A great General Manager needs to be able to take ownership of a business, understand its economics and turn strategy into measurable results.

For Private Equity-backed businesses, particularly within service organisations, that means looking considerably deeper than someone's job title.

At Raw Selection, these are some of the key areas we assess:

• Revenue growth: They can demonstrate how they personally drove revenue growth rather than taking credit for initiatives driven by head office.
• EBITDA growth: They understand exactly what drove EBITDA improvement and what they personally controlled.
• Organic growth: They can grow the existing operation rather than depending entirely on acquisitions.
• M&A experience: Where relevant, they understand how acquisitions contribute to the growth strategy.
• Exit experience: They have experienced the demands associated with taking a PE-backed business towards exit.
• Private Equity-backed experience: They understand the pace and accountability expected by investors.
• Full P&L ownership: They have genuine responsibility for the financial performance of the business.
• Average ticket-size growth: They understand how to increase the value generated from each customer.
• Understands conversion ratios: They know the key conversion metrics within the business and how to improve them.
• Understands gross margin: They know what drives gross margin and how operational and commercial decisions affect it.
• Understands business constraints: They can clearly identify the problems preventing the organisation from growing.
• Sets meaningful KPIs: They know which metrics their teams should be measured against and why.
• Allied-services expansion experience: Where relevant, they have experience expanding into services such as electrical or plumbing.
• Understands technician commission models: They know how compensation structures influence behaviour and performance.
• Knows how to hire great talent: They can identify and attract the people required to grow the operation.
• Builds strong management teams: They do not attempt to personally control every aspect of the business.
• Strong customer-review performance: For residential businesses, a Google review rating of 4.2+ can be an important indicator to investigate alongside the wider operating performance.

With General Managers, the critical part is understanding what they personally drove.

A candidate may have worked inside a rapidly growing business, but that does not automatically mean they caused that growth.

For a detailed explanation of each trait and how we assess General Managers against them, watch the full video: