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Founder of the Month: Ahmad Popalyar of Succession Executive Search 11-4-25
00:23:05
In this episode, Ahmad Popalyar, Founder and CEO of Succession Executive Search, shares insights into how his firm is transforming the executive recruiting landscape with a market-driven, performance-focused approach. He discusses key hiring trends,
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We are thrilled today to be joined by our Founder of the Month. We're joined today by Ahmad Popular and Ahmad has founded a search firm called Succession Executive Search. He's a brilliant leader and we are so thrilled to get to visit with him. Today we'll talk about hiring, market trends, leadership fit and a lot more. Ahmad, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us about your firm?
- [00:32]
B
Absolutely. Thanks Scott for having us. We're very excited to be on the Becker Pride Equity Podcast. Well, our business is a little bit different than traditional executive search firms as we're market centric. So we're moving front office executive search when the market shows a candidate versus a traditional opening or when a vacancy occurs or when a candidate leaves a business. So we, we're opportunistically developing bespoke opportunities for our clients to either generate alpha or to raise capital across the market, whether it's private credit, private equity, real estate or infrastructure. So our business is a little bit different as we use a media platform a little bit similar to the Becker podcast where we know of a candidate through our posts and our content through LinkedIn and we're a top voice of 27,000 followers. That helps us to see that, hey, look, this candidate from Goldman who generates 100 million in alpha is available versus traditional firms that only work on searches when a position opens up. So we make our candidates and clients a little more opportunistic in the market where we're giving you an opportunity to add 100 million in Alpha in your business whether you have an opening or not. Most of our businesses are, let's say between 50 to $400 million in enterprise value, mostly founder backed, lacks a little bit of sophistication, usually needs a CFO or coo, but quite a bit of handholding through the recruitment processes. This is their first CFO they're paying 500,000 plus to plus giving them ownership in their business. So the reason we built succession was that we noticed in the market quite a bit of the market was trying to fill with resumes versus off paper qualities. And this person get me a better multiple. Can this person increase my ebitda? Can this person keep my employees that are top performers? And so the way we built it was really focused on from a market perspective, finding the right types of advisors and partners to help this founder that could get to be a $7, $8 billion valuation, but just doesn't have the sophistication to even know how to interview a cfo.
- [02:36]
A
But I think that's brilliant. It really almost becomes a candidate first type of approach. Finding the right brilliant person that could add value to something and then fitting to the right organization. I just think that's brilliant. Talk a little bit about Ahmad, the art of great hires. So you've built this reputation for matching great people, often opportunistically with great organizations and really helping those organizations excel. What separates a great hire from truly a good one? And I love the approach you've talked about so far. So how do you sort of separate great versus good? And I see when you go through tons of resumes, you know, with just good hires, you know, people that fill a spot. If you find great people, then fit them in. Fit. Fantastic. Talk to us about your philosophy and separating great from good.
- [03:22]
B
Thanks, guy. So we actually interviewed, I interviewed with a few of my competitors before actually opening up succession and building it. What I noticed is they would have these booklets of like 50 to 75 candidates and all of them look beautiful on paper. But what I realized was is that from a candidate perspective, either they're saving you $100 million or they're making you $100 million. Right. And so if I have five candidates that can do those two things for your business, I'm going to add a lot of value very quickly. But what happened was, is recruiting really, if you look across the market, hasn't really changed in 1956. People are either faxing you back in the day resumes or now they're emailing you resumes. But the off paper component is that if you have 10 female executives sitting on a board, I should be able to know the top four immediately. Where the traditional recruiting process doesn't add that value added it makes me happy. And for I'd say being a little bit greedy, the better that person is in terms of adding value and impact in terms of enterprise value or EBITDA or making sure that they attract the right folks. Like we just place a female executive at a $700 million business. Her first hire was a person that could add $350 million in new enterprise value to the business through a business unit. Carval, they never even thought of it that way. Right. So the person, the impact has to be there in the next six to 12 months. And my goal always is that if they pay for themselves, it's going to not only help succession, but also help the firm from a value creation perspective. So it almost became a little bit more of an operational private equity investor versus a recruiter because the more value we add. The operating partner sees it, the chairman of the board, that private equity fund or private credit fund sees it. So the impact is really, really key. But a lot of folks want to get the right hire, the right pedigree. We're only focused on performance. And so that's the big thing that I think we've established is that we only know the top 1%. You might have all the Harvard, Wharton resumes that you want, but that was our big key focus, is if that person can't add $100 million or save you $100 million, it's probably not our candidate.
- [05:29]
A
It's an amazing, amazing perspective. Talk about some of the trends you're watching in hiring right now, especially across sort of PE act, private credit or growth stage companies. What are some of the trends that you're watching?
- [05:42]
B
Well, we got a few. So one, the baby boomer scenario is super confusing. A lot of folks should be retiring at that 60, 70 year old type scenarios. What's happening though is that they're staying on board from a board advisor perspective or staying on forever. And a lot of these private equ firms don't have the management fees to support labor cost. Two, a lot of them, if they do leave, it creates a key man aperture risk for the LPs that are putting capital like oh, John, Bill or Don leaving, right. So now the LP gets spooked that their most senior guy, who should be, I'd say retiring out now, has to stay on board even if they do want to retire out. Valuations have been tricky right now I think three, in terms of the market, mainly because credit's so expensive, it's really hard to get a realization. Just to give you a sense, in 23 we did 47 CFO searches, in 24 we did four. Right. And so you can just see a market trend of how capital is so expensive and it's so hard to get a realization. And a lot of these guys have been in some of their portfolio companies now six, seven, eight years. And the funny story is that the longer you stay in that specific investment, the closer you come back to the par number that you paid for it. So it's a tricky market. And then you've got a confusing conflating scenario of AI and software being in the same demographic. So private equity is trying to get big multiples for AI type businesses, but they're really veiled or I'd say more like software businesses. And so it's very tricky because a lot of them don't have the right management in place. Like my average age for an AI executive across private equity is 27 years old. Right. They have a great company, they have very thoughtful innovation. But they don't have a coo, they don't have a cfo, they don't know how to commercially go after enterprise. So there's a lot of hand holding meeting and something we do at successions, we call it the adult in the room. We put board advisors of actually scale AI startups, software startups, but in private equity that's the big problem is they're usually used to a very sophisticated operator and now they're investing in AI. And I think they're pretty surprised that the caliber of person in terms of smarts is there but operational ability is lacking pretty as it's pretty big in terms of the delta in terms of how long they'll need. But biggest thing we've been doing is placing board members that can handle these guys through carve outs additions, especially partnerships where like an OpenAI calls them and it's not the right pricing. That founder sometimes gets overtly frustrated and sometimes uses the wrong communication and then loses an open AI as a partnership. So. So those are the three or four things we're seeing in private equity that I think is going to affect the market quite a bit. But the baby boomer scenario, I mean we hear it loud and clear from our private equity and private credit clients.
- [08:35]
A
I think that's just absolutely fascinating and you see this all over the board and your point on the longer hold times almost always lead you back to par or closer to it is so right on. I think that's just right on and brilliant. Especially in this market where many people have had investments for a much longer period of time than they expected because the exit market has also been challenging. Let me talk to you for a second about advice for founders and CEOs. If you're a founder or a CEO, building leadership teams talk about the common mistakes you see and also advice that you would give to founders on building leadership teams.
- [09:10]
B
Absolutely. So the only two things that always care about with founders and CEOs is is do you have your revenue planned out for the next 16 to 24 months and do you have your hires strategically planned out for the next 16 to 24 months? If you have neither, you're not striking at any target. Let me explain. So from an executive search perspective, if you had three commercial guys that could add 50 to 75 million dollars in your business, why aren't you actively recruiting those type of candidates? To help you with your ebitda. It also releases a lot of smoke in terms of being able to exit the business. Oh, they're adding 60, 70, $80 million in revenue. We have a business right now that's 50 million in EBITDA. We're taking them to 200 million in EBITDA, and all we're adding is commercial guys that can add 20 to $50 million in new value to the business. And now they've scheduled it with us till December of next year. So that's the biggest thing I tell a founder or CEOs. Understand the scheduling of your hires. Don't just hire when you know there's a fire. Hire when you can build out a garden. It's really important because I'll look at some of the sales organizations. We just looked at one, and they're getting 20 times EBITDA and the guy's like, we're doing great. I was like, yes, but you could get 25, 30 times EBITDA if you just had a thoughtful scenario in terms of scheduling planning. And you can do it behind new budgets. But most folks don't strategically schedule out their hires. And then from a revenue perspective, a lot of folks, they are hoping that they hit the same arrs, but they're not looking at margin expansion. They're not looking at, hey, this CFO could take $100 million in redundancies out of our business. We get a better multiple if we got a better board in place that focused on helping us restructure the business. They're very focused on just revenue and ebitda. And the markets change now where the business doesn't even have to generate any alpha for someone to buy it. But CEOs and founders can make it easy on themselves as they planned out their revenue, then strategically hired the next 12 to 16 months, even though it looks like it's a cost. Funny enough, we just place someone who's gonna add 100 million EBITDA to a business who's three times more expensive than their sales org. However, he's gonna cut out 35% of their sales org. That's redundant and save them $17 million. So a lot of folks think of hiring is cost, but you got to think of hiring as reducing redundancy, then generating better margins for your business.
- [11:35]
A
It's literally a brilliant perspective. And so in often that I hear that perspective really looking for A plus people that can make a big difference, and then it could help you grow or save regardless, depending on what you're trying to really do. With that person. But really or both, quite frankly. Talk a little bit about when you look at intangibles or special qualities, are there special qualities you look at in people in terms of signaling to you? Yes. This person could have long term success or be a real player.
- [12:06]
B
Yes. And I think a lot of people associate it to drive or hunger. But I think the biggest thing that we see, and it's really simple and you'll laugh, Scott, but it's writing and speaking in person. And we call it the analytical cheerleader. And so the person who can break down the numbers and then explain it to the team, whether good news or bad news, this person from a front office perspective is not is always crushing it one, but two is always wanted across the market. And going back to our previous point, this person has 7 or 8 offers always available to them from other competitors or opportunistically. People are looking for them all the time. We call it the analytical cheerleader. Can this person communicate in person? Tough times. Some of our businesses are in special situations and it's got, you know, debt for control type scenarios of those sometimes get tend to be nasty. Right? So having like the right board member that's been around the block understands how to explain these type of scenarios and knows how to grab a hose and fight the fire. Because some of these folks have never been through a debt for control over a special situation or opportunistic credit where it's a little shaky in terms of the business and the financial. So someone who can weather the storm comfortably but then also say, hey, here's the plan in terms of what we're going to do next. And I've been on now 25 debt for control type deals and I'm pretty comfortable with the fire where I just had an analyst from Greenhill working with us on a deal. He's 27 years old and he was like, my head's about to fall off. Ahmad, this is crazy how many things are going on at once. And I said, this is what you got to temper yourself to because this is what a normal basketball game is like in special situations and debt for control. So the big key for us is, you know, is that person have that board level polish where they can steer the committee in a way where they're going to get back on the right scenario. And we worked on the Vice media deal and they were very focused on traditional media and they needed to get to the digital route. And part of our thought process was is digital is new revenue, Traditional media is losing revenue. And it was Hard at first because they didn't like it. But I think more and more they heard about it. They said, okay, now that we have someone that's been through multiple restructurings, now we can actually work with someone that actually can lay the groundwork for us to get back to profitability. And I think last February they finally got back to profitability. But long story short, those are the type of scenarios where we like the executive that can go into the fire and communicate what they need to do. And I'd say is battle tested. Super big for us to find battle tested candidates. And then the big part for us is we're actually asking the middle market investment banker, Scott, the attorney or the investor if the person's good or not and if they've been through some fires. But before we actually choose them to come grab the hose and put the fire out with us, we know they're battle tested, which is super important for us. And I'd rather have someone that's been battle tested with no pedigree, because I know I'm going to get performance. And I was ex military and I always called up my battle buddy, like, if him and I are going to war, her and I are going to war. Like, I'd rather have that person that's battle tested versus the person who got the straight A's, especially in some of these scenarios that are very tricky, especially with family scenarios where aunts and uncles get involved with these family offices.
- [15:14]
A
Thank you very, very much. And I think just fascinating. And talk for a second about that, because in this world of information overload, that ability to be calm and to get things done and to write and speak clearly under pressure is so important, isn't it?
- [15:34]
B
I actually had an executive who had me talk to his daughter and she was going to Notre Dame and she was top of her class. And he's like, she's killing it in finance. I was like, okay. He said, but she wants to be a CEO of a company and be entrepreneurial. I was like, okay. So he sent me some of her written communication and then I talked to her over Zoom. And she really struggled with written communication. And through Zoom, you know, she wasn't confident. There's some issues. So I coached her through it. Now, you know, she's in month three and she sounds like a superstar, right? She goes, I'm really glad that I just didn't focus on my grades. I really focused on myself and how I look. And, you know, like, for example, she didn't have good posture. She didn't sound very Confident in herself. So simple things that we just kind of sat down with her and helped her through. But those are the things we even tell, like some of our execs, like, this is how it helped your kids in terms of getting them to the next level. And it's not, hey, they had to go to Wharton or I had to pay Harvard Business School tuition, right? Most of it is just simple tangibles that you can sit down and work with them. And I always tell them, like, give them a really complicated deal and help them, I'd say, or think through how to get out of that deal if they got themselves into a bad scenario and they'll get better at it. Better at it, better at it. And they'll start figuring out, hey, look, this is not my first game of chess. I've been battle tested now, and I've been pushed. But most times in America, a lot of times in the U.S. folks spend a lot of time on pedigree and smarts, but not enough on communication, hustle, thoughtfulness, even posture. How you present like, it's just become a monster for us. Because ironically, if you went to Harvard Business School, you're slouching and you can't communicate. Someone from a Big Ten school is going to beat you if they can present better than you and are more articulate, right? Even if they had worse grades than you, it doesn't matter anymore, right? I'd rather have the more polished, thoughtful guy that went to a Big Ten school than pedigree. Right? And that's been a big change. Not that I'm saying the pedigree guys don't have it. It's just if I had to pick, and it was a tiebreaker, I definitely picked the person with no pedigree. You can communicate 100%.
- [17:35]
A
And we've seen more and more of that. It seems like this year I've seen more and more of that where I'm talking to people coming out of elite programs that are obviously brilliant analytically but have a real weakness in communication skills. And if you don't have both, and this is where you come from, an elite school, you've got to have people that are articulate, that could speak and could write, not just do well on test and not just score well, but also have that drive as well, the whole mix of qualities. And I see so much what you're talking about, I can't even tell you. I've got so many examples in mind of exactly what you're talking about. Talk for one second about the executive search landscape, how it's evolving with technology. You've mentioned generational change, some shifting expectations around leadership and culture. Any thoughts on what you see in the future?
- [18:28]
B
Yeah, thanks, Scott. So one thing that we're seeing, so we just built an AI that basically vacuums all the compensation data globally for private equity, private credit. Now, five years ago, I'd have no clue what a candidate in Japan that's an investment banking analyst at Greenhill would make right now. I know what the candidate makes in Hong Kong. I know what the candidate makes in London. Now I know what candidate makes in New York. Now you're like, who cares? Well, a candidate is making 100 to 200 million or 300 million in Alpha for you and you don't have the right comp data and you lose that person to a competitor, right? It's not going to make you very happy. So first AI technology is making compensation data very, very fast. And then two, from a recruiting perspective, the bigger firms that had the technology had the revenue. Now smaller boutiques can be very dangerous in terms of getting front office folks working with the right types of alpha generators. We just didn't have this type of advantage, right? I wanted to say small, like sub 10 people, but really focus on being alpha oriented or fundraising oriented. And I didn't feel like I had an advantage until about the last 18 months where we became super users with chat and AI and built our own little AI because a lot of our clients like, what do you think this person should get paid? And we saw these surveys and one was like one candidate made a million. It's the same competitor, the Same candidate make 10 million, right? So how do you get an aggregate value or how do you know how to offer that person comp. So the compensation scenario was change speed, the markets really change. So no one wants to do a six month dog and pony show. If you can get that candidate between 48 to 96 hours or quicker, people want to move faster than they did say five to 10 years ago. And so that's been the big change, is that you have a fire. We just can't wait six months to put the fire out. They want it immediately, especially in lower middle market private equity. And it's getting there. Middle market, private equity. But lower middle market has a lot of issues in terms of just sophistication. They're usually generally very profitable. But the problem is, is that, you know, one of our opportunities, we have a bookkeeper who's been doing the books for 25 years, right? So like they need to sophisticate their businesses. And so the two biggest things is that I think the, I think that the data is going to be really valuable in the next three or four years. You just saw prequel a few years ago get bought for 3 billion by BlackRock. But I think human capital compensation is going to be the next frontier. How do I pay this person? And then the biggest thing is how do I retain this person? Right? Because everybody is looking at Michael Jordan if that's one of your top stars in your firm and they're always trying to get them. So what can I do to handcuff this person? Right? I was just talking to a candidate, Kirkland the other day. Like I got 47 calls this week to move, right? He's a seven million dollar book. He looks great in person. But Kirkland's done everything they can to handcuff him and done a great job. So even if I try to move them or another recruiter try to move them, you got to think through, hey, we just brought this person on board. Not only is it important to secure them, but now we have to retain them because everybody is looking for that type of high caliber candidate is simply amazing.
- [21:41]
A
And tell us Ahmad work people more about you and succession Executive Search.
- [21:48]
B
Well, you can follow us on LinkedIn with our 27,000 followers. Ahmad popular we post twice a week about either compensation or or career advice. Our shtick is that we want to make sure it's funny but we only target the top 1% globally. This has created a very interesting scenarios. We just hit 50 million views last week, Scott and so we thought a media driven scenario. We call ourselves a media company that does executive search. We're not really an executive search firm. That's traditional because 99% of our intel comes from or me and you meeting each other came from media. Right. And all my great contacts that come from media. So that media creates a little bit of a whirlwind in terms of opportunities for us. So they can look us up at Modpoip. We are on LinkedIn and then succession executive search.com we would love to have a conversation with them.
- [22:43]
A
Just fantastic. Ahmad, what a pleasure to visit with you on here. I know. What a chance to meet you in person. What a great pleasure. Again, Founder of the month Ahmad Popular Just fantastic. Chairman and CEO of Succession Executive Search. Thank you for joining us today.
- [23:01]
B
Thank you so much Scott. Appreciate it.