Growth-Stage Capital, Scale-Up & Pre-IPO Investment Leadership
Growth Equity
Executive Search
60+ Growth-Equity Placements — typical mandates close in 100-125 days, with a 12-month candidate guarantee.
Specialisation withinPrivate Equity & Venture Capital·Unlocking Value Through Leadership
Growth Equity is the scale-up-and-pre-IPO-capital tranche of India's PE ecosystem — the category that combines USD 30M-to-300M equity-ticket growth-stage investments in profitable-and-scaling privately-held Indian companies, minority-and-significant-minority-stake investments, pre-IPO / crossover investments, and the specific growth-stage value-creation architecture that sits between venture-capital and large-cap-buyout. The ecosystem spans the flagship global growth-equity funds' India operations (General Atlantic India — with strong Indian-growth-equity focus; Warburg Pincus India — the pioneer Indian-growth-investor with 25+ years and 200+ portfolio-companies spanning BFSI, healthcare, consumer, tech, industrials; TPG Growth India; Bain Capital India growth-equity allocations; KKR Growth India; Advent International India — growth-equity tranches; Apax Partners India; Permira India; CVC Growth India; Blackstone Growth India allocations; General Catalyst — through the growth-stage expansion; Insight Partners — fast-growing software-and-tech-focused growth investor; Coatue Management — technology-crossover), the India-focused growth-equity GPs (ChrysCapital Growth — with USD 2.25B latest fund; Kedaara Capital Growth — with USD 1.7B latest fund; Multiples Alternate Asset Management — growth-equity tranches; IIFL Asset Management; Avendus Capital Private Equity; ICICI Venture; HDFC Capital Advisors; Tata Capital Growth; Kotak Alternate Asset Managers; Edelweiss Alternatives), the sector-specific growth-equity specialists (Premji Invest — technology-and-consumer-growth; Verlinvest India — consumer-growth; Motilal Oswal Private Equity; True North Capital — mid-market-and-growth; Creador India; Everstone Capital; L Catterton — consumer-growth), the pre-IPO / crossover specialists (Fidelity India PE-crossover; T. Rowe Price crossover; Tiger Global crossover-and-growth-equity; SoftBank Vision Fund crossover; Prosus Ventures crossover), and the technology-focused growth equity specialists (Accel Growth; Lightspeed Partners Growth; Insight Partners India; Tiger Global India; DST Global India; Sequoia Capital India Growth — now Peak XV Partners Growth; Nexus Venture Partners Growth; Matrix Partners India Growth — now Z47 Growth; Stride Ventures). Leadership here requires fluency in growth-stage-deal-origination architecture, significant-minority-and-influence-driving-board-role discipline, portfolio-company scale-up support, pre-IPO / IPO-preparation stewardship, and the specific growth-equity fund-management rhythm.
Is This Your Situation?
If any of these sound familiar, you're speaking to the right practice.
→Global growth-equity India operation running Managing Director / Senior-Partner succession — confidential search across growth-stage-deal-origination credibility and portfolio-company-scale-up-support stewardship.
→India-focused growth-equity GP running Managing Partner succession — search across LP-relationship-and-fundraising credibility and domestic-growth-equity stewardship.
→Growth-equity-backed portfolio company entering its scale-up / pre-IPO phase hiring a CEO with scale-up-execution and IPO-readiness credibility.
→Technology-growth-equity fund running Principal / VP succession — search across technology-growth-equity investment credibility and portfolio-monitoring stewardship.
Our Growth Equity Track Record
Situation:
A global growth-equity fund scaling its India team needed Managing Director succession for its financial-services-and-healthcare growth-equity practice. The brief required growth-stage-deal-origination credibility, BFSI-and-healthcare sector-investment stewardship, portfolio-company-scale-up-support discipline, and the governance rhythm of global-growth-equity India operations.
Outcome:
Placed a Managing Director with prior Partner-tenure at a competing global growth-equity fund (with 12+ years of India-growth-equity experience across BFSI and healthcare) and subsequent Head-of-Investments tenure at a domestic growth-equity GP. The fund's BFSI-and-healthcare deployment pace and portfolio-outcomes progressed ahead of plan within 24 months.
Situation:
A growth-equity-backed consumer platform approaching its DRHP-filing / IPO phase needed CFO succession. The brief required IPO-readiness architecture credibility, SEBI-ICDR-and-DRHP stewardship, financial-controls-and-management-reporting discipline, investor-relations-and-listed-company-governance architecture fluency, and the specific pre-IPO-execution rhythm.
Outcome:
Placed a CFO with prior CFO tenure at a listed consumer operator and subsequent Head-of-Finance tenure at another growth-equity-backed consumer platform that had successfully IPO'd. The portfolio-company's DRHP filing, SEBI-clearances, and IPO-listing completed on schedule with material book-building-and-valuation outcomes.
All client details anonymised. Specific mandates available for reference under NDA upon request.
Our Growth Equity Practice
Growth Equity is the scale-up-and-pre-IPO-capital tranche of India's PE ecosystem — the category that combines USD 30M-to-300M equity-ticket growth-stage investments in profitable-and-scaling privately-held Indian companies, minority-and-significant-minority-stake investments, pre-IPO / crossover investments, and the specific growth-stage value-creation architecture that sits between venture-capital and large-cap-buyout. The ecosystem spans the flagship global growth-equity funds' India operations (General Atlantic India — with strong Indian-growth-equity focus; Warburg Pincus India — the pioneer Indian-growth-investor with 25+ years and 200+ portfolio-companies spanning BFSI, healthcare, consumer, tech, industrials; TPG Growth India; Bain Capital India growth-equity allocations; KKR Growth India; Advent International India — growth-equity tranches; Apax Partners India; Permira India; CVC Growth India; Blackstone Growth India allocations; General Catalyst — through the growth-stage expansion; Insight Partners — fast-growing software-and-tech-focused growth investor; Coatue Management — technology-crossover), the India-focused growth-equity GPs (ChrysCapital Growth — with USD 2.25B latest fund; Kedaara Capital Growth — with USD 1.7B latest fund; Multiples Alternate Asset Management — growth-equity tranches; IIFL Asset Management; Avendus Capital Private Equity; ICICI Venture; HDFC Capital Advisors; Tata Capital Growth; Kotak Alternate Asset Managers; Edelweiss Alternatives), the sector-specific growth-equity specialists (Premji Invest — technology-and-consumer-growth; Verlinvest India — consumer-growth; Motilal Oswal Private Equity; True North Capital — mid-market-and-growth; Creador India; Everstone Capital; L Catterton — consumer-growth), the pre-IPO / crossover specialists (Fidelity India PE-crossover; T. Rowe Price crossover; Tiger Global crossover-and-growth-equity; SoftBank Vision Fund crossover; Prosus Ventures crossover), and the technology-focused growth equity specialists (Accel Growth; Lightspeed Partners Growth; Insight Partners India; Tiger Global India; DST Global India; Sequoia Capital India Growth — now Peak XV Partners Growth; Nexus Venture Partners Growth; Matrix Partners India Growth — now Z47 Growth; Stride Ventures). Leadership here requires fluency in growth-stage-deal-origination architecture, significant-minority-and-influence-driving-board-role discipline, portfolio-company scale-up support, pre-IPO / IPO-preparation stewardship, and the specific growth-equity fund-management rhythm.
We place leaders across global growth-equity India operations, India-focused growth-equity GPs, sector-specific growth-equity specialists, and pre-IPO / crossover specialists. Engagements include Managing Director / Partner / Principal searches for growth-equity funds, Vice-President / Director placements, Operating-Partner placements, Head of Technology-Growth placements, and portfolio-company CEO / CFO succession (growth-stage portfolio companies run material CEO-CFO-CHRO-CTO turnover in the scale-up and pre-IPO phases).
As a specialist CEO mandates in growth-equity-backed companies, our practice also covers CFO placements in growth-equity-backed companies, our practice also covers Private Equity & Venture Capital practice overview, and as a source for PE/VC — venture capital.
The Growth Equity Landscape Today
India's growth-equity market deployed ~USD 15-25 billion annually across 2023-24 with 150-250 transactions in the USD 30M-300M ticket-size range. Growth-equity is the most active segment of Indian PE in terms of transaction-count (though mid-sized in ticket-value). Warburg Pincus is the largest and longest-tenured growth-equity-investor in India (25+ years, 200+ portfolio-companies) with notable investments including Kotak Mahindra Bank (the iconic growth-equity investment of the 1990s-2000s), Bharti Airtel, Max Group, PVR, Lemon Tree, and a current portfolio spanning Kalyan Jewellers, Mankind Pharma, Biocon Biologics, Clean Max, Fractal Analytics, and many more. General Atlantic (GA) has a comparable Indian-growth-equity portfolio including Byju's (historically), Unacademy, Jio, Reliance Retail Ventures, KFin Technologies, Mu Sigma, and others. ChrysCapital (USD 5B+ cumulative deployment across 10 funds) has one of the longest-tenured India-focused growth-equity practices with portfolio including GeBBS Healthcare, HDFC Life, KIMS Health, Intas Pharma, Magma Fincorp (merged with Poonawalla), Mankind Pharma, and Ratnakar Bank. Kedaara Capital (founded by ex-General Atlantic and Temasek executives) has scaled rapidly to USD 1.7B with a 2024-vintage fund deployed across Aavas Financiers, Avaana Capital, LenDenClub, Manjushree Technopack, Spandana Sphoorty, Tata Advanced Systems Ltd-partner transactions and many more. Multiples Alternate Asset Management is a prominent India-focused GP. IIFL AM, Avendus PE, ICICI Venture, and the Tata Capital / Kotak / Edelweiss alternatives-platforms operate mid-market-and-growth-equity strategies. The technology-growth-equity tranche (Accel Growth, Lightspeed Growth, Tiger Global India, Insight Partners, Peak XV Growth, DST Global, Coatue, Insight Partners) deployed material capital across software-SaaS, fintech, consumer-internet, and deep-tech. The crossover-and-pre-IPO tranche saw significant deployment into late-stage IPO-bound companies including Swiggy (pre-IPO 2024, listed November 2024), Zomato (listed 2021), Nykaa (listed 2021), Paytm (listed 2021), FirstCry (listed 2024), Mamaearth / Honasa (listed 2023), Delhivery (listed 2022), and Niva Bupa (listed 2024). Portfolio-company CEO-and-CxO succession at growth-equity-backed companies is among the most active sub-markets of the executive-search industry in India.
Key Leadership Challenges in Growth Equity
Managing Director / Partner succession for global growth-equity India operations (Warburg Pincus, General Atlantic, TPG Growth, Bain Growth, KKR Growth, Advent, Apax) — leaders with growth-stage-deal-origination credibility, multi-sector-growth-investment stewardship, portfolio-company-scale-up-support discipline, and the governance rhythm of global-growth-equity India operations.
Managing Partner / Senior-Partner succession for India-focused growth-equity GPs (ChrysCapital, Kedaara, Multiples, IIFL AM, Avendus PE, Tata Capital Growth) — leaders with LP-relationship-and-fundraising credibility, domestic-growth-equity stewardship, and the governance rhythm of domestic-GP management.
Operating-Partner placements — growth-equity funds need Operating-Partners with scale-up-operating-expertise, specific-sector-value-creation discipline, and the governance rhythm of operating-partner-model.
Vice-President / Director / Principal placements — growth-equity funds need investment-professionals with multi-sector deal-execution credibility, portfolio-monitoring stewardship, and the specific growth-equity investment rhythm.
Portfolio-company CEO succession — growth-equity-backed portfolio companies need CEOs with scale-up-execution credibility, PE-board-and-Investment-Committee stewardship, growth-and-unit-economics discipline, and the specific growth-equity-backed-CEO rhythm.
Pre-IPO / IPO-preparation CEO-and-CFO placements — growth-equity-backed portfolio companies approaching IPO need CEOs / CFOs with IPO-readiness architecture credibility, SEBI-ICDR-and-DRHP stewardship, and the specific pre-IPO-execution rhythm.
What We Look For in Growth Equity Leaders
Across mandates, growth equity leadership tends to cluster into a small set of archetypes. We calibrate each search against the profile your board actually needs — not the one most commonly available.
The Growth-Equity Managing Director / Partner
Investment-professional senior executive with growth-stage-deal-origination credibility, multi-sector-growth-investment stewardship, portfolio-company-scale-up-support discipline, LP-coverage architecture fluency, and the governance rhythm of global-growth-equity India operations.
The India-Focused Growth-Equity Managing Partner
Senior investment-professional with LP-relationship-and-fundraising credibility, domestic-growth-equity stewardship, GP-succession-and-management discipline, multi-fund-platform architecture fluency, and the governance rhythm of domestic-GP management.
The Operating-Partner (Growth-Equity)
Former-CEO / CXO leader with scale-up-operating-expertise, specific-sector-value-creation discipline (financial-services, healthcare, consumer, technology, industrials), Investment-Committee-engagement stewardship, and the specific operating-partner-model rhythm.
The Growth-Equity-Backed Portfolio-Company CEO
Executive with scale-up-execution credibility, PE-board-and-Investment-Committee stewardship, growth-and-unit-economics discipline, IPO-readiness architecture fluency, and the specific growth-equity-backed-CEO rhythm.
The Pre-IPO / IPO-Ready CFO
Finance executive with IPO-readiness architecture credibility, SEBI-ICDR-and-DRHP stewardship, financial-controls-and-management-reporting discipline, investor-relations-and-listed-company-governance architecture fluency, and the specific pre-IPO-and-public-markets rhythm.
The Technology-Growth-Equity Principal / VP
Technology-focused investment-professional with software-SaaS-and-consumer-internet-and-fintech growth-equity credibility, unit-economics-and-Rule-of-40-and-LTV/CAC architecture fluency, technology-company-board-and-portfolio-monitoring stewardship, and the specific technology-growth-equity investment rhythm.
Regulatory & Compensation Context
Regulatory Backdrop
Growth-equity activity sits at the intersection of the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations 2012 (as amended — growth-equity funds register as Category-II AIFs), the Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 with FEMA Non-Debt Instruments Rules 2019 and FDI Press-Note architecture, the Companies Act 2013 (including Section 62 for preferential-allotment, Section 42 for private-placement, Section 230-234 for amalgamation), the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations 2011 (Takeover Code — where growth-equity acquires listed-company-stakes), the SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations 2018 (SEBI ICDR — for IPO-readiness and DRHP / RHP architecture), the SEBI (LODR) Regulations 2015 (for listed-portfolio companies), the SEBI (PIT — Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations 2015, the Competition Act 2002 (for M&A-clearance above turnover / asset thresholds), the Income-Tax Act 1961 (including Section 56 valuation, Section 68/56 angel-tax architecture, and the grandfathering architecture), the GIFT-City IFSC AIF architecture under the IFSCA, and the SEBI (Portfolio Managers) Regulations 2020. The SEBI AIF-Regulations amendments through 2024-25 have tightened accredited-investor architecture and enhanced disclosure. The DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) maintains the FDI-policy architecture. For sector-specific investments, sectoral-caps apply — BFSI (74% in insurance, 20% in private-banks without government-approval), defence (74% automatic + 100% government-approval), media (26% in news-media), etc. The FDI-policy amendment of April 2020 requiring government-route-approval for FDI from land-border-sharing-countries is relevant. For crossover-investments into listed-companies, the Takeover Code 25%-threshold, creeping-acquisition architecture, and ICDR-pre-IPO-lock-in architecture apply. The Companies (Prospectus and Allotment of Securities) Rules 2014 apply to private-placement-of-securities into portfolio-companies. For offshore-fund-structures, Mauritius / Singapore / DIFC / Cayman / Delaware structures are common.
Compensation Architecture
Growth-equity leadership compensation is carry-heavy on top of substantial base-and-bonus architecture. Managing Director / Senior-Partner compensation at global growth-equity India operations ranges ₹3-7 crore base + ₹3-7 crore annual bonus + substantial carried-interest (typically 5-12% of fund-level carry allocations for senior partners); Principal / Director compensation ranges ₹2-4.5 crore base + bonus + smaller carry allocation; Vice-President compensation ranges ₹1.5-3 crore base + bonus + junior-carry allocation. Operating-Partner compensation ranges ₹3-6 crore base + ₹1.5-3.5 crore annual bonus + sector-and-portfolio-linked-carry architecture. Managing Partner at India-focused growth-equity GPs (ChrysCapital, Kedaara, Multiples) operates at globally-comparable base-plus-carry architecture with Indian-LP and global-LP-commitments driving carry-economics. Growth-equity-backed portfolio-company CEO compensation ranges ₹5-18 crore fixed + bonus + material equity-architecture (typically 0.5-2.5% sweet-equity / management-equity-programme with value-creation-milestone vesting); portfolio-company CFO compensation ranges ₹2.5-7 crore + equity-architecture. Pre-IPO / IPO-ready CFO compensation includes material IPO-linked bonus architecture (typically 50-200% of annual base on successful listing). Technology-growth-equity Principal / VP compensation is at globally-comparable architecture with material carry-allocation.
Roles We Typically Place
Why Gladwin International Leadership Advisors for Growth Equity
Managing Director / Partner / Principal / Vice-President searches for global growth-equity India operations.
Managing Partner / Senior-Partner searches for India-focused growth-equity GPs.
Operating-Partner placements with scale-up-operating-expertise.
Portfolio-company CEO / CFO / CHRO / CTO succession at growth-equity-backed companies.
Pre-IPO / IPO-preparation CEO / CFO placements.
Sector-specific growth-equity investment-leader placements (financial-services, healthcare, consumer, technology, industrials, energy).
Investor-Relations and LP-Coverage Head placements for growth-equity funds.
Organisations We Serve
Global growth-equity fund India operations across multi-stage strategies
India-focused growth-equity funds with multi-fund vintages and sector-specialist franchises
Listed Indian alternative-asset managers and PE-arms within universal-bank groups
Family-office and consumer-specialist growth funds active in Indian markets
Technology-growth-equity funds across multi-stage and crossover programmes
Pre-IPO and crossover-investor platforms across global mutual-fund and SoftBank-tier sponsors
Growth-equity-backed portfolio companies across BFSI, healthcare, consumer, technology and industrials
Limited-Partner institutional investors active in Indian growth-equity across sovereign, pension, insurance, endowment and FoF channels
Growth Equity leaders assessed on the PE & VC “PRISM” framework
Seven dimensions calibrated for PE and VC portfolio company leadership. Dimensions are calibrated for growth equity mandates where relevant.
Parent Practice
Return to Private Equity & Venture Capital
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