Drew Sanders/PitchBook News

Become a CEO after your MBA: that’s the promise some private equity firms are using to recruit top operating talent.

This promise propels the best and brightest into top executive roles without requiring them to climb the corporate ladder, underpinned by the belief that cultivating talent is a better bet than making semi-blind bets on external hires.

Alpine Investors and Shore Capital Partners have each built separate pipelines to funnel operational talent, aiming to equip executives to take charge of their portfolio companies.

Lower-middle-market buyout firm Shore runs what it calls its CXO program, a two-year training scheme that places early- to mid-career talent and recent MBA grads into C-suite-adjacent roles at its portfolio companies—typically chief of staff or vice president of business operations or strategic initiatives. Top-performing CXO graduates then have the chance to be promoted to C-level positions.

Alpine places early-career talent, typically straight out of MBA programs, into portfolio companies, with promotion into the C-suite the eventual aim. The firm received 750 applications for 12 slots in its 2024 CIT program, a lower acceptance rate than Harvard.

“This is a retention tool,” said Kate O’Sullivan, an executive coach and co-founder of CoachSelect. “Firms are losing top talent. [These programs] are showing them that the firm is investing in you, because people will leave when they feel like there isn’t investment in their career progression.”

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Secondaries investing in India has long been regarded as a premature asset class, but not any longer. Over the past year, a growing number of Asian mid-market funds, including TR Capital, Neo Asset Management and Kenro Capital, have expanded their secondaries remit to India or launched new dedicated secondary vehicles.

Secondaries investors have sailed into India on several independent tailwinds. First, a healthier IPO market has given secondaries investors a more credible path to an exit. Second, regulators have tightened rules on primary funds and created demand for solutions from secondaries investors. Third, aging funds are putting pressure on GPs to provide liquidity.

More Indian companies are raising capital in public markets each year, driving interest among pre-IPO secondaries investors. Meanwhile, Indian private markets have struggled. While Blackstone Asia’s $13.1 billion mega-fund gave the region a boost this year, Indian fundraising has declined for four consecutive years following a 2021 peak, according to PitchBook’s 2026 India Private Capital Breakdown.

After the US-Iran war erupted in February, IPO hopefuls, including Zepto, Reliance Jio Platforms and PayU, have delayed their listing plans while they wait for the market jitters to shake out. But secondaries players like 360 ONE Asset Management are just getting ready to deploy.

“We love this market that we’re in,” said Sameer Nath, chief investment officer of 360 ONE Asset Management, a $74 billion AUM Indian firm covering wealth, asset and alternative management.