Hg's Chris Kindt - AI's transformative role in value creation for private equity

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.Today’s episode provides a fascinating window into the world of private equity value creation and how AI can help transform both portfolio company and investment firm processes and operations to create value.We sat down in New York with Hg Partner and Head of Value Creation Chris Kindt to dive into how he spearheaded the growth of the firm’s in-house value creation efforts and has built a high-performing team to meet the evolving needs of portfolio companies.Chris brings 15 years of experience in architecting and driving value creation to bear, with 11 years of experience at Hg and another 8 years as a consultant at BCG and Parthenon.Chris and his team are responsible for driving value across a portfolio of 55 companies that represents over $180B in enterprise value and would represent the second largest software company in Europe after SAP if it were a conglomerate.Chris and I had a thought-provoking discussion about value creation and the impact of AI on investing and operating companies. We discussed:How to build a high-performing value creation team.Where value creation has the biggest impact.How AI is transforming investment processes.How Hg has become an “AI-first” investment firm.Where AI will have the most impact in a company today and why agentic AI is transforming certain roles and processes within companies.How professionals can generate the most leverage from utilizing AI – without having cognitive decline.Why prompting and prompt engineering is so critical in the age of AI (and how you can use your weekends to perfect prompt engineering).How a management team can buy into AI and why the current time period represents an interesting opportunity for incumbents, particularly for those building mission-critical enterprise software.Thanks Chris for sharing your expertise and wisdom on company building and AI. We hope you enjoy.Note: this episode was filmed in August 2025.A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund SolutionsThis episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus Fund Solutions, a leading full-service fund administrator for asset managers in private and public markets. As private markets continue to move into the mainstream, the industry requires infrastructure solutions that help funds and investors keep pace. In an increasingly sophisticated financial marketplace, investment managers must navigate a growing array of challenges: elaborate fund structures, specialized strategies, evolving compliance requirements, a growing need for sophisticated reporting, and intensifying demands for transparency.To assist with these challenging opportunities, more and more fund sponsors and asset managers are turning to Ultimus, a leading service provider that blends high tech and high touch in unique and customized fund administration and middle office solutions for a diverse and growing universe of over 450 clients and 1,800 funds, representing $500 billion assets under administration, all handled by a team of over 1,000 professionals. Ultimus offers a wide range of capabilities across registered funds, private funds and public plans, as well as outsourced middle office services. Delivering operational excellence, Ultimus helps firms manage the ever-changing regulatory environment while meeting the needs of their institutional and retail investors. Ultimus provides comprehensive operational support and fund governance services to help managers successfully launch retail alternative products.Visit www.ultimusfundsolutions.com to learn more about Ultimus’ technology enhanced services and solutions or contact Ultimus Executive Vice President of Business Development Gary Harris on email at [email protected] thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.Show Notes00:00 Message from our Sponsor, Ultimus01:18 Welcome to the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast02:10 Guest Introduction: Chris Kindt03:58 Chris Kindt’s Background and Journey05:43 Value Creation at Hg06:55 Pre-Investment and Diligence Process07:44 Management Team Dynamics08:40 Common Value Creation Interventions11:14 Building a Cross-Functional Team12:31 Scaling the Value Creation Team15:40 Measuring Value Creation Impact17:49 Investment Philosophy: Inch Wide, Mile Deep19:28 Partnerships with Management Teams20:03 Embedding AI in Value Creation20:24 Internal vs External AI Applications21:47 AI First Culture22:18 Effective AI Utilization24:04 Prompt Engineering and Whispering26:25 Choosing the Right AI Models26:50 AI Models: Strengths and Weaknesses27:42 Transformative Impact of AI28:21 Skills Needed in the AI Era28:26 AI's Role in Investment Firms28:55 Core Insights and Judgements29:04 The Core Skillset and Efficiency29:12 Philosophical Questions on AI and Talent Development30:18 Building Grit in the Age of AI31:12 Maintaining Discipline with AI32:08 AI as a Value Creation Lever32:35 Operational Efficiency and Copilots33:43 Emergence of Reasoning Models and Agentic Frameworks34:31 10x Efficiency in Engineering36:24 Challenges in Implementing AI37:16 AI Immersion Strategy Days39:52 Organizational Agility and AI42:15 AI's Impact on Investment Strategies43:26 AI in Mergers and Acquisitions45:29 The Importance of Proprietary Data47:12 AI Fatigue and Disillusionment48:07 Building AI Products and Agentic Products48:58 Hg's Internal AI Incubator49:59 The Next Wave of AI51:19 Voice and Multimodality in AI51:55 Globalization and Internationalization of AI53:35 Overestimating and Underestimating AI's Impact54:54 The Competitive Landscape of AI55:42 The Future of Value Creation with AI56:23 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsEditing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.

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