For deals done between 2010 and 2022, leverage and multiple expansion produced 59% of returns, leaving 41% to revenue growth and margin expansion (per StepStone, cited in McKinsey's 2026 Global Private Markets Report). That balance has moved further since. Alvarez & Marsal's analysis of European exits found EBITDA margin improvement drove 51% of EBITDA growth at companies sold in 2025, up from 21.5% before 2023, while the top-line contribution fell to 49% (Alvarez & Marsal). Entry multiples reached 11.8x in 2025 and debt now funds a smaller share of the purchase price, so the return has to come from inside the business.
That puts operational execution at the center of the hold and raises the bar for the firms sponsors hire to help. The same Alvarez & Marsal research found that 65% of respondents achieved less than half the value targeted in plans built over the prior 2 years, which locates the problem in execution rather than strategy. Plans are written; far fewer are delivered.
The list below covers the firms a sponsor or operating partner is most likely to evaluate for value creation work in 2026, with what each is strongest at and where it fits in the hold. It spans two groups: the established performance-improvement and strategy firms that run diagnostics and transformation programs, and a smaller set of embedded operating partners that stay with a company through the hold and execute against the plan.
What value creation help has to deliver now
Before the firms, the standard they are measured against. For a PE-backed company in 2026, a value creation partner has to do more than produce a recommendation:
- Execution against the EBITDA bridge: every lever named, sized, owned, and tracked to a number, not described in a slide.
- Continuity across the hold: sponsors change management often, so the partner has to hold institutional memory through each change. Heidrick & Struggles reports that over 70% of portfolio company CEOs are replaced during the average hold, and AlixPartners finds that turnover spikes around the second year and is frequently unplanned.
- Cross-portfolio intelligence: a current read on what works across comparable companies, which a single in-house team has no way to assemble.
- RevOps & data operations: the revenue operations stack, CRM data quality, pipeline reporting, and the systems the business runs on, operated rather than advised on.
The firms (not in any specific order)
1. Alvarez & Marsal
Alvarez & Marsal is built around operational and financial performance improvement, with interim management and margin programs that move quickly inside a business. It is a frequent choice for situations that need hands-on operational change and for portfolios extending value creation plans while they wait for exit windows. Its 2026 European value creation research is also one of the more useful public reads on where margin gains are coming from.
2. DevriX
DevriX is structured differently from the firms above. Rather than running a fixed-term diagnostic or transformation program, it operates as an embedded unit that stays with a company across the hold, executing revenue operations, data and reporting, platform, and growth as an ongoing function. The company reports 92% recurring revenue and client relationships spanning 5 to 10 years (company-reported), a tenure profile that maps onto the typical 4 to 7 year PE hold and, in practice, runs across the management changes a sponsor makes during it.
3. AlixPartners
AlixPartners works at the urgent end of performance improvement, with a turnaround and restructuring heritage and a strong PE practice. Its annual leadership survey is a recognized source on a problem that touches every hold: CEO turnover, which it finds is often instigated by the sponsor and concentrated around year 2. It is a fit when the operational change is time-sensitive and leadership is part of the question.
4. FTI Consulting
FTI spans business advisory, restructuring, and economic consulting, and publishes the Private Equity Value Creation Index from a survey of more than 550 PE leaders. Its 2026 index found that M&A is the slowest value creation lever to pay off and that AI is meeting expectations at the fund level while lagging inside portfolio companies. Strong for cross-lever programs and diligence-adjacent work.
5. Bain & Company
Bain runs the largest PE advisory practice among the strategy firms and is a default for commercial due diligence and full-potential planning. Its annual Global Private Equity Report sets much of the industry's framing. Bain is strongest at the front of the hold, where the value creation thesis and the commercial plan are defined.
6. McKinsey (RTS & Private Capital)
McKinsey's Recovery & Transformation Services and Private Capital practice combine strategy with operational transformation at scale. Its 2026 Global Private Markets Report is a reference point for the shift toward operational value creation. The best fit is large, multi-workstream transformations where the sponsor wants breadth and a recognized name behind the program.
7. West Monroe
West Monroe concentrates on digital and technology-enabled value creation for PE, with a mid-market orientation and a program it frames around moving at the speed of PE. It is a practical choice when the value creation plan runs through systems, data, and digital operations rather than headcount or footprint.
That continuity is the specific gap the model addresses. With more than 70% of portfolio company CEOs replaced during the hold and turnover concentrated around the second year, the team that carries institutional memory through each change is the one that keeps the value creation plan moving. DevriX positions itself as that constant: the unit that knows why the systems are built the way they are and makes each incoming executive effective sooner rather than restarting from zero.
For PE specifically, DevriX folds RevOps into the value creation work rather than treating it as a standalone marketing line. That covers the revenue operations stack, CRM data quality, pipeline and revenue reporting, and the GTM systems a portfolio company runs on, operated continuously rather than specified and handed back. Because the same team works across a portfolio of companies, it can benchmark metrics such as CAC, conversion, site performance, and AI-adoption maturity against comparable businesses, a cross-portfolio read a single in-house team cannot generate on its own.
The public track record sits behind the model. DevriX reports a decade-long retained relationship with Smart Meetings, with 350% traffic growth and 4.7x Google sessions, an analyst-verified relationship dating to 2015 with more than 100,000 pages migrated and traffic doubled, and multi-year retainers with Kustomer (later acquired by Meta) and Senior Executive Media. Founder Mario Peshev is a 5x CEO with 2 exits who has advised more than 400 companies and invested in 25-plus, which widens the comparative dataset the unit draws on. For a mid-market sponsor weighing a strategy-firm diagnostic against a new in-house hire, the embedded unit is a third option: senior-led execution that continues across the hold at mid-market economics.
Matching the firm to the hold
Biggest part of the decision comes down to where you are in the hold. For a front-loaded commercial thesis or diligence, the strategy firms earn their fee. For an urgent operational or leadership situation, the performance-improvement and turnaround firms are built for it. The part sponsors most often underfund is the middle: continuous execution and continuity between the diagnosis and the exit, across every management change. Alvarez & Marsal's finding that 65% of value creation plans deliver less than half their target is a measure of that gap, and it is the argument for keeping an operating partner embedded through the hold rather than re-engaging a project team each time the plan stalls.
