LLR Partners, whose value creation and business development teams have expanded rapidly over the last two years, has two openings on its value creation team, and more may be on the way.
The Philadelphia-based technology, industrials, fintech, education and healthcare specialist seeks a senior associate-demand generation and a team coordinator to join its roughly 21-person value creation team, according to its career page.
Senior Director of People and Culture Sarah Kornhaber(pictured), who refers to those team members as a Navy seal force given their penchant for parachuting into portfolio companies, noted that the directors of customer success and of revenue operations would likely be expanding their groups as well.
In all LLR Partners has seen its payroll jump from about 70 to 116 since closing its sixth lower-mid-market buyout fund at $1.8 billion in late 2020. Over the next 18 to 24 months Kornhaber expects staffing to remain in a “somewhat steady state,” although the firm will continue to replenish its junior ranks through programs described below.
- Internship Programs: Rather than hire associates out of investment banking programs in what’s called “on-cyle hiring,” LLR Partners relies on two undergraduate summer internship programs. In one, the firm recruits about eight sophomores to join as deal team analysts the summer before their senior years. In the other, the firm recruits about four juniors to join as business development interns the summer before senior year. About half of the interns end up joining the firm as full-time analysts, according to Sara Jellinek, recruitment associate. Intern training is handled in-house for the most part, and analysts have a growth path without having to earn an MBA. Case in point: Partner Michael Pantilione, in the news this month for leading LLR Partners’s PCS Software deal, started at LLR Partners in its first internship class of 2006.
- Growth Accelerator Program: This is a program in which four to five MBA graduates join LLR Partners portfolio companies for two years in operational or corporate development roles. The first class in the program started last year, while the 2022 class started this summer. Recruiting is slated to start in November.
- Corporate Culture: Jellinek said the firm looks for people with a “really positive attitude and motivation to develop” their skills. “We have a very supportive environment regardless of what team you’re on,” she added. “It doesn’t feel siloed ever.”