Spotlight on Portfolio Operations: Lisa Sibenac

In our ongoing series shining a light on BC Partners' approach to operational excellence, we’re sitting down with members of our Portfolio Operations team to find out more about their backgrounds and specialisms, emerging themes in their practice areas, and how they work across BC Partners’ portfolio to deliver hands-on support and value creation.

In our final Q&A, we sit down with Lisa Sibenac, Managing Director in the Portfolio Operations team at BC Partners specializing in Commercial Excellence. Lisa discusses how her commercial experience prior to BC Partners informs her work with the portfolio today, and how her specific skillset works to drive value and growth at our portfolio companies.

Lisa, thanks for taking time to speak with us. Could you start by telling us about your role at BC Partners and experience before joining the firm?

Lisa Sibenac: Of course. I joined BC Partners about seven years ago and spend my time working closely with our management teams, with a focus on “commercial excellence” initiatives. Practically speaking, this means that I am focused on initiatives that drive topline growth and profitability across the portfolio. Pricing, sales force effectiveness, or e-commerce/digital strategies would all be examples of commercial excellence initiatives.

I started my career in aerospace and defense, as my background is in engineering. I then transitioned to the digital/e-commerce sector working for Amazon in the UK, where I was exposed to best-in-class commercial and e-commerce strategies. I now have 20 years of experience working across a diverse set of industries and commercial excellence strategies.

How are you and the team working to maximise value across the portfolio?

Lisa Sibenac: The portfolio operations team's success in delivering value creation is largely due to their deep integration with the deal teams. We are not a siloed organization operating on the sidelines but rather one BC deal team, with complementary skill sets and a common goal of maximizing value. This integrated approach is consistent throughout the lifecycle of a deal, from diligence to exit. Our early involvement allows us to gain alignment with our management teams on the key operational levers to drive value, so we are ready to execute on day one.

A good example of this is a deal we did in the business services space. The operations team was involved during diligence, so we were able to align with management very early on regarding the biggest operational value creation opportunities. Some of these opportunities included going after dollars they previously had not been able to unlock in pricing, procurement, and M&A synergies. Post acquisition, we developed detailed execution plans and kicked off a number of initiatives. Not only did we unlock the ‘out-of-reach’ dollars, but we also identified new areas to drive growth. Since our involvement, we have more than quadrupled EBITDA, margin has improved, operations have been enhanced, and the business continues to experience strong topline growth.

What types of projects are most in demand across the portfolio currently and what are portfolio companies particularly focused on today?

Lisa Sibenac: We are increasingly seeing our portfolio companies seek support from functional experts, particularly in pricing, salesforce effectiveness, and AI initiatives. This trend has driven the evolution of the operations team, who have developed from a group of generalists to a group of functional specialists, who cover topline growth, procurement and supply chain, technology and cyber, AI and digital, finance functional effectiveness, and sustainability.

At BC Partners, our active ownership approach requires deep, complementary operational skill sets to support our investing and capital markets colleagues.

A good example of this is a recent diligence process, where six of the portfolio operations team were asked for support, each related to one of our functional specialties. We assessed the Total Addressable Market (TAM) and brand/market perception, the company’s technology strategy and capabilities, AI opportunities and risks, environmental risks, and assessed their finance function. Together with our investing colleagues, we were able to refine the investment thesis and value creation opportunities. Private Equity is a team sport, and together we can achieve more.

How do the team measure the value-add of your work within the portfolio?

Lisa Sibenac: Quantitative reporting is important to understand our impact and ensuring that organizations remain focused on managing toward desired outcomes. What is measured gets managed; when we start an initiative, we always align with management on the right metrics and goals to drive and track its performance.

For example, at one portfolio company we supported a comprehensive review of their go-to market strategy, product roadmap, and operational processes. This resulted in 45 different workstreams, all of which had specific KPIs to measure their impact/success. These KPIs are reviewed monthly at the executive level and headline KPIs are reported quarterly to the board. This approach enables close tracking of progress, so we know what is going well and what, if any, changes need to be made to achieve our objectives.

What do you view as the main trends driving how BC Partners will approach value creation in the next 5 – 10 years?

Lisa Sibenac: At BC Partners, we believe private equity firms that can underwrite and deliver operational value creation have a sustainable edge. This is consistent with BC’s history of delivering the majority of its returns through EBITDA growth, rather than through multiple expansion and leverage, which is derived from our firm’s heritage as an owner-operator.

I believe this trend will continue, reinforcing the need for integrated deal teams that include operational specialists, who can drive EBITDA growth through revenue initiatives such as pricing or salesforce effectiveness, cost take-out initiatives such as procurement, or by executing strategic M&A.

At BC, we are well set up to support this trend: our specialist portfolio operations team is fully integrated with our investing and capital markets colleagues, which operates as one deal team.