Jimmy Holloran: Talent Partner at American Industrial Partners on Why Talent Strategy Is the Engine of Value Creation in Private Equity

How AIP is embedding human capital into their process, scaling high-impact CEOs, operationalizing talent strategy as a core lever, and building infrastructure for Talent 3.0

Before Jimmy Holloran was leading talent strategy for a $16B private equity powerhouse, his path ran through classrooms, consultancies, portfolio companies, and boardrooms—and, in the very early days, behind the bar at his family’s Irish pub in St. Louis.

It was an education in its own right: reading people, moving fast, leading with service.

Today, as Talent Partner at American Industrial Partners (AIP), Jimmy is reshaping what it means to drive value through people.

He built the firm’s talent function from the ground up, advancing it from Talent 1.0 (better hiring, structured feedback), to Talent 2.0 (proactive leadership development, early diligence, a repeatable CEO playbook). Now, he’s laying the groundwork for Talent 3.0: a full-cycle leadership engine anchored by the Alpha Lab to grow and promote the next generation of C-suite talent.

His path was anything but linear, but in hindsight, the throughline is clear. Jimmy knows how to spot, support, and scale exceptional leadership. From telecom sales and sixth-grade math classrooms to Bain strategy decks to scaling Home Chef (L Catterton-backed), to leading talent at ParkerGale (a software-focused, operator-led PE firm), he’s spent a career learning how people power performance.

"If you want to drive returns, you don't just need strategy," he says. "You need exceptional leadership in every seat."

Now, he’s turning that idea into infrastructure, embedding talent into the center of value creation and proving that who you hire, how you enable them, and how early you start isn’t just a support function. It’s a core lever for accelerating portfolio company performance.

Whether you're a Talent Partner, Operating Partner, or Head of Portfolio Operations looking to drive enterprise value through leadership, this episode delivers practical takeaways you can apply across your firm and portfolio.

Listen to the full episode with Jimmy Holloran on the Brilliant People Podcast:

Translating across the table

Jimmy’s credibility comes from sitting at the three tables that matter most in value creation: consulting, operating, and investing.

• Consulting taught him how to bring structure to ambiguity.
• Operating gave him empathy for chaos and insight into what's actually executable.
  
• Private equity demands discipline and focus on what truly moves the needle.
  

“All businesses are loosely functioning disasters. Some are profitable despite it,” Jimmy says, quoting Brent Beshore.

That mix—structured thinking, operational empathy, and investment discipline—is what enables Jimmy to connect the dots between strategy and leadership, and to align deal teams, boards, and CEOs around the highest-leverage variable: people.

Agenda for alignment

At AIP, value creation doesn’t begin with a playbook.

It begins with a whiteboard. Every investment kicks off with the Operating Agenda: a co-created roadmap designed to align management and investors around the seven initiatives that will drive the most value.

It’s not just the C-suite in the room. The AIP Portfolio Operations team brings together 50+ leaders from across the business—engineering, commercial, finance, operations—and facilitates an interactive working session to get everyone moving in the same direction. Jimmy plays a core role shaping the talent lens throughout.

“We’re not handing them a plan,” Jimmy says. “We build it with them.”

That mindset—partnership over prescription—is foundational to AIP’s success. And aligning early on what matters most, and who’s accountable for it, is a big part of why.

Talent 1.0 → 2.0 → 3.0

Jimmy launched AIP’s talent strategy with two non-negotiables: make better hiring decisions, and deliver real feedback.

That gave rise to what’s now known internally at AIP as The Jimmy Process™. It is a structured, repeatable approach to executive selection and performance review has already helped place 10+ CEOs and CFOs across the portfolio in under two years.

He brought consistency and discipline to how leaders are hired, onboarded, and evaluated—ensuring the process works not just for investors, but for the executives themselves. It opened space for honest, two-way feedback between boards and management, allowing issues to surface earlier—and leaders to scale faster.

That was Talent 1.0.

In Talent 2.0, the focus shifted from reactive to proactive:

• Market mapping: Building relationships with top-tier executives before you need them.
• Talent reviews: Conduct deep assessments of 30-50 key leaders post-close.
  
• Leadership development: Equip strong performers to become repeatable CEO/CFO talent.
  
• Org readiness: Pressure-test whether the team can scale with the plan.
  

This stage is about creating leverage early so leadership gaps don’t surface too late. It’s taking AIP from intuitive to repeatable.

Now, Jimmy is looking ahead to Talent 3.0—a full-cycle, internal leadership engine designed to accelerate and institutionalize C-suite development across the portfolio.

At the center: the Alpha Lab, a new initiative launching in 2025 that will bring together top talent from across the portfolio for immersive development, executive coaching, and exposure to the firm’s highest standards of operational excellence.

From system to signal: winning CEOs

Talent 3.0 is about scaling exceptional leaders. But what does “exceptional” actually look like?

After years of pattern recognition, Jimmy and the AIP team reverse-engineered what works—studying their highest-performing CEOs across the portfolio and identifying the traits that consistently move the needle.

While some of the firm’s filters remain part of the secret sauce, one thing is clear: the leaders who win are those who thrive in complexity, move fast, and build real followership.

The most consistent signals:

• True partner mindset - owns outcomes, engages deeply, views investors as strategic allies.
• Relentless execution - drives accountability, clears bottlenecks, gets things done.
  
• Fluency in detail - dives into complexity without losing the plot.
  
• Cultural alignment - natural fit with AIP's engineer-led, hands-on style.
  

“Who you partner with are the most important decisions we make – in business and in life.”

This isn’t theory, it’s codified judgment. These traits now shape how AIP recruits, evaluates, and enables leadership across the firm. As they move toward Talent 3.0, this signal-based approach will power a pipeline of repeatable, high-impact CEOs.

Final takeaway

Pattern recognition is one thing. Building a system to act on it is another.

Jimmy Holloran isn’t just shaping hiring practices. He’s designing the infrastructure to scale great leadership, deal after deal. From the first whiteboard session, he’s embedding talent into the mechanics of value creation and proving that people strategy isn’t a support function. It is the strategy.

At AIP, the goal is better outcomes. Fewer missteps. And a flywheel of repeatable leadership success.

Because at the end of the day, brilliant businesses don’t build themselves. Brilliant people do. And Jimmy Holloran is in the business of finding—and building—them.

Listen to the full episode now: https://acertitu.de/jimmy-holloran-spotifypodcast

Defining Brilliance with Jimmy Holloran

	Purpose is...	why you are here. What purpose are you serving? We all ought to be contributing in some way.
	Leadership is...	setting a course, navigating through uncertainty, making sure the team knows what their job is, and making sure they know that you are behind them.
	Success is...	ikigai - doing something you love, you're good at, the world needs, and you can get paid for.
	Brilliant leaders are...	visionary, determined, and empathetic.
	Brilliant talent partners are...	discerning (know when to push, when to hold back), scrappy, and they listen.
	I perform at my best when...	I'm doing interesting work with people I care about, and my contributions are appreciated.

Don’t miss this episode if you’re focused on turning talent strategy into a driver of portfolio company performance.

Listen now: https://acertitu.de/jimmy-holloran-spotifypodcast