Case Study

Unifying Two Founder-Led Watersports Businesses Under One Chair

A single Chair to bring shared administrative functions under one roof

Overview

GLG identified a single Chair with deep sportswear sector and founder-partnership experience, enabling a UK mid-market PE fund to consolidate back-office functions across two founder-led watersports businesses.

Why GLG

Precision Candidate Targeting‍

The two businesses had operated separately, serving different verticals of the watersports market. GLG's search accounted for that complexity from the start, rather than treating the role as a standard single-company Chair search.

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Founder-Ready Leadership‍

The fund's goal was to drive efficiencies across both businesses at once. GLG kept that dual-company scope central to the search, rather than evaluating candidates against a single-business standard.

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CHALLENGE

A UK mid-market PE fund had acquired two independent, founder-led businesses providing high-performance watersports equipment. The two entities served different verticals of the watersports market and operated separately. The fund wanted to combine back-office functions across both businesses to drive efficiencies and needed a single Chair capable of overseeing both companies.

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THE GLG APPROACH

GLG targeted candidates with previous C-suite tenures within the sportswear industry, prioritizing individuals with experience chairing PE-backed consumer businesses with a particular focus on smaller entities.

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OUTCOME

GLG sourced a former divisional CEO of a global sportswear brand who had experience managing smaller PE-backed consumer businesses as both CEO and Chair. This individual's direct experience partnering with founders and consolidating multiple brands into a single, cohesive business allowed him to successfully work with the founders on integrating the two companies.

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