A 90-day plan for a new operating partner at a PE firm

When to use this 90-day plan

Use it in the first week at a new firm, when you join as an operating partner, head of value creation or head of portfolio operations and the managing partners expect a plan before the first quarterly review. It suits a generalist operating role and adapts to functional specialists. The structure is simple: listen for 30 days, inventory levers for 30, launch one program in the last 30.

Expectations of the role are rising. McKinsey's Global Private Markets Report 2026 says firms have more than doubled their operating groups since 2021, and that with multiple expansion and cheap leverage fading, operational value creation is now likely the primary source of PE returns. A new operating partner is hired to deliver on that, and the first 90 days shape how the deal team judges the role. The private equity operating partners page covers where referral work fits alongside it.

The 30-60-90 template

Copy each block into your own document and replace the {placeholders}.

Days 1-30: learn the portfolio and the firm

The plans you read serve different purposes; the comparison of value creation plan vs 100-day plan explains which one to change and when.

Days 31-60: build the lever inventory

The AI value creation playbook helps score the AI-related levers consistently.

Days 61-90: launch one visible program

An optional early win: a permissioned data licensing screen

One lever is cheap to test inside 90 days because the operating partner's part is a screen and an introduction, not a project. Pick three to five portfolio companies, ask permission, then check fit.

1. Ask the deal partner for each company whether a light screen is welcome, and skip any company in a live sale process unless the deal team agrees.
2. Check the baseline: US companies that reached 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), with several years of documented operations, the right to license their own records and an executive who can sponsor a deal.
3. Ask the CFO or CIO two factual questions: which systems hold the longest history, and can someone run exports today?
4. Park any company that fails on rights or records and introduce the rest; each one is assessed on its own merits.
5. Report the result in the day-90 review as one line on the lever map, without promising revenue.

The network opportunity finder helps list candidates, the first-month referral plan for operating partners covers the outreach, and the question on registering a whole portfolio for referral credit explains how credit works across holdings. For buy-and-build platforms, include the records created during add-on integrations, a distinct category described in M&A integration records as AI training data.

Note to a deal partner asking permission

How to tailor the plan to your firm

When to review the plan, and with whom

What to leave out of the plan

• Confidential portfolio data copied into personal files or drives outside the firm's systems
• Revenue forecasts for any lever you have not yet tested, data licensing included
• Typed referral reward amounts or projected partner earnings. The program pays 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects, capped at $100,000 per referred company, and only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee
• Any statement that a company qualifies before it has been screened
• Commitments to CEOs about outcomes the board has not approved

Next step

Draft your day-30 company profile this week and add the data licensing screen as an optional line on the lever map. When a company passes, register as a partner to make the introduction.