It’s no secret that private equity firms and their portfolio companies don’t always see eye to eye. A new report by recruiting and consulting firm The Barton Partnership aims to quantify the nature of such “misalignment” between sponsors and the finance chiefs working under them.
The report, released on Monday, revealed one in five of the 258 surveyed CFOs working at firms based in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific said they experience “frequent or significant misalignment.”
“Sponsors are described as underestimating pace of change and quality of the inherited finance function,” the report stated.
The report went on to say that misalignment is “most pronounced” at portfolio companies reporting annual revenue between $100 million and $250 million, with 26% of CFOs working at such firms reporting misalignment. Barton Partnership conducted the survey in early 2026.
“This may reflect the governance and reporting demands at that scale, combined with sponsors who retain high expectations without always providing adequate support,” the report said.
Where exactly might finance chiefs and PE sponsors disagree? In an interview, The Barton Partnership’s Executive Vice President for North America Mike Doud said it “could be a few different fronts.” One potential area of conflict could be around the timing of a transaction for a portfolio company, where the PE fund has one timeline in mind, but the company itself has another.
“It falls to the C-Suite, including the CFO, to get that aligned in a better timeframe,” Doud said. “That’s probably one of the most common ones I see.”
While misalignment appeared to be fairly well distributed among the survey set, it’s worth noting that many respondents actually do seem to get along with their sponsors. For instance, 62% said they’re “mostly aligned” with their private equity teams.
Alignment was apparently strongest among portfolio companies with revenue between $250 million and $500 million, where 70% of CFOs reported being mostly aligned with sponsors’ expectations.
Meanwhile, 59% of respondents said they inherited “weak” finance functions that required a rebuild at the portfolio companies they joined. Just about a quarter (28%) described the finance function as “adequate but under-resourced.”
As for CFOs’ own needs from their PE sponsors, “clear and realistic performance expectations” topped the list, selected by 79% of respondents. A strong partnership with the CEO and board came next at 76%, followed by patience and “flexibility in execution” at 40%.
And, like many reports before it, Barton Partnership’s survey unsurprisingly showed finance chiefs playing a bigger role in operations and wider “value creation plans.” Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they are “strong contributors to or leaders” of such plans, according to the report. Just about a quarter (27%) said they’re leading those plans outright, while 13% said they have “limited or no involvement,” the report said.
At a time when the pipeline from CFO to CEO remains strong by many accounts, it’s no surprise that finance chiefs are explicitly being asked to take on more future-looking tasks.
“More and more you’re seeing CFOs now being considered in the succession plan for the next CEO, because they are now truly becoming the right hand to the CEO,” Doud said.
