Graham Weaver
The Reformer
Changing the system from inside it, principle turned into change.
Graham Weaver reads as The Reformer because he did not iterate on private equity convention, he rebuilt it around a single architectural conviction: that human capital, not deal flow, drives returns. His 2009 decision prompted a full redesign of Alpine's operating model, engineering deliberate pipelines that convert unconventional candidates into CEOs at scale.
“So for me, a number of different coaches I use for different things, but I'll give you a couple of real examples. So I have a coach, Dave Mandy Shoemaker, and just to have a call with her, I have to fill out a form that says, what are your one-year goals? What did you say you were going to do last week? What did you do?”
“And they knew how it worked. So I got cut my freshman year, but they didn't cut anyone. Instead, they said, okay, if you don't make a boat, you're going to be a land warrior and you can use the rowing machines. I still remember when they posted the boats and my name wasn't on there, I did the math and I said, okay, women's heavyweight.”
“What really mattered. So I'd say try to stay in the same industry if you can. Pick a good industry. Secondly, I'd say pay yourself. Sounds really obvious, but I didn't do that. So that was part of the pressure that I had about why I didn't go do that full time.”
“Revenue went down significantly. That was the first thing I missed. The second thing was I didn't understand how important management was. And this would become a huge part of our philosophy later on. The founder would retire and then the number two person was there. I just backed them. And they were absolutely not backable.”
Masters in Business: “Graham Weaver on Private Equity”
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