Converge Cast | Building High-Impact Teams and Driving Value in Healthcare and Beyond: Mia Jung
In this episode of WittKieffer’s Converge Cast, Mia Jung of private equity firm WCAS (“Welsh Carson”) shares her career journey and perspectives on building high-impact leadership teams in healthcare with...
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- Converge Cast | Building High-Impact Teams and Driving Value in Healthcare and Beyond: Mia Jung
In this episode of WittKieffer’s Converge Cast, Mia Jung of private equity firm WCAS (“Welsh Carson”) shares her career journey and perspectives on building high-impact leadership teams in healthcare with Senior Partner Charlie Fick and Managing Partner Shelly Carolan. She describes her professional path in “three chapters”: commercial roles in pharma and MedTech, a decade in executive search, and her current role at Welsh Carson. In executive search, “I learned the power of getting the right people in the right seats—and that leads to the right outcomes,” she explains, underscoring her belief that talent is a critical lever for value creation. 
Jung emphasizes Welsh Carson’s culture as a key reason she joined the firm, citing its collaborative ethos and commitment to people. As a twin, “I was born on a team,” she says. At WCAS, “The core values are not just words on a wall—they really shape daily behavior,” she notes. This alignment allows her to connect business strategy with talent strategy across a portfolio of healthcare companies, ensuring leaders are positioned to drive growth and operational excellence.
Discussing hiring practices, Jung likens talent selection to baseball: “Even the best hitters don’t get on base every time. But what makes them great isn’t perfection—it’s consistency, preparation, and the ability to adjust.” She advocates for data-driven processes, cultural fit scorecards, and third-party assessments to “de-risk” and improve hiring success rates in private equity.
Finally, Jung reflects on broader trends and her passion for advancing women in leadership, such as championing initiatives like Break Into the Boardroom. “It’s just bad business not to have women on these boards,” she asserts, highlighting the importance of representation in governance and decision-making roles.
Enjoy their conversation.
(Full transcript available below)
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Chapter 1: Introduction & Guest Background
Charlie Fick:
Welcome to the WittKieffer Converge Cast, where we bring today’s most influential executives in the quality-of-life ecosystem who have a unique vantage point on the forces and trends that are shaping healthcare and Wellness in our communities.
We have two co-hosts today, myself, Charlie Fick, Senior Partner and my colleague Shelly Carolyn, Managing Partner. We are both members of our Investor-Backed Healthcare Practice here at WittKieffer.
I am thrilled to introduce our guest today, Mia Jung. Mia is a Talent Partner on the Welsh, Carson, Anderson, & Stowe healthcare team. Mia focuses on executive talent, strategy and management and is responsible for helping Welsh Carson’s healthcare companies build best in class leadership teams.
She brings nearly a decade of executive search experience, having placed hundreds of leaders in many of the healthcare industry’s top organizations.
Prior to joining Welsh Carson, Mia served as Partner at Oxeon, a retained executive search and investments firm, where she partnered with innovative healthcare organizations, boards and investors to build high performing, diverse leadership teams.
Prior to her career in executive search, Mia held commercial leadership roles in the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries at companies such as Merck, Guidant and Boston Scientific.
Mia co-founded “Break Into the Boardroom” a decade ago, a nonprofit organization that seeks to drive gender parity and privately held healthcare boards, resulting in over 100 female executive placements to date.
Mia earned her undergraduate degree in Communications and Business at Villanova and has an MBA from Columbia and London Business schools. At Columbia, she served as a co-chair for Sanford Bernstein’s Ethics and Leadership program.
Her board work includes independent director roles at Abzena, a Welsh Carson backed company, The Moth, and she formerly served on the New York Academy of Medicine Board.
She has lectured to, mentored and invested in entrepreneurs at the MIT Martin Trust Center, Columbia Business School, Villanova and Project Entrepreneur, an initiative by female Founders Collective and UBS. Mia is also an Angel investor to over 20 women funded businesses.
Beyond all of those accomplishments, I know Mia best as a close personal friend and I am delighted to have you join us for this conversation today. So, Mia, thank you for joining us.
Mia Jung:
Thanks for having me, Charlie. Great to see you.
Charlie Fick:
Likewise. So, to get us started here, Mia, you know, having known you for many years, I know your personal and professional journey well. But for our listeners, it would be helpful as a starting point to hear in your own words how you got your start in healthcare.
What led you to move into the world of talent and eventually hear today your role at Welsh Carson. Can you tell us that story?
Chapter 2: The Three Chapters of Mia’s Career Journey
Mia Jung:
Absolutely. And thanks for the opportunity to reflect.
I actually had to put the year that I graduated from college and this year just to make sure I got the number right. But it’s been 28 years, which is crazy. And you know, you made the introduction on the broad brush strokes, so I’ll just double click on them.
But I think of my career in three chapters. The first chapter is really commercial roles, both independent contributor as well as leadership roles in the pharmaceutical and the Medtech industry.
I spent three years at Merck really learning healthcare from an extraordinary institution like Merck, had great training right out of college, and then spent 15 years largely in the medical technology industry, launching first in class innovative technologies such as remote patient monitoring, which was the first one to be launched and super cool to see the impact that it made on patients and providers.
I spent time running a German based companies’ leadership commercial team in the New Jersey and New York City region. And it was the lowest performing team when I took it on. Four years later, I had to unfortunately fire about 25 people and rehire about 30. And we moved it to the top performing team in the country.
And so, that was the inflection point for me and really the last piece of my, the last part of my career in the Medtech industry where I learned the power of getting the right people in the right seats and that leads to the right outcomes. And that’s what really sparked an interest in people, leadership and culture as value drivers for me and led me to the second chapter of my career, which was executive search. And that’s where I spent a decade.
So, I joined a large search firm initially where I spent two years. I helped launch the digital health practice. And that was really inspired by the impact that I saw on launching the first patient remote monitoring system at guidance. And I became really fascinated by venture backed healthcare innovative companies through that digital health practice. And that’s what eventually led me to join Oxeon, after seeing their differentiated model. You know, I love building teams for equity. It was so exciting to work with extraordinary founders who had a vision. It was one of the highlights of my career where I spent seven years and that’s where I got a chance to meet Charlie.
And then, you know, post COVID we had some successful exits. You know, it was a time where there was real buy in on technology and healthcare coming together. And I had started working with Welsh Carson when Brian Regan, who was running the healthcare team at the time, had asked me to help diversify their boards. And I was helping him. He was my client. And then when he took over as the head of healthcare, he called and he said, “would you run a search for me? I’m, you know, trying to find a talent partner.” And I was like, “I’d love to run the search for you. I love Welsh Carson.”
And about six months into the search, or maybe it was four months into the search, we looked at each other and he’s like, “You want to grab lunch?” And I was like, “Sure!” And that’s when we just kind of had a moment where we’re like, this is probably the right fit. So, I felt like Oxeon was in a good spot and I was ready to try something new.
So, that leads me to the third chapter of my career where I am today, which is I’ve spent now four years at Welsh Carson and, you know, really as a steward of human capital across the healthcare portfolio. And my role really is to help connect the business strategy and the talent strategy, partner with the deal teams and the operating partners, you know, on the healthcare team.
And, you know, I feel fortunate to work for Welsh Carson. They really do care about their people, which we can talk about later. So that’s my career, I think in a nutshell. And I really think the common denominator, healthcare, has given me so much, you know, both from a from a purpose perspective and a community of incredible people. And I’ve been lucky to work with and now place leaders who are changing lives every day. You know, at the end of the day, that’s what drives me, the doing good and the doing well because I think, as you all know at WittKieffer, when you get the people right, everything else follows.
Chapter 3: Why Welsh Carson? Culture & Values
Shelly Carolan:
Mia, was there something specific about Walsh Carson that really attracted you to the firm?
Mia Jung:
Yes, and I was lucky I had a chance to work with them. They were my clients. And you know, I was born on a team. I have a twin sister, Carla. And you know, I was fortunate enough to work in my career on some high-performing extraordinary teams. And so, I knew what “good” looked like.
And when I had a chance to work with Welsh Carson as first as a client, I think what really resonated with me was the respect that they showed each other and the respect that they showed me. And then, you know, as I dug deeper, they have a culture that’s deeply rooted in partnership, collaboration, core values. It was founded 46 years ago. So, it’s a firm that has a lot of history and it’s still guided by the same principles. We still see, you know, Russ Carson and some of the founders come to the office and, and, you know, come to some of our meetings. And the core values are not just words on a wall. They really shape their daily behavior and how they interact with their own team within Welsh Carson and then the extension our portfolio company leaders.
And so, the fact that Welsh cares about its own people and its partners makes it pretty ideal for someone like me as a talent partner. And you know, the proof is really 60% to 70% of the executives across our healthcare portfolio are repeat Welsh Carson management, which I’m super proud of.
And in addition to what I loved about Welsh is that they have Valtruis is a portfolio company, it’s run by Anna Hagui, which is really, you know, back to my roots in the venture world, they focus on innovative healthcare companies. So, I get exposure to the more innovative smaller healthcare companies.
And we’ve got THMA, which is the “The Healthcare Management Academy”, which is run by Renee Dasilvo, which really convenes some of the best leaders in healthcare. So, it’s we have a convening organization on our platform that we own. And, you know, I think between all of that, all the culture piece, you know, the retention on our, our management teams and the fact that we are, have the largest team focused on U.S. healthcare in the industry, we’ve got over 220 professionals between healthcare management Academy and Welsh. You know, I felt like this was an amazing fit. I literally fangirl over some of the colleagues I have the chance to sit between in our Monday meetings. They’re really luminaries in this space. So. all of this made it an easy decision to work with Welsh Carson.
Chapter 4: Talent as a Value Creation Lever
Shelly Carolan:
It sounds amazing. And you know, your role as talent partners becoming more and more important and more, I think strategic with a lot of private equity firms. How does your firm think about talent talent as a lever for value creation? How are they looking at that? And, also kudos on the, you know, you mentioned the repeat of executives that you’re placing again and again within your ecosystem, which I think speaks to how they feel valued.
But tell us a little bit about their, you know, how the firm thinks about talent and how that’s part of the larger strategy.
Mia Jung:
Yeah. So, you know, as I mentioned, it really is for us, it is, as I called myself, the steward of the human capital, human equity, human capital, which I think is as important as the equity checks. So, it’s really a priority as we think about across our value creation plan and you know, what are the levers that we can pull? It all goes back to the people. And so that’s why they prioritize this role.
I’ve got a tech partner, his name is Brian Kasser. So, between the two of us, we cover the full portfolio and you know, for me when I came on, it was a new role which I felt grateful for to be able to help shape it. But they really do prioritize it as one of the main inputs of, of value creating strategies amongst the portfolio and the investment thesis.
Chapter 5: Improving the Hiring ‘Hit Rate’
Charlie Fick:
Mia, I’d love to double click on the statistic you mentioned about the percentage of Walsh Carson executive teams who are repeat Walsh Carson executives. That strikes me as a pretty remarkable statistic. And you know, you think as of time of this recording, we just wrapped up the World Series. So I’ll use a baseball metaphor, or analogy. You know, the very best hitters in baseball hit around 300.
You know, in your mind, what constitutes a good, air quotes, good hit rate on hiring and how do you think private equity firms and specifically sort of folks in your shoes can sort of systematically improve their hit rate?
Mia Jung:
Sure. My dad will be so proud of this question and I’m a Phillies fan – I’m just saying. I will say that even the best hitters in baseball, I’ll say Bryce Harper, again, Phillies fan, you don’t get on base every time. But what makes them great isn’t perfection. It’s the consistency, it’s the preparation, and it’s the ability to adjust. And I really do think hiring is the same. You cannot expect to hit 100% of, of the balls that are thrown at you. But you can build systems, data and coaching around the process to improve your average over time. And that’s really how we think about it and, and how we think about we’re not always going to get it right.
You know, I think Brian had quoted, it’s usually a 50/50 coin toss and I’m so competitive. I’m no, no, no, we are going to get it closer to 100. I know we’re not going to get to 100 because we’re dealing with humans.
But for me, it’s, it’s really about, you know, how do we, how do we approach talent the same way, study what works, adjust fast and support the players. And so, we really do focus on derisking.
How do we mitigate risk when we hire somebody?
And so, we have studied this over the past four years, since I’ve been here, like, what’s working, what’s not? And when we get it wrong, we look back at what we got wrong and we really try to codify our best practices and make sure that we’re focused on continuous improvement. And so we track data.
We have a fit rate, you know, days to close retention. I’ve got a ton of data that I, I showed in my deal teams. I created a culture playbook because I think what might work for another private equity firm from an executive fit may not work for us. Like we all have our own culture. And so I worked with the deal teams to really recognize our top performers and what are the common denominators that we use on our scorecards in addition to the technical fit.
You know, an ideal world, these folks stay through exit, but in the reality, things change and we have to adapt quickly, as I mentioned. And so, you know, I do think it goes back to really just making sure that we’re codifying best practices, we’ve got cultural alignment and multiple data inputs and, and utilizing your board as well and your, your ecosystem to, to mitigate risk as well and make sure these folks are set up for success.
So that’s, that’s how I think about hiring and you know, going back to your baseball analogy, making sure inspiring Bryce Harper and his work ethic.
Chapter 6: Evolution of the Talent Partner Role
Charlie Fick:
You mentioned earlier Walsh Carson’s been around for nearly 50 years and private equity investing has been around even longer than that. But the talent partner role is, by comparison, much newer and it still feels like an evolving role. And you mentioned also that you came into a new role that needed to be created for you. And I’m curious, when you started, how would you have sort of defined your role at Walsh Carson, and how has that sort of changed now in the three or four years you’ve been there?
Mia Jung:
So I was lucky, you know, this was the, I was the first talent partner in the healthcare side. So I had a chance to really mold the clay and build the function from the ground up. And it really started with sitting down with every single general partner and understanding what value, what are the pain points? What value could this role bring? I was lucky I have a seat at the table. You know, they really do value talent, you know, as mentioned, as a value driver.
And so I saw myself really as the steward of human capital for Welsh Carson, really to make sure that we have the top healthcare leaders across the portfolio sitting in our, you know, executive seats. And I would say as I started, it was really about getting a strategic view of what works. what is the talent health across the portfolio, really understanding a baseline and understanding, you know, what are the best practices that we could use and codify and what mistakes have we made and how do we learn from them.
So, it started very strategic to get a baseline view of the talent health across the portfolio. And then I really started digging into once we started actually starting with the diligence, you know, starting with the, as we’re looking at deals, making sure that we’re helping to plug in the expert network that we have with the deal team so they could do proper diligence and make, you know, make informed decisions.
And then as we deploy capital, getting in and making sure that, you know, post sign, pre close, we’re getting under the hood, we’re matching the value creation plan, which is the business strategy to the talent strategy. Where are gaps? What are our strengths? And then as we identify the gaps that we might have on the leadership team that are going to drive value, we’re creating the scorecards on what good looks like, what does success look like for these functional leaders and making sure that as we are in the market, we’re assessing each leader against that scorecard.
It’s not, you know, I used to think, “Oh, CFO off the shelf”, that’s not the reality of this world. And, and Healthcare is so complex. You really need to find fit for purpose, in our opinion.
You get lucky and sometimes we have some general athletes which we have been lucky enough to have, but for the most part, you really want to find those folks that have done very specific things that are will value creation levers. And then, you know, once we have these, the right team in the right seat, I love to build the boards around them. That’s my risk mitigation strategy. That’s my “Help, my CEOs and my C-Suite” set them up for success by having access to great advisors, functional leaders, people who can see around corners. And then, post-close, you know, I’m lucky I’ve got a, a great CHRO operating partner named Annie Maloney. So, she’s really getting in making sure that we’ve got the right person in the right seat and we are supporting them to set them up for success.
So, in addition to all of that, so diligence within the portfolio and then the boards. What I also spend time on is, is talking to the network, just making sure as I’m given opportunistic introductions through talent partners, through search partners like yourself, through our own ecosystem, our own advisors that I’ve got a, a warm pulse on who’s going to be available specifically in the market with longer long lead times.
I really like to be as proactive as possible and plug folks in as I hear that they’re starting to get a little loose in the socket.
Chapter 7: Scorecards & Cultural Fit
Shelly Carolan:
I love the concept that you talked about, about the common denominators that have, you know, demonstrated success with your placements and creating a scorecard around that.
Could you elaborate just a little bit more on just any specificities you’d be willing to share on what indicators you’ve seen in those common denominators and what you’re looking for in talent that shows up on scorecards frequently?
Mia Jung:
Sure. I mean on the scorecards, they really are fit for purpose in terms of like what the specific business needs. So, we start with that value creation plan. You know, we bought you for a dollar, we’re going to sell you for $5 hopefully in three to five years. And then what are the levers that we can pull that will create value?
And usually you’ll see something on operations, you’ll see something, you know, financial, something technology driven, something that comes from the commercial side, you know, that can unlock additional value.
So those are more of the technical skills that you’ll typically see. And then we deconstruct that back to the leader, the human that drives those initiatives. But in addition, on the on the Welsh side, I did create, you know, more of a culture fit scorecard that we know works for us.
And you know, one of the, there’s a, there’s a list of different kind of softer skill sets, but one of them is really communication, making sure that our leaders are communicating bad news quicker than they’re communicating good news. That’s a really important thing for us, high level of communication. And you know, we are partners. We’re not a top-down firm. We don’t have a playbook in terms of this is the way that business is going to grow. But we really do care about having a partnership and that starts with strong communication.
Shelly Carolan:
On the human side, are you using any assessment resources or how are you getting at like the motivators and drivers of the talent that you’re assessing, and you know, just to get more visibility into that?
Mia Jung:
Yeah, so we are. Usually when we, in two ways, we use third party assessment firms typically when we are first getting under the hood again, post sign, pre close is really where we’re matching that talent strategy and that business strategy. And usually we like to do a third-party assessment where they’re mapping the talent and the business strategy back to the individuals. And so that gives us gives me really my road map of what do we need to do here. You know, I feel blind without it. And so, it gives me visibility and a clear road map of what’s the strategy that we have to implement from a human capital perspective to create value and drive value.
We also do it usually for CEOs and CFOs, when we’re getting close to finalists. We typically really like to bring in a third-party assessment to really double-click against the scorecard. Help us understand maybe some blind spots. Nobody’s perfect. So, it really does serve for us as a guide to making sure that we’re aware of what their blind spots are and we can hire around them, we can coach them, we can give them feedback, you know, as they’re coming in.
So those are really, I think the most important thing for me to mitigate risk or having as many data points as possible. And that starts with our own interview process, starts with our trusted search firm partners, our own interview process, third party assessment, tons of referencing, you know, informal and formal referencing.
But those scorecards are helpful really to help align everybody on what we’re looking for, which is a critical part of the whole process.
Chapter 8: Healthcare Expertise as an Advantage
Charlie Fick:
Mia, when you mentioned your sort of career story at the start of this conversation, you talked about the three chapters. And each of those chapters, healthcare was the through line of this. You have spent your career as a healthcare executive and healthcare expert. And how do you feel that being a healthcare specialist gives you an advantage in your role compared to say, a more generalist talent partners that are out there?
Mia Jung:
Sure. You know, I talked to a lot of my peers, folks, you know, Charlie, that are generalists and it’s hard for me to wrap my head around how to become, how to get so deep into an industry without, you know, having decades of experience.
I’m grateful, you know, 28 years of healthcare experience. And Healthcare is complex, as you know, you know, it’s so I feel like it’s given me an advantage that I’ve got a deep network. I’ve got pattern recognition across the sub sectors. I know what questions to ask. You know, I definitely don’t have it all right. And healthcare keeps evolving and changing and throwing challenges at us.
But I think it just helps me assess candidates better, whether it’s from me asking questions, you know, because of the, the knowledge that I have, but also being able to get into the market and do some referencing. I have better insight into their purpose, motivation and mission fit. You know, I do feel lucky that we get a chance to interview healthcare leaders all the time because most of them have stories what got them into healthcare. Family stories, personal stories, you know, whatever it might be. And they start with that mission. So it’s, it’s fun to listen to. I ask everybody to tell me their story when I first meet them. Tell me what’s not on the resume or on the LinkedIn, you know, what don’t I know? And usually, it’ll get some pretty amazing stories. I’ve teared up more than, you know, more than a handful of times as I’ve interviewed candidates and executives. And I really do think that’s what keeps them just, it makes them so successful because they stick through the hard times because they’ve got more, you know, they’ve got purpose and meaning to the role and the, and the patients that they’re going to impact.
Chapter 9: Current Talent Trends
Charlie Fick:
Sure.
I’m speaking personally here, but I, I know having known you for a long time, this is true of you. One of the things that I’ve loved about my work as an executive search consultant is I’m a curious person. I like hearing people’s stories like you mentioned. I’m, I’m always seeking new information. I know that you’re animated by a similar sort of North Star. And it leads me to be curious to hear from you, you know, what are the trends that you’re currently seeing? You mentioned you spend your days talking to folks across the industry. You know, what are the talent trends that you feel have emerged recently? Are there certain roles or industry areas that you feel are like in high demand for you or for your portfolio companies? So just like to expand on that.
Mia Jung:
Yeah. And I would say, if we were talking last year, I might paint a grimmer picture and you guys might see this. People seemed really tired. The executives I know seemed exhausted. You know, there are longer hold times. There were so many more headwinds than we anticipated.
And so it felt like last year was kind of a moment of like exhaustion. And I saw a lot of executives kind of tap out, move to chair roles, advisory roles, everyone, everybody wanted to be an operating partner or chair of a board because they were just tired of operating.
And I think there’s more enthusiasm now. I’m seeing it. Certainly, the longer hold periods are creating I think more challenges from a search perspective. But it’s also creating opportunity with fresh capital. I think folks are excited to come into, you know, new capital and a new story and more growth mode than turn around mode. I think the market headwinds you know really show the need for operational excellence. In the growth period, we were hiring a lot of commercial leaders as CEO’s. And what I saw over the past two years, I had to unfortunately change out a lot of our operators for strong EBITDA, focused operational leaders that were focused on EBITDA. And so, I’ve seen this increased demand for strong operational CEOs. You know CFOs are always in demand, strong CFOs and so continue to see that. And again, just given the complexity or the longer hold times, I think it’s been a challenging CFO market.
And then, you know, obviously tech and cybersecurity executives, we’re seeing more just more volume around those leaders. Folks that understand AI, understand cybersecurity, because of what’s going on broader in the market. So, I’d say overall broader focus on execution and EBITDA improvement along with technology is what I’ve been seeing.
Chapter 10: Advancing Women in Leadership & Boards
Shelly Carolan:
I absolutely love the work that you’re doing with advancement of women and executive roles and in the boardroom. Can you tell us, share more about what those initiatives are and why this work is important to you? I just, I just absolutely am so energized by that.
Mia Jung:
Yeah. Thanks, Shelly. This is something I could talk about all day long, so I appreciate you asking.
But about, I’d say, a decade ago, you know, I was working, I was starting to get exposed to the adventure world after coming off of, you know, a decade at Gaiden, Boston Scientific and these great big companies that had incredible women leaders. And I remember a call I got when I was at an executive search from a pretty frantic investor saying, you know, Mia, I really need some help. I just invested in a women’s healthcare company, and I have no women on the board. And I was like, huh, how’d that happen?
You know, And you know, what I realized was that we had the opportunity to really connect these women leaders to the private equity in the venture world. And it was really just could you, you know, finding the opportunity to build a bridge. You know, a lot of the investors, many of the investors, it’s a, a very male dominated industry. And so as they were looking for board members, they were pulling from their network, you know, by no fault of their own, they just didn’t know the broader demographic of women executives. And so I saw an opportunity to again connect the supply and the demand. I called a woman named Leslie Henshaw from Deerfield. We decided to throw out a program called “How to get a board seat”. And we expected about 20 people and we had about 50 people show up as women were really interested in private equity and venture. And many of them came from large publicly traded companies, large strategic. So, they PE and venture were very mysterious to them.
And you know, as you think about healthcare and the majority of the decision makers, the majority of the providers are women. It’s just bad business not to have women on these boards. And so, we put together this program, you know, we’ve been doing it over 10 years, “Break into the boardroom” where we bring in about 50 to 60 women.
We provide a curriculum, have different speakers of women that have gotten onto private equity backboards, venture boards, and just show them, you know, the insurance and the outs. How do you network? How do you brand yourself? How do you position yourself? What boards not to take. fiduciary responsibilities?
And then what happens is really the magic afterwards. We get to know them and then we get calls from, you know, my own team calls me quite a bit. And I’m proud to say we’ve got exceptional diversity numbers as it relates to ILPA standards and calls from our partners in the market. And we provide lists of women’s names that we think would be a good fit for what they’re looking for. And what I found was the key is not just you need a woman to sit on your board. What do you need them to do?
And really understanding what are these, what other skill sets, what is, what’s the value they’re going to bring to the board? And then being able to create categories, functional categories. And because we’ve got the network, it’s easy to put 10 women per category and then, you know, send them over to the investor.
So, it’s been a labor of love. I’m really proud of it. You know, mostly proud of the team that’s been put so much energy into break into the boardroom. Thanks for asking.
Chapter 11: Advice for Breaking into Private Equity
Shelly Carolan:
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s a passion of mine as well. So, it’s really inspirational to me.
I think it’s just a just a final candidate, you know, discussion point for candidates that aren’t currently with investor backed companies or thinking about making a pivot. You had mentioned before speaking to, you know, women who were in publicly traded companies or other large strategic companies and thinking about maybe breaking into private equity in the healthcare space for the first time. What advice would you give candidates thinking about making that transition?
Mia Jung:
Sure, happy to – and come over any candidate interested in private equity. Here’s my sales pitch.
But I would say I talked to different candidates. Definitely do your homework. You know, every firm has its own culture. So, getting to know people within the firms I think is super important. Dipping your toe in the water, helping them on diligence, being an advisor before you decide to jump in. I think that culture fit is super important given they’re not all the same. So, I also think if you’re approaching a private equity investor or a talent partner, I’m a big fan of the talent partner as kind of your entry point since we have a good view of the different roles that are available.
Doing your homework on the portfolio, you know, know the portfolio companies, understand where your skill set fits into the value creation plan. Have a very specific ask, or recommendation – “Hey, I saw that you’re invested in Company X. Think I’d be an incredible commercial leader because of these five reasons.”
I think that’s really important to be as specific as possible, specifically when you’re talking to an investor because they’ve got so many things going on. t’s got to be a very specific ask.
I think, you know, networking with your talent partners, as I mentioned, board members. I do think being open to parallel moves is super important. If you’re coming, coming out of a CFO role at a large company, I think it’s critical to say or being humble enough to say, “Look, I want to, I want to move to private equity. And while it may be smaller from a revenue perspective, I understand that my learning curve is private equity.”
I talked to a lot of people that are like, “Nah, I’ve been a CFO at a large company. I want to be a CEO next.”
And that’s going to be really hard for private equity who is focuses on mitigating risk all day long to take a risk on a new CEO. So, I always say get comfortable with those parallel moves, like slow down to speed up. If you’re as successful as you were over there, you’re going to be incredibly successful. And you can just immerse yourself into private equity and use that as your learning opportunity. And I just think once you’re inside, you gain leverage for broader career growth.
And that’s why going back to picking the right firm, because when you do pick the right investment firm, it can be an annuity. You know, back to that point that our our management, we’ve got 60% to 70% of repeat managers in our firm. So, it’s like when you come over here, you do a great job, we love you, we want to keep you in the family.
Chapter 12: Closing Remarks
Charlie Fick:
Mia, thank you so much for joining us today. This conversation has been just so rewarding for Shelly and I, and your friendship has been something that I’ve cherished for a long time, and this is a generous use of your time. So, thank you for joining us today.
Mia Jung:
Thank you so much, Charlie and Shelley. I’ve had such an amazing time and I just really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you and appreciate all you do in the market as well. Placing great leaders is so critical for value creation. So, we appreciate it.
