Private Equity: What Founders Need to Know

Who should attend

Founders and family business owners

Module dates:

Autumn 2026

Format

4 modules

Program co-created with ROPEA

Your business is growing, but the next stage demands more than entrepreneurial instinct. It requires capital with purpose, stronger systems, and leadership that can scale beyond you.

At this stage of growth, entrepreneurs are often introduced to several capital options, including bank financing, venture capital, and private equity, among others. Each comes with different implications, timelines, and expectations. Private equity is often mentioned among these options, yet it remains widely misunderstood. Unlike venture capital, which often supports very fast growth in the early stages of a business, accepting high uncertainty in exchange for potentially high returns, private equity is not centered on speed or experimentation. It focuses on disciplined value creation, operational rigor, and long-term partnership.

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

You will be in the same room with other entrepreneurs navigating similar moments, in open conversation with professionals who bring real, hands-on experience across private capital and growth journeys.

Participants 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.

This program is right for you if:

Your company has proven real market demand and is already profitable, but the next stage feels more complex than the last.
You sense that future growth will likely require outside capital.
You are curious about private equity and want to understand what it really means, before it becomes a real decision.
You want to be an informed founder, able to assess investors, deal structures, and expectations.
You are open to reflecting on how your role as a founder may change as the company grows with private capital.

Download the brochure

What you will learn

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 and Power

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 organisation, especially during periods of rapid growth.

Module 4: Managing the Company at the Next Stage

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 organisation 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 Intent

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.

Who should attend

This program is designed for founders and family business owners preparing to engage with growth capital and seeking greater clarity on ownership, leadership, and organisational readiness for scale.

Becoming part of a community

Our programs create the conditions for real connection. They help people and organizations deepen existing relationships, while making space for new ones to form. Participants leave not just with contacts, but with lasting professional relationships and genuine friendships.

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.

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.

Lecturers

Alexandra Florea is an investment professional with almost 25 years’ experience in international M&A and an in-depth, holistic understanding of the private investments ecosystem. She started her career as an M&A lawyer focusing on Central and South-East Europe, initially at Linklaters and then as a private equity partner with CMS Cameron McKenna, where she covered both cross-border private equity-backed M&A and fund structuring and set-up.

Following her MBA from London Business School (2014, distinction), she moved to the investment side and has since been involved in several growth and buyout investments in geographies ranging from CEE/SEE to Israel, Western Europe and India.

During her MBA studies, Alexandra also obtained a coaching qualification from the NeuroLeadership Institute in London. Since then, she has combined her work in private equity with supporting high-performing professionals and entrepreneurs through coaching, helping them pursue ambitious goals while remaining aligned with their values.

Currently based in Vienna, Alexandra maintains an active connection to the CEE start-up scene and is involved in several educational and training programs for start-up founders and young entrepreneurs in Romania, Austria and the Netherlands as a lecturer, trainer and mentor.

For the past 15 years, she has combined this demanding career with motherhood, a balancing act that has fuelled a lifelong fascination with how one can build a fulfilling career alongside a thriving personal life.

Andrei Bica is a senior finance and transformation executive with over two decades of experience leading complex organisations through growth, integration, and large-scale change. He joined Profi five years ago as Chief Financial Officer, progressively expanding his responsibilities to include IT, Digital and Cybersecurity, currently also embedding the CTO role.

Andrei believes that sustainable competitive advantage comes from staying ahead of technological and data-driven trends, and from applying innovation pragmatically to deliver better outcomes for customers, employees and business partners.

Starting from 2025, Andrei further broadened his scope by assuming the role of Chief Transformation & Integration Officer for Ahold Delhaize in Romania, where he leads organisational transformation, business momentum, and the delivery of integration synergies following major strategic transactions. He is a strong advocate of data-driven decision making, combining forward-looking business intelligence with disciplined learning from past performance. In his work, he actively integrates process automation, advanced forecasting and ordering, and AI-based personalisation to drive operational excellence and scalable value creation. Previously, Andrei served as Deputy CFO at Telekom, Finance Director at Vodafone, and held senior roles with METRO, PwC and Saatchi. Across these roles, he has built a proven track record in M&A, finance leadership, IT and cybersecurity oversight, and enterprise transformation, consistently improving EBITDA, cash performance, and long-term business resilience across multiple markets.

His family is his main source of motivation and balance. He values teamwork and collaboration, and believes in building sustainable results through collective effort, continuous learning, and thoughtful use of technology.

Adrian Stanciu is a highly experienced senior professional with a diverse background as an entrepreneur, corporate executive, consultant, and coach. He has successfully led major change programs for both large and medium-sized Romanian clients.

As the founder and, for many years, managing partner of Human Synergistics Romania, Adrian specializes in diagnosing and managing corporate culture, change management, organizational development, and leadership training. His extensive experience and expertise enable him to drive transformative change and cultivate high-performing organizational cultures.

Sergiu Neguț is an Endeavor Entrepreneur from Romania and the co-founder of FintechOS (fintechos.com), the AI Product Engine for Banking and Insurance. The company employs over 250 people across London, New York, and Bucharest. At FintechOS, Sergiu has coordinated VC-backed fundraising of over US$100 million over the past five years and serves as a board member, with responsibility for corporate strategy.

In addition to his entrepreneurial role, Sergiu is an angel investor, speaker, and lecturer. He co-founded Cleverage.vc, a healthtech investment company. An INSEAD MBA graduate, he is deeply interested in entrepreneurship and education. Sergiu serves as Associate Dean for Entrepreneurial Growth and as a Strategy Lecturer at Bucharest International School of Management (bism.ro). He is also the President of Romanian Business Leaders (rbls.ro).

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.

Location: Dacia Boulevard, 3rd floor.

Who should attend

Module dates:

Format

Program co-created with ROPEA