Head of AI Strategy | €4bn Portfolio | Buy & Build Private Equity Firm

Head of AI Strategy | €4bn AUM | Buy & Build Private Equity Firm

Location: Flexible / Hybrid (travel to portfolio companies required)

Reporting to: Managing Partner and CEO

About the Firm

Our client is a private equity firm pursuing a buy-and-build strategy across Energy, Software, and Healthcare Mittelstand businesses. They partner with founder-led and family-owned businesses across the DACH region and Western Europe, combining patient capital with hands-on operational support to professionalize, consolidate, and scale market-leading platforms. The firm is now building out its value creation function and is looking for a Head of AI Strategy to ensure AI becomes a genuine driver of value across the portfolio, not a side initiative.

About the Role

This is a newly created, portfolio-facing role. You will not be building AI products for the firm itself. Your mandate is to work directly with portfolio company management teams to identify, prioritize, and implement AI-driven value creation opportunities, from due diligence through to exit. You'll act as a trusted advisor and delivery partner to CEOs and CFOs of Mittelstand businesses who often have limited internal AI capability, translating strategic ambition into practical, ROI-driven execution.

Role Responsibilities:

• Develop and own the firm's AI value creation playbook, tailored to the operational and commercial realities of Energy, Software, and Healthcare Mittelstand businesses
• Partner with deal teams during due diligence to assess AI-related risks and opportunities (e.g. automation potential, data readiness, competitive exposure to AI disruption) and input into investment theses
• Work directly with portfolio company leadership to identify high-value AI use cases across operations, commercial functions, and product, and build the business case for each
• Lead or oversee implementation of prioritized AI initiatives across portfolio companies, coordinating with internal teams, external vendors, and technology partners as needed
• Establish common standards, tooling, and data infrastructure approaches that can be reused across portfolio companies to accelerate buy-and-build integration
• Track and report on AI-driven value creation impact (cost savings, revenue uplift, productivity gains) to the investment committee and portfolio company boards
• Build AI capability and literacy within portfolio company management teams, ensuring initiatives are sustainable beyond initial implementation
• Support exit preparation by articulating and evidencing the AI-driven value creation story to prospective buyers

Key Skills and Experience

• 8 years of experience in AI/technology strategy, management consulting, or a similar operator role, ideally with exposure to private equity, portfolio operations, or value creation functions
• Demonstrable track record of taking AI initiatives from strategy to implementation and measurable business impact, ideally within mid-market or Mittelstand-scale industrial, software, or healthcare businesses
• Strong commercial acumen and comfort working directly with CEOs and CFOs of owner-managed or founder-led businesses, including in German-speaking markets
• Practical understanding of AI/ML applications relevant to the firm's sectors, e.g. predictive maintenance and grid optimization in Energy, product-led AI features in Software, and clinical/administrative automation in Healthcare
• Experience assessing data infrastructure maturity and defining pragmatic roadmaps for organizations with limited existing AI capability
• Ability to operate autonomously across multiple portfolio companies simultaneously, balancing strategic thinking with hands-on delivery
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, able to translate technical concepts for investment committees, boards, and operational management alike

Filling the AI skills gap ®