Tory Ramaker: Vistria’s PRG Co-Head on Redefining Value Creation and the Future of Operating Talent

Written by Linnéa Jungnelius

Tory Ramaker is redefining how private equity scales value creation: portfolio operations built for execution, management-owned plans, and impact integrated with performance.

From his early days in Army ROTC to an unexpected pivot that reshaped his path, Tory Ramaker’s journey has been defined by resilience and reinvention. He cut his teeth in the world of high-performance finance and consulting before finding his true calling: leading transformation from within. Over the years, he’s become a builder of teams, a connector of strategy and execution, and a leader known for turning insight into impact across some of the most complex organizations in the market.

Today, as Senior Partner and Co-Head of Vistria PRG, LLC ("Portfolio Resources Group") at The Vistria Group, he leads a model that embeds early, partners deeply, and delivers measurable outcomes across technology, finance, and talent. Along the way, he has shifted portfolio support from “another smart voice on a call” to fewer companies, deeper engagement, stood up transformation offices tied to dated deliverables, and integrated Vistria’s impact and policy capability directly into value creation planning.

His career, defined by innovating at the intersection of partnership and performance, has produced a blueprint anchored in management ownership, execution discipline, leadership with EQ, and purpose-aligned growth, offering transferable lessons for operating partners leading through longer holds and higher expectations.

From Idea to Impact

When Ramaker began working with The Vistria Group, he saw a familiar gap: operating partners were offering invaluable insight, but management teams didn’t always have the bandwidth to turn those ideas into action.

So, he built the Portfolio Resources Group (PRG) from the ground up to close that gap.

We started off with a generalist model… The PRG was built to bridge the distance between strategy and execution.

In practice, that means embedding operational talent inside companies early, building trust fast, and translating big ideas into measurable results.

Over time, the PRG evolved from a generalist team to one that also includes functional specialists in technology, finance, and human capital — three levers that, in Ramaker’s words, “show up in every middle-market company that’s ready to grow.”

Redefining Value Creation

Every firm has a playbook, but the difference lies in who writes it.

Too often, investors spend months crafting a thesis, only to hand it to management. But if management doesn’t own the plan, it won’t get executed.

At Vistria, value creation starts before the ink is dry. PRG partners with CEOs pre-close to co-design the transformation roadmap, aligning the investment team, operating partners, and management around one shared definition of success.

It’s an approach that’s deeply collaborative, yet disciplined. Every initiative is time-bound, deliverable-driven, and measured against clear metrics.

Embedding Purpose in Performance

Impact and performance aren’t separate. They’re how you build sustainable growth.

Operating partners often ask how to balance impact with returns, but both items should be treated as if they are inseparable. Vistria invests in essential industries — healthcare, education, financial services — where better outcomes for people and communities directly translate into better business performance.

Inside the PRG, that philosophy is operationalized. Each value creation plan integrates Vistria’s impact and policy team, ensuring that metrics like workforce inclusion, access, and quality outcomes are tracked alongside EBITDA. Embedding purpose into the business model leads to stronger, more sustainable performance.

Scaling Through Scarcity

Even as the PRG has expanded, Ramaker has resisted the temptation to overbuild. It’s a principle operating partners will recognize: constraints breed focus.

Forced scarcity has value. When CEOs are calling and asking for help, that’s when you know you’re resourced at the right level.

By keeping the team intentionally lean, Ramaker ensures PRG talent is deployed where it can make the greatest difference — in the highest-impact companies and at the most critical inflection points.

That same discipline extends to their partner network. Rather than rely on a single vendor, Vistria curates a small group of trusted partners who “run into the fire, not away from it.”

Leading with EQ

Early on in his consulting career, Ramaker suffered a major stroke; the kind of event that stops life in its tracks and reshapes how you see the world.

That experience didn’t just alter his perspective; it rewired his approach to leadership. Ramaker emerged with a deeper sense of empathy and a steadier hand, qualities that now define how he leads teams, CEOs, and peers alike.

For him, great portfolio leadership isn’t about control, it’s about clarity. It’s about giving people the space to succeed, and the accountability to rise to the occasion.

When you start your career in professional services, you’re focused on IQ. Once you get into operating roles, EQ becomes far more important.

Buliding the Next Generation of Operators

Looking ahead, Ramaker sees a new breed of portfolio leaders emerging — those who blend analytical precision with practical, lived experience.

Consultants know how to diagnose. Operators know what to do with the diagnosis.

The future belongs to hybrid thinkers who can translate frameworks into fieldwork, empathy into influence, and strategy into action.

The Takeaway for Operating Partners

Ramaker's message to the operating community is simple, but powerful:

Build models that directly support execution, not just provide advice.
Let management own the plan and hold them accountable for it.
Embed purpose into performance.
Keep teams focused, lean, and credible.
Lead with EQ.

Next gen operating talent.
Tune in to Episode 27.

Spotify Apple

Lightning Round with Tory Ramaker

	Purpose is...	knowing what you have to do and why you have to do it.
	Leadership is...	surrounding yourself with people who have complementary skill sets and willingness to challenge, letting them run, and helping them be successful.
	Success is...	the culmination of a lifetime of hard work. There are no shortcuts, and there are no entitlements.
	Brilliant leaders are...	confident yet humble, good listeners, and people with very high integrity.
	Brilliant value creation leaders are...	resourceful and trustworthy.
	I perform at my best when...	I'm working with people who are collaborative and comfortable when we hold each other accountable.