The Operating Partner Role Has Changed More in Five Years Than the Previous Twenty

The operating partner has gone from a niche capability to a standard feature of private equity, but the role itself is changing faster than most people have adapted to it. Fredrik Bürger of EY traces how the function has evolved over two decades: from later-stage involvement to early diligence integration, from financial engineering to genuine operational transformation, and from internal resource to a source of healthy tension with portfolio company leadership that requires real emotional intelligence to manage well. Recorded at the European Private Capital Summit in London, this conversation covers the value creation levers that actually drive PE outperformance including pricing, procurement, growth, and technology, and why a company's proprietary dataset is often more valuable than whatever AI sits on top of it.