How We Build Leadership Teams for PE-Backed Technology Companies
A selection of searches delivered by Neon River across product, marketing, and engineering leadership. We work with high-growth, PE-backed businesses that need senior leaders who can scale teams, raise standards, and execute change.
Partner-led search with a clear view of what “good” looks like at each stage of growth.
PE-backed leadership hiring is rarely about ticking boxes. It is about finding the right operator for the moment, aligning stakeholders early, and running a disciplined process that converts.
Managing Director, Product and Marketing
Wireless Logic is a Montagu-backed IoT connectivity platform that has scaled rapidly through international expansion and a sustained programme of acquisitions. The business required a senior leader to strengthen product direction, unify product and marketing leadership, and elevate commercial positioning as the company entered its next growth phase.
Following sustained expansion and multiple acquisitions, Wireless Logic needed a senior leader who could integrate product portfolios, sharpen strategic positioning, and bring greater consistency to how the business communicated value to customers, partners, and investors.
A senior operator with credibility across product, marketing, and commercial leadership. The mandate required someone comfortable shaping strategy at board level while also driving practical execution inside a complex, multi-product environment.
We mapped senior product and commercial leaders across B2B platform software and subscription businesses, prioritising candidates who had successfully repositioned and scaled PE-backed technology companies during periods of transformation.
Neon River placed John Dillon as Managing Director, Product and Marketing.
John brought significant experience strengthening product and commercial strategy inside PE-backed software businesses. At Exact, a European ERP platform, he played a central leadership role during a period of transformation and expansion. During his tenure, the company increased enterprise value from approximately $600m to over $3bn following successive investments from Apax, KKR, and Silver Lake.
Chief Software Engineer
Wireless Logic is a Montagu-backed IoT connectivity platform that has expanded rapidly through international growth and a sustained acquisition strategy.
As the business scaled into a multi-product, multi-region platform, engineering complexity increased significantly. Wireless Logic required senior technical leadership to unify architecture, strengthen engineering discipline, and support the shift from historically services-led delivery towards more scalable, product-led software.
Following sustained acquisition activity and rapid international growth, Wireless Logic needed a senior engineering leader who could raise software maturity across the organisation, align architecture across acquired products, and introduce stronger standards around delivery, quality, and scalability.
A leader with deep technical credibility and the ability to influence across teams and geographies. The role needed someone comfortable integrating technology estates, balancing near-term delivery with long-term platform strategy, and supporting a shift from services-led execution towards more product-led software capabilities.
We mapped senior engineering leaders across platform software, IoT, enterprise SaaS, and fintech, prioritising candidates with experience modernising delivery, scaling distributed teams, and integrating acquired products into coherent platform architectures.
Neon River placed Steve Bennett as Chief Software Engineer.
Steve brought extensive engineering leadership experience across fintech and enterprise software. At Stash, he built and scaled UK engineering capability while implementing modern delivery and CI/CD practices. Previously at Alfresco, he progressed to VP Engineering, leading large engineering teams and driving architectural modernisation towards cloud-native, service-based platforms.
Earlier roles at Marks & Spencer Digital and eBay focused on modernising high-scale platforms and building agile product engineering organisations.
Lloyd's List Intelligence (LLI) is a data, insight, and analytics business serving the global maritime industry, with over 60,000 users. The company needed a Chief Product Officer to sharpen product strategy, accelerate innovation, and build a high-performing product and design function.
A senior product leader able to set strategy and drive operational excellence. The role required leadership of product management and design, customer closeness, strong communication, and the ability to ship high-quality product improvements on time and on budget.
Lead and grow the product management and design organisations, define the right tools and methodologies, and help drive the transition from waterfall to agile delivery. Act as an outward-facing leader for the product organisation, representing LLI in the maritime technology ecosystem.
Neon River placed Nicola Marlin as Chief Product Officer.
Nicola brought senior product leadership experience from data and insight businesses, including leading product at an Informa pharma intelligence business through a change-of-ownership environment and subsequent structural transition. Her background combines strategy, execution, and the organisational design instincts required to build a strong product function.
Chief Product Officer
LLI is one of the world's leading providers of maritime insight, data, and analytics products and services. In 2022, the business was acquired by Montagu at a valuation of £385m.
The Chief Product Officer role was created to strengthen product leadership, scale the product and design organisations, and accelerate the shift to modern agile product development practices.
Leadership hiring in PE-backed technology businesses
Across software, data, platform, and connectivity businesses, leadership hiring rarely follows a simple template. The most successful appointments align leadership capability with company stage, investor ambition, and product maturity.
Leaders who succeed in PE-backed environments combine strategic thinking with operational execution. The right hire depends on where the company sits in its growth and transformation journey.
Many PE-backed technology businesses grow through acquisition. Leadership hires must align teams, products, and technology estates into coherent and scalable platforms.
Strengthening product strategy, engineering maturity, and commercial positioning often creates the biggest step-changes in enterprise value.
If you are building or reshaping a leadership team in a PE-backed technology business, we are always happy to share perspective from our experience.