Private Equity: What Founders Need to Know

Private Equity: What Founders Need to Know  is a four-day, in-person executive program co-created by ROPEA and BISM for founders preparing to raise growth capital.

This program is designed as a foundational step for founders considering, or already engaging in, a private equity partnership. It helps them clarify how private equity fits the next phase of growth, and what will change at a strategic, organizational, and personal level as they move forward.

Participants will gain practical insight into investor logic, value drivers, deal structures, governance expectations, and what truly changes after investment, leaving with clarity, confidence, and a grounded go or no-go decision on private equity.

 

Who is this program for:

• Entrepreneurs or founders whose companies have proven market demand and are already profitable, but for whom the next stage of growth feels more complex than the previous one.
• Entrepreneurs or founders who recognize that scaling the business will likely require external capital.
• Entrepreneurs or founders who are curious about private equity and want to understand what it involves before it becomes a real decision.
• Entrepreneurs or founders who want to be informed and able to assess investors, deal structures and expectations.
• Entrepreneurs or founders who are open to reflecting on how their role may evolve as the company grows with private capital.

Program description

Module 1 – Understanding Growth Capital

One and a half days, with Alexandra Florea

• Clarify personal and business objectives, deal preferences, and overall readiness for a transaction, including an explicit examination of emotional drivers behind a potential exit and a structured overview of available deal options.
• Understand the investor landscape including strategic buyers, private equity, and family offices, how investment funds are structured, the pressures and incentives they operate under, and how valuation is assessed in practice.
• Evaluate alternative deal structures and core transaction documents, focusing on the contractual terms that shape control, economics, governance, and the founder’s role after the transaction.
• Prepare for negotiations by defining clear priorities and trade-offs, aligning personal objectives with long-term value creation, and understanding how the business and leadership model must evolve post-investment.

Module 2 – Financial Insight for Strategic Decisions

Half day, with Andrei Bica

• Learn how investors, boards, and finance leaders read your company’s financials when growth capital or a transaction is on the table.
• Understand which financial signals truly matter in high-stakes situations, from revenue quality and margins to unit economics, cash flow discipline, and capital efficiency.
• See how these metrics are scrutinized during due diligence and investment committees, and how they shape valuation ranges, deal structures, and negotiation leverage.
• Build the financial clarity and confidence needed to anticipate investor questions, engage credibly in discussions, and make decisions that support sustainable long-term value, not just headline growth.

 

Module 3 – Leadership Patterns That Shape Growth

Half day, with Adrian Stanciu

• Identify patterns in decision-making, collaboration, and negotiation that either enable speed and execution discipline or create bottlenecks and misalignment.
• Understand how most patterns trace back to the way founders choose to deal with the use and distribution of power.
• Learn what power really is, how it works, and how it can make or break an organization, especially during periods of rapid growth.

 

Module 4 – Ready for the Next Level: Succession and Senior Talent Integration

Full day, with Sergiu Neguț

• Identify and strengthen opportunities for value creation.
• Set long-term strategic objectives and plan effectively for succession.
• Manage the transition from a founder-centric organization to a scalable and sustainable leadership system.
• Understand how key stakeholders and governance structures evolve as the organisation matures and adopts more structured growth.
• Learn how to sustain and accelerate growth throughout the transition process.

 

Module 5 – Founder Clarity and Intentional Leadership

Half day, with Alexandra Florea

• Clarify personal objectives, priorities, and sense of responsibility as the founder role evolves.
• Reflect intentionally on how to approach the next stage of the journey, integrating insights from across the program into clear personal direction.
• Define clear future intent aligned with long-term personal and professional goals.

 

Experience and format

The program is delivered in person over four days and combines interactive discussions, expert insights, reflective work and advanced practitioner perspectives.

Participants engage with multiple viewpoints while progressing through a structured journey designed to build clarity, confidence and readiness for growth capital engagement.

 

The program is delivered in Romanian. In exceptional cases involving participants who do not speak Romanian, it will be delivered in English, and all participants will be notified in advance.

 

Course Calendar

The program takes place over four in-person days on 6 – 7 March and 20 – 21 March.

Friday sessions run from 14:00 to 21:00, and Saturday sessions from 9:00 to 16:00.

 

Fee: 2750 EURO + TVA

• 25% discount for BISM students and alumni & ROPEA members*
• 20% discount for CEO Clubs, Impact HUB, RBL, Level 20, Entrepreneurship Academy, Endeavor, Impact Hub & Womanity

💾 Download Brochure