Parker Gals | How I Became a Chief of Staff (w/ Lena Diasti, Ariel Investments)

She was an English major who took a banking job in Seattle sight unseen, and eventually became an investor on PSG's healthcare team, focused on growth-stage software companies. Cass sits down with Booth classmate Kate Nimmo to talk about what growth equity really is, why a liberal arts degree turned out to be a secret weapon, and the lesson she wishes she'd learned sooner: you don't need every answer on day one.  Plus: Grey's Anatomy, toddler negotiations, and a TV pilot written during nap time.

In a corporate carve-out, figuring out what exactly you're buying is the hardest part. It's often a line-by-line exercise, requiring a scalpel to separate what stays and what goes. ParkerGale's Ryan Milligan sits down with his colleague Kevin "KG" Gorman for Corporate Carve-Outs 101: how private equity buys a business unit out of a larger parent, why sellers let those businesses go, how you price something that isn't standing on its own, and why carve-outs take longer than you think. KG has closed two carve-outs in the last couple of years, including Comperemedia from Mintel, and our carve-out of HiBid, along with a complex one from his investment banking days. They also cover what changed when AI showed up in the deal process, for better and for worse. This episode is sponsored by NetSuite Next. Try it free at netsuite.ai/funcast.

Her college career office was supposed to forward her resume to a foundation. Instead, Ariel Investments kept it, and she ended up working next to the founder. Liz sits down with Lena Diasti, Chief of Staff to John Rogers, founder, chairman and co-CEO of Ariel Investments. We get into what a Chief of Staff actually does, how to leave investment banking before the "two years" are up, and why relationships end up mattering more than Excel spreadsheets.  Plus, a Gilmore Girls hot take and the trick for perfectly smooth hummus.

In 1982, Bill Atkinson made Apple's Lisa faster by deleting 2,000 lines of code, and the management form asked how many he wrote. Forty-four years later we're counting tokens instead. Same bug. The good news: with agentic workflows, engineering is finally measurable in terms a board understands. Jim sits down with Kirby Montgomery and Dan Bender of Code & Co. to cover what's worth tracking (speed paired with stability, and outcomes over activity), why tech diligence now starts before the LOI, why the slick data-room dashboard is sometimes running on localhost, and why you can game the capture but not the context. Measure to learn, not to punish. Website: https://www.codeandco.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeandcogroup/

What does it really take to build trust in private equity over a five-to-seven-year hold? Cass sits down with her colleague Nori Welles-Gertz, a principal at Parker Gale, to find out. They talk about why PE is more about relationships and reputation than transactions, and how she moved from consulting into operationally focused lower middle market investing. They also discuss how her college crew experience prepared her for a fast-paced career, what she's learning from AI experimentation and a few personal favorites: "Arrested Development," gluten-free pancakes, and perfect weekends built around lots of outdoor activities.

Investment diligence is all about answering two questions: Do we want to own this business? And what would we do with it if we did? But then the deal closes, and all those problems you identified and opportunities you imagined during diligence become yours to tackle. So where do you even start? In this episode, Ryan and Paul compare notes on what actually happens in the first year of owning a business: how they get the ball rolling on value creation, which early initiatives tend to make the biggest difference, and how they team up with their portfolio companies to tackle the inevitable year 1 curve balls.  This episode is sponsored by NetSuite Next. Try it free at netsuite.ai/funcast.

First, she sketched a med spa roll-up on maternity leave. Then, several law firms said it couldn't be done. Now? She owns five practices. Cass sits down with her old pal from grad school, Amanda Blank, to discuss her path from finance to building Founders Beauty Group, a med spa roll-up where she leads both investing and operations. Amanda explains the MSO structure that makes owning medical practices possible, how she secret-shopped her targets, and why med spas are healthcare, not consumer (as her legal bills prove). Plus, Kodiak pancakes, a mentor with 20 identical business suits, and a karaoke dare.

He left private equity, took a 75% pay cut, and joined a 12-person startup that was still finding its footing. Now, Jon Apter helps oversee 1,600 employees as CFO of Accordion – a seat he's held for the last 11 years.  Jon sits down with Devin to explain what really keeps a CFO in the room with sponsors and boards. Drawing on two PE deals and 12 acquisitions, he shares what it takes to get a company exit-ready from day one, why the CFO's real job is equity value (not the budget), and why AI spend is about to show up in your QoE. Whether you work directly with CFOs, sit on the sponsor side, or are in banking or PE wondering about a move into the CFO seat – this episode will change how you think about the role. For more about Accordion visit accordion.com.

What does it take to move from banking to the buyside, and what do you have to figure out once you're there? Liz sits down with Katie Yuan, a private equity associate at Hg in London. They met in 2022 in JPMorgan's investment banking training in New York. Since then, both have made the move from IB to PE. Katie traces her path from studying economics at Cambridge, to two years in JPMorgan's industrials group, to investing in B2B software at one of Europe's largest tech investors. If you're a student or junior thinking about your next move, Katie shares: How she explored PE while still in banking, and why talking to people made the difference How she moved from industrials to tech without a tech background The best career advice she's received: you're in control of your career, so act like it What to do if you don't know what your goals are yet How she's building confidence in her own judgment, and why having an opinion is part of the job What it's like to sit in on board-level AI strategy conversations as an associate Plus: K-drama recs, a gochujang sausage pasta recipe, Swiftie credentials, and what 10-year-old Katie wanted to be.

We built our sourcing model around one goal: know every owner of every software company long before they decide to sell. Ken Fine, Affinity's CEO, joins us to explain why relationships and not process are the keys to deal flow, and how AI can make that scalable (and even more human). We talk about the old way and new of sourcing, how AI turns messy inboxes into usable intelligence, and why the real alpha in private equity is more about who you know than what you know. Ken spent his earlier career building and scaling venture-backed software companies before taking the helm at Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform used by over 3,000 venture and private equity firms, including ParkerGale.  You can learn more about Affinity here.