Welcome back to PE Value Drivers.

In this issue, I am talking to Carrie DiLauro, director of Operation and Marketing at HRCP. Carrie joined Hamilton Robinson in 2009. She oversees all operations management, administrative functions, investor relations, and marketing initiatives. She brings over twenty-five years of experience in organizational processes, data-driven system improvements, fiscal responsibility, and global manufacturing. Prior to joining HRCP, she was a fund administrator at a biotech hedge fund. Carrie began her career running production for textile manufacturing facilities around the world. She is an active member of Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), a member of the Small Business Investor Alliance, Opus Connect, and the National Association of Professional Women, to name a few. In 2022 Carrie was a recipient of the inaugural Women of the Year award by Opus Connect.

Here you can read highlights of my conversation with Carrie. Please view the video to hear more.

• Carrie has an unusual story of getting into Private Equity. She started her career overseeing textiles production all over the world. Carrie was looking for manufacturers in North America that could handle high production volumes when she was introduced to Hamilton Robinson. Her work at HRCP allows her to collaborate with manufacturing and management companies in the US and Canada and help them grow. When working with portfolio companies, Carrie leverages her 15- years of operating experience and real-life training to anticipate potential changes and obstacles that may lie ahead. Her forward-looking point of view is critical to successful deal-making and value creation in this sector and the volatile and highly competitive PE environment.
• Hamilton Robinson has been around since 1984. It invests in the lower middle-market owner and family-owned companies in US and Canada, narrowly focusing on the industrial sector.

Investing in the foundational businesses that are the backbone of the US economy allows Hamilton Robinson to de-risk their transactions, no matter the clouds ahead.

• When it comes to value creation, HRCP's strategy starts with partnership, building trust, and offering transparency to PortCo's management team. In addition, Hamilton Robinson ensures equity participation which encourages its management teams to think like owners, not just employees. Additionally, Hamilton Robinson focuses on lean manufacturing, eliminating waste and amping up efficiencies in all of the processes in its portfolio companies. Finally, creative add-on acquisitions is another important building block to their value creation strategy. Putting all three of these components together allows HRCP to be flexible and grow in any environment.
• Working with owner-operator-run companies that are new to the PE environment can present a unique set of challenges and patterns. Since Hamilton Robinson is usually the first institutional capital for these small businesses, the most common roadblock is the "This is how we've always done it" attitude. Thus, it is essential to take the time to understand human capital resources and align the vision of a PortCo's future in order to avoid the hurdles ahead, and to ensure that implementation and processes run smoothly. It is essential to make the teams understand that the mandate of any PEG is to grow companies by growing profits and to maximize the returns for the investors, which include most pension funds.
• One of the key aspects of value creation is leveraging the expertise of third-party partners. In the environment of the fully matured, hyper-competitive PE ecosystem, bringing in trusted operating partners like Chief Outsiders has been essential to accelerating growth. Third-party providers bring speed, expertise, and forward-looking strategies that the management team can lean on to help propel companies to a new level. In addition, operating partners can bring fire power that helps significantly expedite growth, thus providing a substantial competitive advantage.

Please play the video to hear the full discussion with Carrie and be sure to check out the rest of the PE Value Drivers series. If you are interested in being interviewed for the PE Value Drivers series or have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at skobran@chiefoutsiders.com.