Value creation has reached an important inflection point.
What was once a differentiator for investment firms has become a shared expectation. Today, investors are no longer measured solely by capital or governance, but by their ability to help portfolio companies grow faster, operate more efficiently, adopt new technologies, and navigate increasingly complex markets.
This shift reflects progress.
Firms have expanded their ambitions. Portfolios have grown more sophisticated. Operating teams are more engaged than ever. Value creation has moved from a supporting role to a central pillar of investment strategy.
At the same time, the environment has changed. Exit timelines are longer. Competition is tighter. Capital is more selective. Execution matters more than ever.
Together, these forces are reshaping how value creation teams operate and what they are being asked to deliver.
A Model Ready to Scale
Across private equity, growth equity, and venture capital, value creation teams are playing a broader and more impactful role inside their portfolios.
Near-term execution remains essential. Go-to-market performance, pipeline generation, and operational improvements continue to drive results. These levers still work, and they still matter.
But alongside them, new dimensions of value creation are emerging.
Product delivery is becoming more nuanced. Infrastructure decisions carry longer-term consequences. Talent gaps are more visible and more costly. And new technologies, particularly AI, are expanding what is possible in how companies build, sell, and operate.
The traditional, hands-on model of value creation has proven effective. Now, many firms are exploring how to extend that impact more consistently and at a greater scale.
AI as a Catalyst for the Next Wave
Few areas generate as much optimism as AI.
There is broad agreement that AI will play a defining role in how enterprise value is created in the years ahead. From automation and analytics to product innovation and operating leverage, AI is widely seen as a force multiplier across portfolios.
What firms are actively working through now is how to translate that potential into durable execution.
Some teams are experimenting. Others are piloting targeted use cases. A growing number are beginning to see real results. Along the way, they are asking practical questions about where AI fits into existing workflows, how it intersects with product and GTM strategy, and how to deploy it in ways that create leverage rather than complexity.
This exploration is not a sign of hesitation. It is a sign the industry is learning in real time.
Building for Today and Tomorrow
This is what makes the current moment so meaningful.
Value creation teams are increasingly operating across two horizons at once:
- Driving near-term performance through proven execution
- Laying the groundwork for more scalable, system-driven operating models
The firms that succeed will not simply intervene more often. They will design value creation models that compound over time.
Clearer playbooks. Stronger technical foundations. Better data. And operating systems that reduce reliance on heroics while increasing consistency and impact.
What Comes Next
Over the past several months, York IE and the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth have been studying how value creation teams are navigating this evolution.
Later this month, we’ll share the 2026 State of Value Creation Benchmark, capturing insights from operating and value creation leaders across private equity, growth equity, and venture capital.
For anyone responsible for driving outcomes inside portfolio companies or designing the operating models that support them, the findings will feel familiar and, in many cases, clarifying.
That clarity is often the first signal that a new era is taking shape.