The image makers

Consider the mission of a private equity marketing and communications executive – they need to sell a product as shrouded in secrecy as the formula for Coca-Cola, as in demand as the iPod, and with as many side effects as Viagra.
Despite all the challenges, image building is more important in today’s crowded private equity market than ever. A “mom and pop” identity no longer suffices for a firm’s constituencies. These include business owners, deal intermediaries, talented managers, politicians and the members of the press-reading public who vote for them. Not only does private equity in general need an image upgrade, but individual firms are struggling to set their strengths apart from the great wash of private equity firms.
“[Marketing] will have increased importance in the private equity industry,” says Patricia Hedley, senior vice president at Greenwich, Connecticut-based General Atlantic. “You can certainly see this for the larger private equity or LBO firms and also for venture capital.
We consider ourselves global growth equity investors and even within our segment, I think it’s going to become more important to build our brand and to have people know who we are.”
Hence, many private equity firms are recruiting executives to control their image and the message they send externally and define themselves internally. These executives say they are buying contact management systems, conducting e-marketing campaigns, hiring branding agencies and using marketing strategies to communicate on all fronts – print and online, at events and conferences (see “More bang for your brand” on p. 20).
The private equity industry is still young enough that the marketing role has not yet been institutionalized. Nor does the function exist at all firms. A survey of marketing executives at private equity firms (see accompanying profiles) finds a range of backgrounds and different functions within the firm. The role can include some or all of the following functions: marketing, corporate communications, public relations, investor relations and fundraising, and help with portfolio company marketing. In smaller firms, communications professionals are in charge of all that, plus fundraising and investor relations.
Many marketing and communications professionals say they have either built the marketing function at the firm from the ground up, or have formalized a very ill-defined process. “I think the position is still defining itself,” says Stephanie Manuel, marketing and communications partner at Baltimore, Marylandbased ABS Capital. “Just as firms are very individualistic and very different, the role is very different from firm to firm.”
Because the role is relatively new, many GPs are struggling to determine who should be hired as a guardian of the firm’s brand? What kind of background and how much industry knowledge should the marketing executive have?

Marketing vs. finance
Ideally, a marketing executive at a private equity firm will have experience in both marketing and private equity. But executives like Helen Walsh, marketing director at Candover in London are few and far in between. Walsh has a degree in marketing geography and before Candover, worked on the deal side at Alta Berkeley Associates and in marketing at NatWest Ventures.
Many of Walsh’s peers say that they had little or no prior industry knowledge, and learned on the job. “Individuals with marketing or finance backgrounds can do well as marketers in private equity,” says Marcia O’Carroll, who had little private equity experience before coming to TA Associates, where she is now VP of marketing. “The key to success is becoming proficient in areas that may not be your strengths and developing a deep understanding of all aspects of the business. If you’re committed, you’ll succeed.”
Adds Richard Scullin, director of marketing at Williamstown, Massachusetts-based Village Ventures: “You need to know the basic investing process, the fundamental goals of the investor and the portfolio company. You don’t need to be the foremost expert, but you need to know about the GP thought process.”
Conversely, dealmakers can also be marketers. Hedley, for example, was a deal professional for nine years before moving into marketing and communications at General Atlantic. She believes that her experience on the deal side and in consulting helps, but she stresses that the marketing role requires a lot of communication internally to understand the firm’s needs.
How the marketing role is viewed within the firm, however, can be a point of contention. Says Manuel: “There are firms that really get it, and then there are a handful of firms that have someone in marketing but it’s really, in my view, sort of a vanity purchase. They’ve hired someone because they think they need to, but in reality they’re not committed to the position. They make it very hard for the person to do the job, they don’t include them in meetings, they don’t allow them to get to know the partnership… It’s very important to know why the investment is made and what we are trying to achieve. You need that base understanding of that story. You’ll need it whenever you need to recommunicate that story.”
Navigating potentially turbulent waters internally, yet presenting a cohesive image externally, requires the one major skill everyone agrees a marketing executive should have – communication. “You have to have technical expertise and experience, but it has a lot to do with soft factors too. You have to have a sense for people and their needs in order to be able to create trust,” says Nicole Brandes, director at Swiss private equity specialist Capital Dynamics.
Marketing executives say that there is a laundry list of skills they need to have. These include the ability to multitask, prioritize, organize and manage competing pressures. To this end, Charlotte Laveson, communications manager at Industri Kapital in Stockholm says her highest duty is to remain, “cool, calm and collected.”
Private equity marketing and communications professionals should also be thorough, quick thinking, articulate, adaptable and able to see the bigger picture. They need to be creative, but also have a mind for numbers. Importantly, they have to enjoy meeting people.
In a field where many marketing executives are women and investment professionals and entrepreneurs are men, Kate Castle, director of marketing at IDG Ventures Boston adds that being assertive helps to get the job done. “Good communication is the key to success. You need to be able to clearly and confidently tell them, ‘This is the direction we’re going to take’,” she says.
Much like the private equity industry, the marketing function within it is changing. As Philip Bassett, partner at Permira in London says, “There hasn’t been courses you can go on to learn how to market funds. There isn’t a formal training process, which means you’ve got an enormous amount of latitude in how you think things should be done and how people should be treated.”
Bassett himself understands well the amount of work and specialized skills involved in marketing andcommunications, as distinct from investor relations. After leading all communications activities at Permira himself, Bassett hired Chris Davidson in 2005 as director of communications focusing on media relations and public affairs.