual value creation initiatives to EBITDA?
By tracking financial KPIs at the initiative level rather than at the company level. On Conductor, each Graham Partners initiative carries its own financial target and actuals, so value creation activity links directly to EBITDA outcomes and operating partners can see the value delivered by each action, not just the aggregate result.
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