PE Operators Table

Invite only. Sponsor gated.

Most companies are moving fast on AI. Few are getting anywhere. Only 7% of portfolio companies have reached real, enterprise-scale deployment. The ones who succeed aren't the ones who adopted first. They're the ones who had someone further along to learn from. That's why this table exists: not to move faster alone, but to get there together, with operators willing to share what worked, what failed, and why. This isn't built for people looking to take without giving back.

43%
of portfolio companies still aren't using AI in any meaningful way
FTI, 2026 PE AI Radar
7%
have reached real, enterprise-scale AI deployment
FTI, 2026 PE AI Radar
65%
of AI programs that do launch beat their own targets
FTI, 2026 PE AI Radar
Why I'm building this

The room I needed didn't exist. So I'm building it.

M
Mannan
Founder, PE Operators Table. President and co-founder, Tintash.

My interest in this space peaked as my team completed a year of working with a mega-fund backed company on their AI workflows. As the insights piled up, I wanted a place to pressure-test them safely, and to learn more. I couldn't find a community built around that, so I'm building one: a safe space to learn, not a place to prove yourself. I'm a Tintash co-founder, and this table isn't a funnel. Vendors don't pitch here, including us. We're here to build relationships, and to find and learn from one another.

No pitch. No funnel. Just a safe space to learn, together.
AI maturity

Where most companies actually are

Waiting for AI to slow down isn't a strategy. It's how you lose. The real risk was never the model catching up to replace you. It's the competitor pairing domain experts with FDEs on the actual workflow, iterating toward AI-WUF (Workflow-User Fit, the point where the tool actually matches how the work gets done), building an edge you can't buy off the shelf. The model is the same for everyone. What isn't: who already knows how to use it, and is moving with increasing momentum toward the workflow architecture that gets maximum efficiency gains. Enabling the humans who own the relationships, that's the real moat.

BCG names three stages on the way there. Most companies stall at the first, "Deploy" stage.

You already know which stage you're stuck at. The room is where you find out how someone else got unstuck.

Stage one

Deploy

Licenses handed out, pilots launched, the org chart untouched. Everyone has the tools. Almost nothing about how work gets done has actually changed.

Stage two

Reshape

The workflow gets rebuilt around the tool, not bolted onto it. Headcount stops growing with volume. Cycle time actually drops. This is where the EBITDA case gets made, and where most operators are figuring it out alone.

Stage three

Invent

AI sits inside the decision, not next to it. Very few companies have gotten here. The table exists to close that distance faster than you'd close it alone.

The Problems We Hear

From operators inside portfolio companies

  • EBITDA pressure with no room to add headcount
  • Legacy systems and manual workflows that can't scale with growth targets
  • No bandwidth to experiment with AI while running the business day to day
  • Compliance and document-heavy operations that grow linearly with volume
  • Vetting technology partners who actually understand PE timelines
  • Building the AI strategy alone, with no peer to stress-test it against

From PE firm operating partners and value creation leads

  • No standard playbook for AI across the portfolio
  • Operating partners stretched thin across too many companies
  • Value creation plans that stall at execution, not strategy
  • 13,325 unsold US portfolio companies as of May, and 11 years to clear at the current pace, even with a strong IPO market open
  • No way to benchmark one portfolio company's progress against another's
  • Diligence-readiness questions with no consistent answer across the fund

PitchBook, as of May 2026

What to expect

Three things, no filler.

01

Monthly roundtables, six to eight seats

One real problem, worked through by people carrying the same pressure. Not a panel.

02

Lightning talks

Ten to fifteen minutes. One operator, one story. What worked, what didn't, and why.

03

A running group between sessions

A private room to keep talking. The conversation doesn't stop when the roundtable ends.

Who this is for

A seat is earned by fit and sharing, not by title alone.

Institutional backing is the floor. Ownership of the problem is the fit. Sharing is the seat.

Operators, executives, and CXOs at companies backed by established PE firms, roughly $100–500M in revenue, who personally own the AI-driven operational transformation and answer for it to the board.

Operating partners and value creation leads at the funds behind those companies.

Willing to share what worked, and what didn't. That's the price of the seat.

×

Independent sponsors, family offices, or bootstrapped companies. A different room, not this one.

×

Vendors or anyone selling into the room. No exceptions, including us.

×

Anyone who wants to observe without contributing.

Chatham House rules, always. What's said at the table stays at the table.
Our advisers

Shaped by people who've been in the seat.

This table will be shaped by operators who've actually run PE-backed companies and built operational capability under PE ownership.

Watch this space. Advisers will be announced soon.

Request an invitation.