He left private equity, took a 75% pay cut, and joined a 12-person startup that was still finding its footing. Now, Jon Apter helps oversee 1,600 employees as CFO of Accordion – a seat he's held for the last 11 years.

Jon sits down with Devin to explain what really keeps a CFO in the room with sponsors and boards. Drawing on two PE deals and 12 acquisitions, he shares what it takes to get a company exit-ready from day one, why the CFO's real job is equity value (not the budget), and why AI spend is about to show up in your QoE.

Whether you work directly with CFOs, sit on the sponsor side, or are in banking or PE wondering about a move into the CFO seat – this episode will change how you think about the role.

For more about Accordion visit accordion.com.

What does it take to move from banking to the buyside, and what do you have to figure out once you're there?

Liz sits down with Katie Yuan, a private equity associate at Hg in London. They met in 2022 in JPMorgan's investment banking training in New York. Since then, both have made the move from IB to PE. Katie traces her path from studying economics at Cambridge, to two years in JPMorgan's industrials group, to investing in B2B software at one of Europe's largest tech investors.

If you're a student or junior thinking about your next move, Katie shares:

• How she explored PE while still in banking, and why talking to people made the difference
• How she moved from industrials to tech without a tech background
• The best career advice she's received: you're in control of your career, so act like it
• What to do if you don't know what your goals are yet
• How she's building confidence in her own judgment, and why having an opinion is part of the job
• What it's like to sit in on board-level AI strategy conversations as an associate

Plus: K-drama recs, a gochujang sausage pasta recipe, Swiftie credentials, and what 10-year-old Katie wanted to be.

We built our sourcing model around one goal: know every owner of every software company long before they decide to sell. Ken Fine, Affinity's CEO, joins us to explain why relationships and not process are the keys to deal flow, and how AI can make that scalable (and even more human). We talk about the old way and new of sourcing, how AI turns messy inboxes into usable intelligence, and why the real alpha in private equity is more about who you know than what you know.

Ken spent his earlier career building and scaling venture-backed software companies before taking the helm at Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform used by over 3,000 venture and private equity firms, including ParkerGale.

You can learn more about Affinity here.

Cass sits down with Brogan Magnarelli, Principal at Riverspan, to talk about her untraditional path into private equity — from point guard at Harvard to account manager at Boingo Wireless, to GE Healthcare sales leadership and finally PE business development.

Brogan shares why gathering skills at every step matters more than following a linear path, how her basketball mindset shaped her career, and why she tells anyone who'll listen: if you're the smartest person in the room, find another room. They also get into the "silver tsunami" of aging founder-owned businesses, what it's really like being a working mother in private equity, and why Brogan's 10-year-old self wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

Devin's mom's only instruction to her financial advisor was "the number should never go down." Downside protection is often the most attractive part of investing in a mega buyout fund, but the latest data from PitchBook calls that into question.

PitchBook's Andrew Akers goes deep on why bigger private equity funds don't always outperform smaller ones, why "manager selection skill" might be a myth, and why the biggest funds pay more, lever up more, and don't consistently improve the companies they own.

Andrew is Associate Director of Quantitative Research at PitchBook, where he recently built a model that predicts which companies private equity takes private next. Before that he was an allocator to private equity so he brings a unique perspective to the conversation.

"Diminishing Returns to Scale" report: https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/q3-2026-diminishing-returns-to-scale

Check out all of PitchBook's research at pitchbook.com.

What does it look like to "plant seeds" so aggressively that serendipity starts looking like a strategy? This week on Parker Gals, Cass sits down with Jessica Patton to trace her path from Detroit to Howard University to landing a rare straight-out-of-college private equity role in New York.

Jessica shares how she eventually landed in an impact-oriented role at Andreessen Horowitz, and what it took to jump off the deep end and start 5th Century Partners — Gmail, an anchor investor, and a one-way ticket to Chicago. Now 15 people strong, 5th Century is a lower middle market PE firm investing in healthcare and business services.

Plus: "Sex and the City" as the ultimate palate cleanser, making spaghetti and meatballs from scratch, and a trio of book recommendations that speak to being a woman in private equity.

Corporate AI spend in 2026 looked like a teenager loose at the mall with their parents' credit card. No policy, no budget, no discipline about what was purchased and why.

That will change in the 2027 budget season, just kicking off. Devin goes deep with Accordion's Justin D'Onofrio using an 8-step framework to get it right. They cover why 91% of PE-backed CFOs can't size their AI spend, and why 83% of portfolio companies have AI pilots running with almost none tied to measurable value. That won't fly anymore.

Justin is a Managing Director on Accordion's Performance Management team and spends his days at the intersection of finance, technology, and FP&A. He's deep in conversation with PE-backed CFOs every day about this big cost looming over 2027 budgets so he's the perfect guest to help you out.

https://www.accordion.com/how-to-build-ai-budget-2027/

What does it look like to go "all in" at every stage of your career, even when you're not on the traditional track?

This week on Parker Gals, Liz and Cass sit down with Hannah Song, a former senior associate at Promus Equity Partners who's heading to UChicago Booth this fall. Hannah shares her non-traditional journey from KPMG audit to investment banking at Mesirow to private equity — and opens up about the difficult decision of choosing between a surprise promotion and business school.

Plus, why Hannah chose culture over prestige when picking firms, her obsession with Ratatouille (the movie AND the dish), and why she believes that everything's "figure-out-able."

Paul and Ryan break down what PE-backed executives should know about their management equity: how the economics work, what's worth negotiating, and how you can use it to start things off the right way with your PE sponsor.

What if the future of private equity looks exactly like its past? The days of cheap debt and multiple expansion are over, so the only way to win going forward is to operate your way out. Buy well, execute, and exit well. In this episode, Devin and Paul sit down with Lee McCabe — recovering operating partner, Facebook and Alibaba alum, and Founder of Claymore Partners — to unpack what the new playbook for PE actually looks like.

Paul and Lee share stories about Operating Partner roles inside private equity funds, how to bond with management teams so you can get stuff done, and how to share bad news with the deal team when they don't want to hear it. We detail the operating plays that continue to work post-close and why, in the end, there are no shortcuts, only execution. Lee calls it common sense.

You can connect with Lee at https://www.claymorepartners.com/ and follow his prolific LinkedIn account at https://www.linkedin.com/in/leemccabe/

Cass sits down with Angela McCoy, Managing Director at May River, a private equity firm investing in lower middle market industrial businesses. Angela shares her journey from leveraged finance at Bank of America through the 2008 financial crisis, to a family office, and ultimately to May River, where she started remotely during the pandemic while pregnant.

They dig into why Angela believes sector-focused strategies are winning in today's PE landscape, how May River approaches portfolio management, and why the "private equity = cost cutters" stereotype couldn't be further from her reality. She also opens up about the power of peer networks, building a "personal board of advisors," and why 10-year-old Angela wanted to be a marine biologist.