Private Equity Sales Lead at RRD in Chicago, IL, United States

Job description

• The Managing Directory, Private Equity (PE) is a senior commercial leadership role within RRD’s RevTeam. This individual is responsible for establishing relationships with the Private Equity ecosystem to build strategic, long-term sales momentum. Unlike traditional high-volume
• sales roles, this position requires a nuanced, high-trust, low-volume "Account-Based Selling" approach.
• The incentive program range is 20% - 30% of base salary payable based on achieved performance metrics.
• The primary mission is to identify, secure, and expand relationships directly with PE Operating Partners, Portfolio Operations leads, and Value Creation directors who are under immense pressure to drive EBITDA growth. By deeply understanding the financial objectives of PE firms, this leader will position RRD’s specialized portfolio of services and our unique consultative assessment process as the go-to solution for driving enterprise value across portfolio companies.

Responsibilities

• Target Identification & Strategic Relationship Building
• Identify & Engage Key Stakeholders: Target and build deep, recurring relationships with Portfolio Operations leads, Operating Partners, and Value Creation directors within targeted funds, segmented by sector and strategy.
• Network Utilization: Leverage an existing professional network to gain access to highly gatekept PE environments and create meaningful business conversations.
• Peer-to-Peer Engagement: Speak the distinct financial and operational vocabulary of the PE universe to establish immediate credibility with operational leadership.
• Master Service Agreement (MSA) Navigation
• Navigate complex PE procurement processes to secure Master Service Agreements (MSAs) within their portfolio of operating companies.
• Short-List Positioning: Ensure that when an Operating Partner identifies an operational inefficiencies or cost takeout initiative within a portfolio company (PortCo), RRD is automatically positioned on the short-list to call.
• Portfolio Company (PortCo) Expansion
• Expand Success: Actively expand RRD’s footprint across multiple targeted portfolio companies by leveraging and proving early success in initial PortCo engagements.
• Account Growth: Network across the firm’s broader ecosystem to cross-sell and scale RRD’s services into additional portfolio assets.
• Leverage Value Creation Tactics
• Pro-Bono/Low-Cost Assessments: Introduce specialized operational assessments during the PE firm's pre-acquisition due diligence and long-term holding phases.
• Pipeline Building: Utilize these early assessments to build immense goodwill, positioning RRD to win the full execution contract the day the acquisition deal officially closes.

Requirements

• Education and Experience
• Degree: Bachelor’s degree in business, Finance, or a related discipline required; Master’s degree or MBA preferred.
• Target Professional Profile: Must possess a background matching one or more of the following archetypes:
• The Ex-Management Consultant (MBB / Big 4): Alumni of McKinsey, Bain, BCG, or a tier-1 operations consulting firm, specifically from their Private Equity or Post-Merger Integration practices. Understands how PE firms think and possesses a strong peer network.
• The Former PortCo Executive: A former COO, VP of Sales, or VP of Operations who has successfully scaled and exited a PE-backed portfolio company, bringing immediate empathy and peer-to-peer credibility.
• The Boutique PE-Origination Specialist: A proven track record of successfully selling professional services (e.g., IT, HR infrastructure, supply chain consulting) directly to PE funds.
• Geographic Location: Must be physically based in one of the primary, highly regional PE hubs to facilitate face-to-face, "handshake" relationship building:
• East Coast: New York City / Greenwich, CT / Boston
• Midwest: Chicago
• West Coast: San Francisco / Silicon Valley / Los Angeles
• Secondary consideration: Austin / Miami / Atlanta
• PE Financial Literacy: Deep understanding of the core financial metrics driving the PE universe, including EBITDA, IRR (Internal Rate of Return), Multiple Expansion, and the execution of the 100-Day Plan.
• Solution Mapping: Ability to quickly master RRD’s diverse portfolio of services and translate them directly into levers for a PE firm’s financial and operational objectives.
• ABM Commercial Expertise: Highly skilled in running low-volume, high-trust Account-Based Selling strategies tailored for long, complex institutional sales cycles.
• Collaborative Leadership: Ability to work cross-functionally within RRD to deploy specialized delivery teams once a fund-level relationship or MSA is secured.

Skills

Required

• Collaborative Leadership
• High-trust relationship building
• Peer-to-peer credibility
• Nuanced, high-trust approach
• EBITDA
• IRR (Internal Rate of Return)
• Multiple Expansion
• 100-Day Plan
• Account-Based Selling (ABM)

Benefits

• This role is salary plus incentive program eligible and the current RRD salary range is $175,000 to $245,000 per year. The salary range may be adjusted based on the applicable geographic location of the hired employee, and the range may change in the future. At RRD, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions may vary based upon, but not limited to education, skills, experience, proficiency, performance, shift and location. RRD’s benefit offerings include medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, disability insurance, 401(k) with company match, life insurance and other voluntary supplemental insurance coverages, plus parental leave, adoption assistance, tuition assistance and employer/partner discounts.