Welcome to our 2025 Private Equity–Backed Chief Executive Officer Compensation Survey, which gathered compensation data on 437 CEOs from Canada, continental Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We explore compensation trends for CEOs looking at demographics and compensation for these professionals.

This report is part of a long-standing series of compensation surveys focusing on private equity investment and operating professionals, as well as PE-backed chief financial officers. The goal of the reports is to provide a comprehensive picture of the compensation that key executives currently receive in PE firms and portfolio companies.

We hope you enjoy reading the report, and we welcome suggestions, so please feel free to contact us with questions and comments.

Methodology

In an online survey, we asked participants to provide their base compensation for 2025, as well as the value of cash bonuses and equity they received in 2024. CEOs also provided information on their companies, the PE firms backing them, and their own gender. All data collected is self-reported and has been aggregated. All compensation figures in tables and charts are reported in USD thousands.

Market context

While private capital firms have raised unprecedented amounts of capital in recent years, a challenging deal environment has limited deployment. Valuation misalignment, muted IPO activity, and a quieter strategic market have suppressed transaction volume, even as abundant capital remains, creating pressure within aging portfolios. Many portfolio companies face stretched timelines and execution challenges due to post-COVID market shifts, evolving tariffs, and previously optimistic value creation assumptions.

In this environment, human capital has emerged as a primary lever for value creation. With limited ability to rely on multiple expansion or new deals, sponsors increasingly depend on leadership quality to drive operational improvement. Experience over the past several years has reinforced that mid-hold management changes can erode value if executed poorly, elevating the importance of selecting the right leadership early.

Accordingly, investors have increasingly focused on existing relationships, placing greater emphasis on CEO effectiveness to accelerate performance within existing theses or, in more extreme cases, to reset value creation strategies entirely. Where management teams are perceived to have exhausted their ability to unlock value, change has become preferable to simply extending hold periods. This explains the substantial portion of recent executive turnover driven by performance considerations rather than new acquisitions.

Looking ahead, we anticipate a gradual improvement in deal activity, supported by reopening IPO markets, more active strategic buyers, and a convergence of valuation expectations. As exit channels reopen, some transactions will reflect performance gains from management team changes, while others will result from broader market dynamics. We anticipate that these will collectively drive higher transaction volume and redeployment of capital. This trend is reinforced by the substantial amount of undeployed private capital nearing the end of its investment window.

Executive search activity reflects these dynamics. While deal volume has declined meaningfully from peak levels, CEO placement activity has remained comparatively resilient, underscoring sponsors’ focus on optimizing existing assets. We anticipate that, as new deal activity recovers, executive hiring will increasingly be tied to new acquisitions rather than performance-driven replacements, supporting higher overall demand for leadership talent across PE portfolios.

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About the authors

Gustavo Alba (galba@heidrick.com) is co-global managing partner of the Private Capital Practice; he is based in the Miami and New York City offices.

Stephen Schwanhausser (sschwanhausser@heidrick.com) is co-global managing partner of the Private Capital Practice; he is based in the Stamford office.

Jeffery Sanders (jsanders@heidrick.com) is a vice chair and co-managing partner of the global CEO & Board of Directors Practice; he is based in the New York City office.