Women enter private equity (PE) at roughly the same rate as men , but they are not staying to reach the top. Some are using those hard-earned skills to build something more: a business.

A 2025 Columbia Business School study of 661 U.S. PE firms found women hold about 22% of investment professional roles and just 6% of senior ones, a figure that didn’t move between 2021 and 2023. Of those 661 firms, 349 had no women in senior roles at all.

The standard read is that PE is losing women it should be holding onto, and there is truth in that. Seeing capable women reach higher ranks in PE is work that still needs to be done. But PE’s loss could be a gain for business.

When Investec surveyed private equity professionals in 2019 about what they would do if they left their firm, not one woman said she would start her own private equity firm. More women than men, 14.7% against 11%, said they would start a business outside the industry altogether. Women may be leaving PE to build something on their own terms. No study tracks where these women land, which is why their stories are worth telling.

I interviewed three women on what their PE experience provided that helped them start a business. Their answers provide five critical lessons on what serves a founder in building a business successfully.

What Does Private Equity Teach Women About Building A Business?

Years spent dissecting and analyzing companies, finding the gaps in offerings and learning which type of founder holds up under pressure, provided clarity as they built their business.

Before founding her consultancy Lodestone, Sandy Fiaschetti advised private equity firms and portfolio companies during transactions and value creation efforts. “After seeing hundreds of businesses through diligence, I became clear about what creates value and what erodes it,” she shared over email. “Very few private equity firms had experts focused on leadership and talent. Given how often people-related issues determined whether a value creation plan succeeded or failed, that seemed a significant opportunity.”

Pressure-testing other people’s businesses trained Erin Halper to build sellable assets as she scaled. Founder of the independent consultants community, The Upside, Halper’s time in capital raising and investor relations for private equity funds provided insight into building a durable business.

“Every time I created something new, I ensured whatever I was building was adding value, particularly data, intellectual property, SOPs, and proprietary technology,” she wrote to me.

Years on deal teams assessing whether founders were ready for what private equity would demand gave Kelley Williamson a lens on what made a business last. “What makes a business truly durable isn’t the product. It’s the founder’s relationship to the problem,” she shared in an email exchange. The businesses that thrived were the ones where the founder had personally felt the friction. Her own footwear brand, Kelley Kouture, was inspired when a doctor told her she could no longer wear the heels she loved. “Most first-time founders lead with the dream and figure out the structure later,” she added. “The structure is not the enemy of the dream. It is what protects it.”

Listening And Compassion Are Business Skills

When I wrote about women’s superpowers in dealmaking , those strengths tended to get filed under soft skills . These founders make the case they are operating skills.

“Empathy, vulnerability and the human side of leadership have served as superpowers in building my business, especially as a community leader,” Halper shared. Being on the receiving end equally inspired her. When she told her manager her son’s heart condition would require weekly appointments and surgeries, she offered an easy out. He insisted on keeping her. “His kindness and empathy planted the seed for how I wanted others to feel when life threw a wrench their way. I wanted to change how work worked so no one would ever have to choose between a career they loved and not working at all.”

“Being a woman has helped me build trust quickly,” Fiaschetti commented. “People tend to open up, share concerns they might not otherwise voice and be candid about what’s really happening beneath the surface.”

Williamson framed it as a builder’s advantage. “There is something about the way women listen, the way we read a room, the way we hold space for complexity, that makes us extraordinary builders when we trust it.”

The Spreadsheet Is Never The Whole Story

In advising companies through integration, I’ve watched deals underperform because the plan assumed a pace the people couldn’t match. These founders saw the same gap from the diligence side, and built with that experience in mind.

“A value creation plan looks clean on paper,” Fiaschetti pointed out, growth and margin expansion falling in a neat waterfall. “What those models rarely capture is the human side of execution. Change resistance. Leadership transitions. Unexpected departures. People, not models, are ultimately responsible for delivering the results.”

They’ve also recognized PE’s favorite signal for a strong business isn’t the most important metric. “I learned to believe funding is a necessary badge of validation,” Halper said. “But countless businesses are highly profitable and scalable without outside funding. They may not land on magazine covers. But they’re providing stable jobs and a lifestyle that funded business owners would envy.”

“What no spreadsheet ever captured were the moments of doubt that arrive at two in the morning and the weight of it all sits with you,” Williamson revealed.

Trust Your Gut And Treat It As Data

Diligence teaches you to trust what you found over what you were told, and that habit doesn’t soften when you’re the one being questioned. Early on, Williamson caught an issue with the insoles and refused to sell the flawed product. At first the assumption was that as a new founder she had unrealistic expectations. She was proven right. “Sometimes you have to be willing to be the only one in the room who believes you are right and wait patiently for the evidence to catch up.”

Fiaschetti put it in terms of what happens after the call is made. “Building a business requires consistency, resilience, and the ability to execute day after day, even when there isn’t a clear playbook.”

Protect Focus Like It’s Capital

Deal work teaches triage: when everything is a priority, you must decide what comes first. “Every morning I make a choice,” Williamson said. “What is the single most important thing that needs to happen for this business today. Not the list. The one thing. And I do that first, before the noise starts.”

Fiaschetti applies the same discipline to the work that doesn’t come naturally, scheduling operational tasks for the hours when she is freshest. “Great ideas only matter if they’re supported by consistent execution.”

Williamson extends it to the founder herself. “I cannot show up for this brand, for women, for my family, for the team if I am running on empty. Taking care of yourself is not separate from the work. It is the work.”

The Strengths These Founders Had To Unlearn

Halper was quick to identify perfectionism. “I prioritized perfection and polish above all else, mostly as a path to earn my seat at the all-male table. As an entrepreneur, I learned that perfectionism is an enormous barrier to progress. I had to program my brain to embrace mistakes as progress, not failure.”

“Overthinking,” Williamson revealed. “In M&A, overthinking is not a flaw. It is a skill. But when you are a founder and the decision needs to be made today, that same muscle can work against you. I had to learn the difference between due diligence and self-doubt. They look identical from the inside, and the cost of confusing them is time.”

For Fiaschetti it was the expectation someone else owned the final decision. “As a founder, there is no separation between the recommendation and the outcome.”

Women leaving PE take more with them than analytical skill. They take the conviction to act on what they see before anyone else sees it, which is what Williamson named when I asked what her time in dealmaking gave her. “Clarity, that ability to see it before anyone else can, that is the greatest gift those years gave me.”