Private Equity’s Next Growth Engine: GTM Centers of Excellence

After nearly a year of sluggish activity, dealmaking finally rebounded in Q3 of 2025. PitchBook reports that deal value surged 38% year-over-year to $331 billion as megadeals and exits accelerated. During the slowdown, firms shifted their focus to organic growth, pushing portfolio companies to generate more revenue rather than waiting for the next acquisition.  

As deal activity returns, that operational discipline isn’t fading. One approach many firms have cemented into their strategy is leveraging Centers of Excellence (COEs), which drive performance across an entire portfolio. For go-to-market (GTM) teams in particular, these COEs provide scalable operational rigor that delivers results.

A New Approach to GTM Leadership

Within private equity firms, COEs for GTM teams don’t just provide guidelines for teams; they embed operators, deploy RevOps processes, and run pilots at scale. A pricing test in one company can become a proven model for three others. A demand-gen pilot with AI-driven lead scoring can be standardized across the portfolio. Sales training programs that cut onboarding time in half can be rolled out fund-wide. For GTM teams, COEs can be a powerful mechanism for scaling successful strategies. 

Case in Point 

Francisco Partners offers a strong example of this model in action. While not explicitly a COE, its operating group, Francisco Partners Consulting, embeds GTM leaders across the portfolio, driving sales, marketing, and customer success as a shared capability. The group plays an active role from diligence through execution, enabling portfolio companies to build repeatable growth engines that don’t rely solely on founder intuition or scattered best practices.  

Frazier Healthcare Partners takes a similar approach with its Center of Excellence, which includes Commercial Excellence as a designated capability. As a result, the firm has dedicated leadership focused on developing GTM strategies and driving customer growth programs across its healthcare portfolio. Andy Caine, COO & Partner of Frazier Healthcare Partners, shares: “Frazier has hired talent at the firm-level to focus portfolio company effort towards three types of commercial programs: sales excellence, marketing, and sales operations.” 

Other firms take a more formal approach. Shore Capital Partners has established a named Commercial Center of Excellence led by a firm-level Chief Commercial Officer, focused on building and scaling GTM programs across its small-cap portfolio. 

KKR has a similar dynamic with its Capstone team: an internal group of operating partners who work with management teams to execute initiatives around pricing, pipeline generation, and broader commercial acceleration.  

Ultimately, firm-level COEs put leaders on the ground, help teams adopt better processes, and share best practices, which all contribute to better execution.  

Alignment Across the Portfolio 

As deal activity picks back up, it is clear that organic growth and strong commercial leadership remain permanent priorities. To succeed, firms must ensure their commercial leaders have a structured, reliable model for driving organic growth: 

Unify the vision: align sales, marketing, and customer success on shared goals, ICPs, personas, positioning, and go-to-market. 

Integrate systems: connect tools and processes so they scale efficiently. 

Instill discipline: establish clear guidelines, enforce accountability, and track outcomes tied to growth.

Firms seeking to get ahead should plan to leverage fund-level COEs to standardize what works, increase speed to execution, and elevate performance across the portfolio. Those that combine the COE approach with clear KPIs and accountability will be best positioned to drive returns.