Scaling Private Market Teams Across Borders: Why Culture, Communication, and Autonomy Matter

By Ed Chamberlain, CEO of DRAX Altus

Over the last two decades, I’ve helped build investment and leadership teams for private equity firms across multiple geographies. I’ve seen what makes multisite success possible, and more often, what undermines it.

As firms scale and globalise, they must move beyond the belief that HQ culture alone can be transplanted. Get it wrong, and you risk regional divisions that stall growth and create mistrust. Get it right, and you unlock agility, diversity of thought, and a platform for scaling at pace.

Culture Clash or Culture Catalyst?

Many firms treat their headquarters as the cultural blueprint, expecting satellite offices to simply adopt the same values, language, and rituals. But culture isn’t a product you can export, it’s an environment you co-create.

We’ve worked with funds where HQ exudes a fast-paced, sharp-elbows, high-urgency, data-first deal culture. That’s often a poor fit when trying to embed the same approach into markets where consensus, structure, and longer trust-building cycles are the norm.

This isn’t about compromising on standards or ambition, it’s about behavioural fluency. The most successful firms aren’t lowering the bar, they’re adjusting how that bar is held in different contexts.

The Role of Structure and Decision-Making

Frameworks and organisational design become your guardrails for growth. At DRAX Altus, we work with our clients to help define not just who reports to whom, but how decisions are made, where autonomy sits, and how fast feedback loops are created.

Borrowing a principle from software architecture, own a component. When international teams are given true ownership, over a sector, strategy, or region, they move faster and with more conviction. Too often, we see “second-office syndrome”, smart local teams disempowered because they’re waiting on London or New York to green-light decisions. That’s not scale, that’s drag.

Just as important is ensuring clarity and transparency around decision-making. A common pitfall we see is opaque investment committee processes, where deals disappear into the ether and return with a simple “yes” or “no”, offering no context, no learning, and no path for improvement. The best firms open up their investment committees, inviting broader attendance, encouraging debate, and explaining rationale. This not only strengthens buy-in, but helps teams sharpen their own origination efforts and calibrate what ‘good’ really looks like in that organisation.

Frank Orozco’s piece in Forbes articulates this well, ownership reduces dependencies, accelerates execution, and builds accountability. I couldn’t agree more.

Leadership Matters, Everywhere

Hiring a brilliant dealmaker or Managing Director in a satellite office won’t solve structural gaps if they’re not empowered. Key decision-makers must have a seat at the leadership table. When firms invest in regional leaders with real influence, backed by a clear mandate, those regions thrive.

At DRAX Altus, we often use behavioural tools like PACE to help firms assess leadership fit, not just competence, but compatibility with local and global culture. It’s a powerful way to reduce risk when building out multisite teams.

Whether we’re building teams across London, Germany, Amsterdam, or Paris, PACE gives us critical insight into the behavioural dynamics that can either strengthen or strain cultural alignment. I’ve seen it reduce mis-hires, foster cohesion, and significantly accelerate integration.

My View

Too many firms treat international expansion as a replication exercise. But success doesn’t come from copy-paste, it comes from considered adaptation. You need a shared vision, tailored behaviours, empowered leadership, and transparent decision-making that allows teams to learn, grow, and contribute meaningfully.

The best global private equity platforms we’ve partnered with don’t just build across markets, they build into them.

When they do, they don’t just grow. They scale with purpose.

 Ed Chamberlain is CEO of DRAX Altus, part of The LCap Group. He works with private equity and private capital clients across Europe to build and evaluate leadership teams that drive performance across multiple functions and geographies.