Private Equity FunCast

Welcome to Parker Gals — the podcast by and for women in private equity. Hosts Cass Ziebel and Liz Xu kick off the very first episode from ParkerGale HQ in Chicago, introducing themselves and the show.
In this debut episode, you'll hear how Cass stumbled into PE after a 2.5 hour "networking lunch" that turned into an accidental interview, and how Liz almost talked herself out of the job before Cass convinced her she was more than ready. Other agenda items include butter-to-egg ratios, Gilmore Girls VHS tapes, a pair of auction-won sunglasses, and two very different answers to "what would you do if not private equity?"
Plus, a peek at the show's recurring segments: Indication of Interests (rapid-fire personal questions), Shop Talk (career stories), and Closing Call (fun finishers). If you know a woman in PE who should be on the show, reach out. We're just getting started.
Theme music by Jon O'Hara.

40% of PE firms and 60% of credit funds still track their portfolios on spreadsheets. That's now a way to monitor a few trillion in AUM. Private equity (and credit) are about to get way more transparent as retail investors get access to PE, and the tools you need to monitor and report your exposure must evolve. The products are way ahead of the plumbing. 
Devin sits down with Kevin Hsu, founder of Lumonic, a portfolio monitoring software company now part of PitchBook. We discuss Kevin's early career in private markets technology and what that taught him about the difference between the needs of VCs and PE firms. We talk about the coming convergence of public and private markets, and why the old ways of doing things (in spreadsheets) won't cut it in the new world of heightened transparency and regulation.
ParkerGale is in the middle of automating much of its internal workflows with new AI-powered tools, so this conversation will help other funds think through the options. Should you roll your own (Kevin has a surprising opinion on this), stick with what you've got, or make a switch? What should you expect from your software provider and how do you handle those edge case portfolio companies? We cover all this and more with Kevin.
https://www.lumonic.com/

PE GUY turned a Snapchat filter into millions of views and a seven-figure business. Host Devin Mathews (a real PE guy) conducts due diligence on Johnny Hilbrant Partridge's background, business model, and the wealthy towns he's taking on next.
We sat down with Johnny in PE GUY's natural habitat -- a Winnetka, IL pool house to figure out how a goofy internet character became an oddly accurate and honest mirror of the private equity industry. Johnny grew up in Winnetka and now lives in Wellesley (two classic PE Guy towns). He went to New Trier (the affluent North Shore high school that inspired "Breakfast Club"), played water polo at the University of Denver, worked for the Ellen Degeneres Show, and the PE-backed Barry's, and Soul Cycle before creating the viral character.
What started out as an Instagram reel to make his friends laugh is now generating millions of views from more than 500,000 followers. We go deep into the PE GUY universe. Catchphrases like "decent," "substantial," "due to my role," plus his three kids named Tarantino, Montauk, and EBITDA. Not to mention Wifey and Nanny's #1, #2, and #3. We also break down Johnny's revenue streams: Cameo, brand deals, appearances, and PE GUY swag. Then Johnny puts Devin under the microscope and asks, "Can private equity ever be stopped?"

Sam Levy's first sales job involved a phone book, a rotary phone, and 200 cold calls for one yes. He was still in college when he started a telemarketing gig with no playbook, no CRM, no email. Eighteen months in, the company went public, and the telemarketing kid was sipping champagne in the boardroom. This episode reveals everything that happened between that room and the one he sits in now: head of go-to-market strategy and execution at Oracle NetSuite, running a business that's grown from $250 million to $4 billion.
Sam walks Devin through how to build a career in software sales, rung by rung: how to pick your first sales job and your first boss; why hustle gets you started but cadence gets you promoted; why the top rep usually makes a rough first-time manager. He tells us when to leave a job, when to let a rep go, and what to do with the lone wolf who crushes quota but poisons the room. Plus, a prediction: 90% of the next generation of software CEOs will come out of sales and marketing, not engineering.
Whether you're an operating partner, an SDR in your first seat or a CRO wondering what's next, this is the insider's guide to success.
Discover more at NetSuite.ai

The deep Rolodex model for headhunters doesn't cut it anymore. PE's cookie-cutter hiring scorecards now miss the best candidates in a complex world. And more and more funds are hiring internal teams to source CEOs. The executive search business is under pressure and has to adapt to survive. In this episode, Devin sits down with Nick Cromydas, to answer the question: how does executive search stay relevant?
Nick is the co-founder and CEO of Hunt Club, an AI-enabled search firm that pairs a GLG-style expert network with first-party data from countless executive searches. His team has conducted thousands of searches for hundreds of investor-backed companies.