The Blind Spot
The Product Is the Asset.
Too Many PE Firms Are Flying Blind.
Private equity firms model every scenario and track portfolio performance with precision. And then they systematically underinvest in understanding the foundation that drives everything else: the product, the technology, and the organizations that deliver it. Not just what they are, but how they connect to revenue, margins, and the story you tell at exit.
The Blind Spot
The Gap Between the Boardroom and the Codebase, and AI Is Making it Wider
The blind spot isn't the problem itself. It's where the root cause is hiding. That's why the boardroom keeps missing it. The cause lives in the seams between technology, product, go-to-market, finance, and operations, where most technology advisors never look. The symptoms are visible. The cause almost never is.
Five situations I've seen across PE-backed portfolios. If you're in one of them right now, we should talk.
The portfolio company has been underperforming for years, and nothing has fixed it.
PE median hold periods have stretched past six years. The hold period, not the deal, is where value is won or lost. You've cycled through leadership changes, brought in operating partners and specialized consultants, and the results still aren't moving. The problem isn't inside any single function. It's hiding in the seams between them, and siloed advisors who optimize one function and leave will never find it.
The board gets green-light status reports, but the business results tell a different story.
Every technology update says things are on track. Revenue, retention, and delivery say otherwise. Someone needs to translate what's actually happening inside the technology organization and connect it to what the business is experiencing.
The strategy is clear, but the organization can't execute.
Your technology and product teams don't understand the "why" behind the plan, or your leadership team is pulling in different directions. The problem isn't the strategy. It's that no one has translated it into something every level of the organization can move on.
The technology is a black box, and the deal is about to close.
Your commercial, financial, and technology diligence streams are running in parallel but never connecting their findings. The margin assumptions, the growth plan, and the exit story all depend on a technology foundation no one has examined holistically.
The integration plan is built on assumptions no one has pressure-tested.
The plan lives in a spreadsheet with timelines, milestones, and cost estimates that no one with operating experience has validated. You're not executing an integration. You're discovering one in real time, and that's the most expensive way to do it.
The Compounding Factor
AI Is Widening the Gap
“The ability to articulate a credible AI value-creation story is no longer optional, it’s a prerequisite for liquidity.”
PwC, AI and Software Valuations in M&A, February 2026Perspectives Series
Leading in the Age of AI Disruption
AI can clone your software. It can't clone your business. Three articles on where the real value lives, how to stay focused on outcomes rather than AI theater, and why transformation is a people problem first.
Read the seriesHow I Can Help
Services
Every engagement starts at the business strategy and works down through the product portfolio, the teams, and the technology. Then I bring what I find back up to the people making decisions. That full loop is what makes the difference.
Technology & Business Impact Assessment
Full-loop assessment that connects what's inside the technology to what it means for the business. For PE firms evaluating an acquisition, boards seeking visibility into an underperforming portfolio company, or new CEOs who need to understand what they've inherited. Architecture and technical debt, yes. But also customer experience and retention risk, cost structure, margin sustainability, organizational capacity, AI readiness, and the story that holds up under scrutiny.
Learn morePost-Merger Integration
Integration strategy and hands-on execution that goes beyond project plans and system migrations. Covers architecture and platform decisions, product portfolio rationalization, team dynamics, customer experience and retention through the transition, and the investment strategy underneath all of it. Built from operating experience on every side of an M&A.
Learn moreProduct Portfolio Strategy & Investment Framework
For companies managing multiple products, especially those built through acquisition: a structured operating system that connects every product to its P&L, its lifecycle stage, its retention dynamics, its investment allocation, and the cross-functional team responsible for its performance. Not a strategy deck. A working framework that changes how decisions get made.
Learn moreOperational Transformation
Assessment and transformation of product, engineering, delivery, operations, support, and security organizations with a direct line to financial outcomes and customer experience. Includes AI transformation strategy tied to business goals, workforce capability, and organizational readiness, not just tooling initiatives. A business-connected diagnosis of why the organization isn't delivering what the strategy and customers require, and the hands-on work to close the gap.
Learn moreFractional CPTO / Interim Leadership
Senior product and technology leadership on a fractional or interim basis. Not just a technical voice. A cross-business partner to CEOs who connects technology decisions to financial performance, board communication, organizational health, and the strategic outcomes the business is trying to achieve.
Learn moreBoard Advisory / Operating Partner
Ongoing advisory for PE boards, operating partners, and portfolio company boards. An independent, informed perspective that translates what's happening inside the technology and product organization into the language of business performance, investment returns, and strategic decision-making. The visibility your board needs but doesn't currently have.
Learn moreResults
The Results Speak in Specifics
These didn't come from better financial modeling. They came from knowing what to look at, having lived the same problems from the inside.
The 18-to-30-Month Integration Compressed to Six
In a two-and-a-half-day strategy session, I reframed the problem and helped compress the timeline to six months, recovering over a year of hold period runway.
Read the full storyThe 30-Point EBITDA Transformation
Over six years, a series of connected moves across engineering, cost structure, product strategy, and M&A grew revenue 2.5X and improved EBITDA by over 30 points.
Read the full story
About Al Mays
I think like a CEO. I speak the language of engineering. I fix what I find.
I’ve been on every side of PE-backed SaaS, the buyer’s CPTO leading integration, the target company’s technology leader navigating an acquisition, the independent advisor on diligence, and the operator who went downstairs and fixed what the assessment found. That range is what turns an assessment into actual change.
15+
M&A engagements across buy-side, sell-side, and direct integration, as CPTO of a seller, CPTO of a buyer, and as an advisor
4
Industry verticals: digital experience & content, e-commerce & data, healthcare technology, and automotive technology
10
SaaS product markets including DXP, CMS, DAM, CMP, customer journey analytics, e-commerce & search, privacy & consent, healthcare administration, healthcare data & analytics, and automotive retail technology
Voices
What colleagues, clients, and leadership teams say about working with me.
“Often you find strong CPO/CTOs that have amazing technical acumen but lose sight of the ultimate goal of being a successful business, or ones that have strong business acumen but are challenged in gaining the full trust of their teams. Al brings both to everything he does.”
David Fuoto
Software Leader | Strategic Growth | CCO | M&A Integration Executive
“Well-run ELTs require leaders to take the functional hat off and be a business leader with no borders. Al was a leading example of this, day in and day out. His area required, as it frequently does, hard decisions and complete control of large spans. Al was frequently first to the table with hard solutions that supported the broader business.”
Aaron Whiting
Software Operating Executive | M&A Integration | Business Architecture
“Al navigated multiple M&A situations we faced. Acquisitions can be stressful, particularly for those concerned about job security or disruptive changes. Al always took these concerns seriously, acknowledging the fears of employees while still executing the necessary changes. His ability to balance empathy with the need to drive the business forward was nothing short of extraordinary.”
Andreas Knoor
Global Head of Product | Building AI product teams at scale
Let's talk about what you're not seeing.
Send a brief note on what you're working through. I'll respond with a straight answer on whether and how I can help.
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