Meeting Quality
Meeting Prep
This page should be reserved for actual meeting prep, not raw lead review.
Upcoming
OceanSound Partners
Matt McConnell | Head of Portfolio Human Capital
In-person follow-up meeting | Next week
This is not a cold intro. You and Bert already met Matt a couple weeks ago, so the goal should be to move quickly past firm overview and into what he is seeing across the OceanSound portfolio right now. Matt’s background is strategy-plus-human-capital, not generic recruiting, and OceanSound publicly frames talent, organizational design, and executive support as part of its value-creation model. The strongest Morgan Samuels angle is as a senior partner for high-stakes sponsor-backed leadership work in government, regulated, and harder-to-map technology environments, especially when operator or advisor mapping matters before a formal search opens.
Quick read
OceanSound describes itself as a growth-oriented private equity firm making control investments in technology and technology-enabled services companies serving government and enterprise, with a strong emphasis on highly regulated end markets.
Its public materials emphasize hands-on value creation rather than financial engineering, with a dedicated value creation team and executive partners involved before and after close.
Human capital is explicitly part of the OceanSound operating model, alongside organizational design, go-to-market, product strategy, analytics, and acquisition integration.
Matt’s official bio says he joined OceanSound in 2025, focuses on human capital, talent, and organization initiatives across the portfolio, and previously was a Principal at ghSMART and a Manager at Deloitte Consulting.
His bio also notes OceanSound Consulting is an affiliate whose work is borne by actual or prospective portfolio companies, which suggests direct portfolio-facing involvement rather than a purely internal HR role.
Likely agenda
What Matt is spending time on now across the portfolio and what has changed since your first meeting.
How OceanSound actually approaches talent and organization work pre-close versus post-close.
Where their internal model is strong on its own and where an outside retained partner can add real value.
What leadership patterns are emerging in government, regulated, or mission-critical tech businesses across the portfolio.
What matters most
Because you already met recently, do not spend much time reintroducing Morgan Samuels or rehashing OceanSound 101. Move to substance quickly.
Matt’s ghSMART and Deloitte background means he is likely to respond better to pattern recognition, assessment, org-design thinking, and practical operating insight than to recruiter process talk.
OceanSound already believes talent is part of value creation. The conversation is really about where Morgan Samuels can complement that model on critical searches, leadership calibration, and hard-to-map operator talent.
Government and regulated tech businesses often require leaders who can scale without breaking culture, handle complexity, and operate in narrow talent markets. That is where a sharper Morgan Samuels point of view can be relevant.
Relevant firms
Highview Capital
HarbourVest Partners
General Atlantic
BAE Systems
Honeywell Aerospace
Raytheon Engineers & Constructors
Relevant searches
Firstlight Media (Highview Capital) | Chief Financial Officer, Chief Business Officer, and Board Member
Nero (HarbourVest Partners) | Chief Financial Officer, General Counsel, President Americas, and other senior leadership roles
Quality Technology Services (General Atlantic) | Executive Vice President, Federal Programs and Government Sales
BAE Systems | Vice President, Business Development & Strategic Campaigns, Platform Solutions
BAE Systems | Vice President, Business Development, Air Force
Honeywell Aerospace | Vice President, OEM
Best Morgan angles
Best angle is complementary, not introductory: Morgan Samuels can help when OceanSound needs senior retained execution on a high-stakes role or a broader market map than the internal team wants to run alone.
Lean into CEO, CFO, CHRO, and commercial leadership situations tied to scale, complexity, leadership upgrade, or culture-preserving transition.
If OceanSound is stretching into a newer subsector or a more complex operating problem, Morgan Samuels can help identify operators, advisors, and sector river guides before or alongside a formal executive search.
Offer usefulness before mandate: market calibration, leadership profile pressure-testing, and pattern recognition from sponsor-backed businesses in regulated or technical environments.
Questions to ask
Since we last met, where have you been spending the most time across the portfolio?
At OceanSound, what kinds of situations actually trigger use of an outside search partner versus keeping it fully internal?
Which roles are hardest in your world right now: CEO, CFO, CHRO, CRO, or something more niche tied to government or regulated markets?
How early do you get involved around new deals or prospective investments when the talent risk is material?
Where do you find leadership assessment and org-design work matter more than pure search execution?
Are there situations where building an advisor or operator bench is more valuable than immediately launching a full-time search?
What has separated the outside firms that have actually been helpful from the firms that all sound the same?
Watch-outs
Do not make this sound like a generic PE talent pitch. He already lives in that world.
Do not over-explain retained search mechanics or repeat the first meeting.
Do not imply OceanSound needs help because its internal talent capability is thin. Their own positioning says the opposite.
Do not stay so high-level that the conversation never gets to real role patterns or real use cases.
Good meeting outcome
Get a sharper read on where Matt sees real leadership pressure in the current OceanSound portfolio.
Understand exactly where OceanSound uses outside partners in a talent model that is already fairly built out.
Surface one or two specific role types or portfolio situations where Morgan Samuels could be credibly relevant.
Earn a follow-up that is tied to a concrete leadership pattern, proof point, or operator-mapping angle rather than a generic deck send.
Upcoming
ABS Capital
Joe Bergera | Operating Advisor
Virtual referral meeting | Next week
This is a warm virtual intro, not a cold prospecting call. Kerry Shiba is the bridge, and the useful context is real: Kerry joined Iteris as CFO reporting to Joe when Joe was President and CEO there. ABS positions itself as an active growth investor in B2B software and tech-enabled services, and Joe’s operating background suggests the conversation should be framed around pattern recognition in scaling businesses, not around generic search process. Morgan Samuels should show up here as a practical partner on leadership inflection points, especially CFO, CEO, CHRO, and commercial leadership needs inside growth-stage software and tech-enabled services companies.
Quick read
ABS Capital says it has spent more than 30 years investing in software and tech-enabled services businesses, with approximately 130 companies backed across eight funds.
The firm emphasizes active engagement, operational support, technology and data strategy, and scalable business-model building rather than passive capital.
Recent ABS activity highlights ongoing momentum in healthcare and tech-enabled platforms, including Greenspace Health, CERTIFY Health, Deepwatch, and the 2023 continuation vehicle around LabConnect and Viventium.
Joe’s public Iteris background shows more than 30 years in global technology companies, including leadership roles at Roper and iTradeNetwork before becoming Iteris CEO in 2015.
Kerry joined Iteris in February 2023 as CFO reporting to Joe, overseeing finance, information systems, legal, supply chain, and manufacturing, which makes the referral context both credible and specific.
Likely agenda
Warm relationship set-up through Kerry and quick context on how you know him.
Joe’s current remit with ABS and where he spends time with portfolio companies or management teams.
Recurring leadership issues Joe sees in scaling software and tech-enabled services businesses.
Where outside executive search or leadership calibration partners genuinely help versus create noise.
What matters most
Lead with the Kerry connection naturally, but do not overplay it. The point is shared credibility and a real reason for the conversation, not borrowed intimacy.
Joe is likely to think like an operator and CEO first. Make the conversation about business inflection points, management teams, and what actually breaks as companies scale.
Because the meeting is virtual, it should get substantive quickly. Avoid a long Morgan Samuels preamble.
ABS’s sector focus overlaps with Morgan Samuels’s stronger lanes around sponsor-backed CFO, CHRO, CEO, and commercial leadership in software and tech-enabled services environments.
Relevant firms
Accel-KKR
The Carlyle Group
Highview Capital
HarbourVest Partners
Periscope Equity
Clearlake Capital Group
Relevant searches
FM:Systems (Accel-KKR) | Chief Financial Officer
ClickDimensions (Accel-KKR) | Chief People Officer
Accelerate Learning (The Carlyle Group) | Chief Financial Officer
Firstlight Media (Highview Capital) | Chief Financial Officer
CyberMaxx (Periscope Equity) | Chief Financial Officer
Diligent (Clearlake Capital Group) | Vice President, Product
Best Morgan angles
Position Morgan Samuels as useful where sponsor-backed software and tech-enabled services companies hit a real leadership inflection point and need more than a quick network tap.
Strongest role lanes to mention are CFO, CEO, CHRO, and commercial leadership, especially where the business is shifting from founder-led intuition toward scaled operating discipline.
Offer pattern recognition from sponsor-backed transitions: first institutional CFO, talent upgrades after capital infusion, leadership-team redesign, and hiring around go-to-market or integration pressure.
If Joe spends time as a portfolio coach rather than a day-to-day talent buyer, make it easy for him to see Morgan Samuels as a practical resource he can pull in when a management team hits a real talent bottleneck.
Questions to ask
How are you spending your time with ABS portfolio companies today?
What leadership issues repeat most often in the software and tech-enabled services businesses you see?
When companies start to scale, which hires most often make or break the next phase: CFO, CRO, CHRO, CEO successor, or something else?
At what point do you encourage a company or sponsor to use an outside search partner rather than rely on its own network?
Where have you seen executive hiring go especially well or especially poorly in recent years?
Are there sectors or business models inside the ABS world where the bench feels especially thin right now?
What would make an external partner genuinely helpful to you and the ABS team instead of just another firm in the mix?
Watch-outs
Do not turn this into a generic Zoom intro with too much firm history and not enough substance.
Do not pitch Joe as if he is a junior recruiter or HR contact. He is an operator-level conversation.
Do not overstate Morgan Samuels’s software depth in a fluffy way. Keep it tied to real sponsor-backed leadership patterns.
Do not assume there is an immediate active search. The win here is relationship quality and pattern relevance.
Good meeting outcome
Understand Joe’s actual role with ABS and how he interacts with portfolio management teams.
Identify the leadership problems he sees most often across scaling software and tech-enabled services businesses.
Surface one or two situations where Morgan Samuels could be useful without forcing an immediate search discussion.
Earn a follow-up tied to a specific leadership pattern, relevant search example, or talent-market observation.
Upcoming
Forge52 Capital Partners
Daniel Ron | Managing Director
In-person relationship meeting | Next week
This should feel like a warm reconnection, not a first meeting. You already have prior history with Daniel from his Long Point Capital period, and Forge52’s public positioning is unusually clear: founder- and family-owned manufacturing businesses, low-risk execution, limited debt, operational discipline, and culture preservation. Morgan Samuels fits best here as a pragmatic partner for leadership transitions inside manufacturing businesses that are becoming more institutional, more data-driven, or more acquisition-oriented. The right conversation is less about polished PE language and more about where people, process, and operating leverage actually determine whether the investment thesis works.
Quick read
Forge52 is a manufacturing-focused private equity firm targeting North American, founder-, management-, and family-owned businesses, generally with $5M+ EBITDA.
Its site emphasizes low-risk execution, limited debt, and value creation through business capabilities rather than financial engineering.
Forge52’s value-creation materials explicitly call out management, finance, operations, HR, sales and marketing, and corporate development as build priorities.
Daniel’s bio highlights 15+ years of middle-market private equity experience, earlier work in manufacturing and product development at Ford, and a career that began at Investor Growth Capital.
The firm’s backstory is tied to the Gutierrez family and Deacero, which reinforces that Forge52 wants to be seen as a manufacturing-native, culture-respecting partner rather than a spreadsheet-first financial buyer.
Likely agenda
Reconnect personally and bridge from Long Point context into what Daniel is focused on now at Forge52.
How Forge52 thinks about leadership risk and professionalization in founder- and family-owned manufacturing businesses.
Which roles and capability gaps matter most in the first phase of ownership and value creation.
Where an outside executive search partner can help without disrupting culture or overcomplicating the operating model.
What matters most
Use the prior relationship. This should not sound like a cold pitch disguised as a catch-up.
Forge52’s own language is humble, operational, and anti-financial-engineering. Mirror that posture. Anything too glossy or generic will feel off-brand for them.
The strongest Morgan Samuels angle is around leadership transition in sponsor-backed manufacturing settings: institutional CFOs, succession-sensitive CEOs, CHRO or people leaders, commercial upgrades, and operating executives who can scale without breaking the company’s core culture.
Because Forge52 highlights finance, HR, operations, and corporate development in its value-creation model, there is room to discuss more than just CEO or CFO. The broader point is building the right leadership infrastructure.
Relevant firms
Marwit Capital
Windjammer Capital Investors
The Carlyle Group
Apollo Global Management
Charlesbank Capital Partners
Warburg Pincus
Relevant searches
Arc Machines | Chief Executive Officer
JWC Environmental (Windjammer Capital Investors) | Chief Executive Officer
Axalta (The Carlyle Group) | Chief Financial Officer
Smart Start (Apollo Global Management) | Chief Financial Officer
Hearthside Food Solutions (Charlesbank Capital Partners) | Chief Operating Officer
GA Foods (Warburg Pincus) | Chief Financial Officer
Best Morgan angles
Position Morgan Samuels as a useful partner when a manufacturing investment needs a leadership upgrade that is operationally critical and culturally sensitive.
Lead with CEO, CFO, CHRO, and selected commercial or operations leadership, but stay open to broader leadership-bench issues tied to professionalization and growth.
Talk about business problems first: succession risk, reporting rigor, margin pressure, acquisition integration, sales professionalization, or founder transition. Then connect those to executive talent.
If Forge52 is building platforms through add-ons, Morgan Samuels can help around both executive hiring and operator/advisor mapping where the management bench needs strengthening.
Questions to ask
Since your Long Point days, how has your view of leadership risk evolved in founder- and family-owned manufacturing businesses?
What roles create the most pressure in the first 12 to 24 months after an investment?
Where do you most often see the need for outside help: CFO, CEO succession, CHRO, commercial leadership, or operating roles?
How do you think about preserving culture while still professionalizing the leadership team and operating cadence?
Which functions matter most in driving value creation early at Forge52 portfolio companies?
How do add-on acquisitions and integration change the talent equation in your world?
What would make an outside search partner actually useful to Forge52 versus just extra process?
Watch-outs
Do not make this sound like generic PE talk. Forge52 is explicitly differentiating on manufacturing credibility and pragmatism.
Do not ignore the prior relationship by acting like this is a net-new intro.
Do not over-index only on finance seats if Daniel is thinking more holistically about management-team buildout.
Do not frame Morgan Samuels as a volume recruiter. The relevance here is high-stakes, problem-first leadership work.
Good meeting outcome
Reconnect on a substantive basis and get current on Daniel’s priorities at Forge52.
Understand where Forge52 sees the greatest leadership risk in manufacturing platform creation and transition situations.
Surface one or two concrete executive patterns where Morgan Samuels could add value.
Leave with permission for a follow-up tied to manufacturing leadership patterns, relevant proof points, or specific portfolio-stage use cases.
Meeting today
Resurgens Technology Partners
Elizabeth (Lizzy) Henry | Principal, Talent
Relationship / capability meeting | 2026-04-17
Resurgens is a lower-middle-market software investor with a real in-house talent and operating model, not just a deal team. Elizabeth Henry is a sophisticated talent buyer with seven years at Russell Reynolds in growth tech and private equity before joining Resurgens in 2022. This should be treated as a peer-level conversation about where outside search and leadership calibration add value alongside an internal talent function, not a generic PE intro call.
Quick read
Atlanta-based, software-focused PE firm founded in 2016 with 44 employees and 19 portfolio companies shown on the firm site.
Current focus is application software, IT infrastructure / developer tools, and selected information / data / analytic software and tech-enabled services.
Investment criteria on the site point to capital-efficient businesses with roughly $5M to $30M in revenue, majority recurring revenue, and a clear organic plus inorganic growth thesis.
Fund III closed at $800M in August 2024 and the firm is actively deploying, including newer investments such as OrgChart in January 2026 and Breezeway in March 2026.
Elizabeth joined Resurgens in 2022 and focuses on organization, leadership, and talent development for portfolio companies; before Resurgens she spent seven years at Russell Reynolds in Global Growth Tech and led 200+ searches and leadership advisory projects with meaningful PE exposure.
Likely agenda
How Resurgens thinks about talent as part of value creation across the portfolio.
How Elizabeth and the broader talent / operating team engage with management teams and investment professionals.
Where outside search firms are actually useful versus what they prefer to keep in-house.
What leadership patterns they are seeing as Fund III continues to deploy into software and tech-enabled businesses.
What matters most
Elizabeth already knows search. Do not explain basic retained search process or lead with generic recruiter language.
Resurgens markets talent as one of its core value-creation pillars, so the real question is where Morgan Samuels complements an internal talent function rather than replaces it.
The strongest angle is around high-stakes sponsor-backed leadership situations: founder-to-scale transitions, first institutional CFO / CHRO / CRO hires, leadership assessment, and advisor / operator mapping in areas that are newer or more complex.
Recent deals like OrgChart and Breezeway suggest active interest in workforce planning / HR tech and operational software categories, which makes the conversation around talent strategy and leadership leverage especially relevant.
Relevant firms
Vista Equity Partners
Accel-KKR
The Carlyle Group
Highview Capital
HarbourVest Partners
Silver Lake
Relevant searches
Granicus (Vista Equity Partners) | Chief Executive Officer
FM:Systems (Accel-KKR) | Chief Financial Officer
ClickDimensions (Accel-KKR) | Chief People Officer
Accelerate Learning (The Carlyle Group) | Chief Financial Officer
KLDiscovery (The Carlyle Group) | Chief Financial Officer
Firstlight Media (Highview Capital) | Chief Financial Officer, Chief Business Officer, and Board Member
Nero (HarbourVest Partners) | Chief Financial Officer, General Counsel, President Americas, and other senior leadership roles
Silver Lake | Senior Manager, Information Security
Best Morgan angles
Position Morgan Samuels as a complement for critical searches where Resurgens wants senior hands-on execution, deeper market mapping, or added reach beyond the in-house network.
Lean into CEO, CFO, CHRO, and commercial leadership in sponsor-backed companies at inflection points, especially when the business problem is scaling, change, integration, or leadership upgrade.
Use the fund-deployment angle selectively: if Resurgens is leaning into sub-sectors or situations that are newer for them, Morgan Samuels can help identify operators, advisors, and sector guides before a formal search even opens.
Offer usefulness before mandate: talent-market calibration, leadership profile pressure-testing, and pattern recognition from sponsor-backed transitions.
Questions to ask
How is the talent function organized today across Elizabeth, Bryan West, people operations, and the operating team?
At what point in a portfolio company situation do they typically bring in an outside search partner versus handling it directly?
Which senior roles have been hardest for them recently: CEO, CFO, CHRO, CRO, or something else?
Where have external firms added the most value for Resurgens over the last 12 to 18 months?
As Fund III deploys, are there sub-sectors or operating situations where leadership pattern recognition is especially important?
How do they think about advisor / operator benches versus full-time executive hiring around new investments or tougher transitions?
What has separated the best outside search partners from the forgettable ones in their world?
Watch-outs
Do not make this sound like a generic 'we help PE firms hire executives' pitch. She will tune that out quickly.
Do not overclaim broad software depth if the real strength is problem-first leadership work; keep the pitch honest and specific.
Do not assume she has an active search. The win is learning how they buy and where they feel pain, not forcing an immediate opportunity.
Because she came from Russell Reynolds, generic sophistication theater will not work. Be direct, practical, and peer-level.
Good meeting outcome
Leave with a sharper read on where Resurgens uses outside firms and what exact use cases create an opening.
Get clarity on whether they are more likely to need help at the sponsor level, the portfolio-company level, or both.
Identify one or two role types or portfolio situations where Morgan Samuels could be credibly relevant.
Earn permission for a follow-up built around a specific leadership pattern, market observation, or relevant Morgan Samuels proof point rather than a generic deck send.
What belongs here
Booked or likely-to-book meetings that need a one-page prep brief
Relevant Morgan Samuels proof points and likely conversation angles
Key questions, risks, and next-step planning for live conversations
What changed
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