Portfolio Chief Technology Officer

Position Summary

We are seeking an exceptional technology leader to join the Global Portfolio Solutions (GPS) team. This individual will serve as the Chief Technology Officer throughout EMEA partnering with portfolio management teams, deal teams, and GPS functional peers to accelerate technology-driven value creation across Carlyle’s European private equity portfolio.

This role will be the connective tissue between Carlyle’s investment professionals and the technology leadership at our portfolio companies – translating strategic investment theses into concrete technology execution roadmaps, and converting lessons learned across the portfolio into scalable playbooks, partnerships, and community.

Above all, this person will serve as a trusted thought partner to deal teams and portfolio company technology leaders alike – leveraging deep technical and operational expertise, strong listening skills, and a practitioner’s credibility to drive outsized technology value creation across the portfolio. This is not a single-company CTO role: this role operates as a trusted advisor across many companies at once, prioritizing where senior technology leadership drives the most enterprise value.

The ideal hire is a technology executive with current or prior experience as a CTO in the software industry, working across a portfolio of European mid-market B2B technology and SaaS businesses.  Fluency in French and/or German, in addition to English, is strongly preferred.

In-Office Requirement: 4 days a week

Primary Responsibilities

• Define and drive software development / engineering value-creation agendas across technology portfolio companies — product architecture, scalability, technical debt, cloud modernization, AI in SDLC and AI in Product .

• Partner directly with portfolio management teams, deal teams, and GPS functional peers to develop and execute technology value creation roadmaps aligned to each company’s investment thesis and stage of ownership.

Diligence & Assessment

• Support technical diligence on new investments; assess engineering organizations, tech stacks, product roadmap maturity, platform scalability, engineering capabilities and technical debt.

• Translate findings into actionable value-creation plans and contribute technology perspectives to investment committee materials and investment decisions.

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• Build, curate and manage a network of trusted third-party software engineering  partners — implementation firms, specialist advisors, fractional leaders and vendors — to deliver software engineering execution at portfolio companies

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• Coach and mentor portfolio-company CTOs and engineering leaders; help assess, recruit and upgrade technology leadership where needed.

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• Establish reusable playbooks, benchmarks and best practices; drive cross-portfolio knowledge sharing.

• Build connectivity among portfolio CTOs through peer forums and other community-building initiatives

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• Position technology assets for exit by articulating the equity story, de-risking the stack, and evidencing scalability to buyers.

Qualifications

The candidate will be a highly-accomplished technology executive or senior practitioner having served as a CTO, or equivalent, ideally at a PE- or venture-backed company that has successfully executed a meaningful technology transformation. In addition, they will have:

• Deep, current expertise across product engineering and software architecture,  AI within the software development lifecycle.
• Demonstrated experience leading or overseeing meaningful software transformations, ideally within mid-market B2B software or SaaS businesses, and translating technology investment into measurable outcomes such as revenue growth, cost reduction, margin expansion or increased enterprise value.
• Track record designing and optimizing technology operating models, including organizational structures, onshore/offshore models, platform teams, vendor strategies and other approaches to improving engineering effectiveness and efficiency.
• Familiarity with the private equity investment lifecycle, including technology diligence, value-creation planning, portfolio-company execution and exit readiness. Direct experience in a PE portfolio or operating-partner environment is preferred.
• Experience building and leveraging networks of technology partners, specialist advisors and vendors to accelerate execution while maintaining a lean operating model.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively across multiple businesses, priorities, geographies and cultures, within a European context.

Competencies & Attributes

• Investor mindset. Able to identify the technology issues that materially affect business performance and translate them into P&L, valuation and investment outcomes.
• Commercial and pragmatic. Focuses on the interventions that create the greatest value rather than pursuing technology for its own sake; able to articulate impact clearly and concisely to financial and investment professionals.
• Influence without authority. Credible with founders, CEOs, CTOs/CIOs, management teams, boards and investment professionals; able to challenge constructively and drive action through others.
• Adaptable advisor. Able to diagnose the needs of different portfolio companies and improve performance through consultation and collaboration rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.
• Bias to action. Comfortable with ambiguity and competing priorities; exercises sound judgment about where to engage deeply and where to operate through management teams, partners and advisors.
• Collaborative and low ego. Works effectively within a team of functional experts, shares knowledge and best practices, and invests in developing portfolio-company technology leaders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the executive presence and judgment to operate effectively with senior management teams and investment professionals.
• Fluency in German and/or French required.

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