Sarah Steventon - Psychotherapist For High Achievers Anxiety & Stress Expert Specialist in Extreme Pressure Environments Central London & Cotswolds

Private Equity

Sarah works with leading consulting partners to the private equity industry across the entire investment life cycle — from deal generation and due diligence to portfolio value creation. Her work also extends to institutional investors, including sovereign wealth funds and family offices.

Post-Acquisition Alignment

Immediately after acquisition is a critical period. This is where Sarah partners with both the portfolio company and the investor to create post-completion alignment and accelerate performance.

After what is often an intense and emotionally charged process, it’s vital that key stakeholders have clarity on the next phase of the journey. When alignment is achieved early, it becomes mutually advantageous — setting the tone for collaboration, efficiency, and long-term returns.

Having a strategy is one thing; executing it under pressure is another. Sarah’s neuroscience-based process strengthens the human and cognitive side of execution — increasing clarity, cohesion, and decision quality across management and investor teams.

This directly enhances the conditions that drive passionate leadership, operational performance, and return on investment.

Supporting CEOs and Boards During the Ownership Phase

During the ownership phase, sustained psychological alignment and performance support can significantly increase portfolio value.

For a private equity-backed CEO, the challenge is unique: create and protect value in a compressed time frame while leading a team through rapid change.

The board expects the CEO not only to protect value but to create it — and fast. Under pressure, clarity and focus can narrow. Time gets consumed by firefighting rather than strategic visioning.

Sarah’s work helps leaders maintain cognitive agility and emotional regulation during these high-stakes phases. By ensuring the executive function of the brain — the cortex, where logic and planning occur — remains dominant, leaders regain the mental bandwidth to lead strategically, not reactively.

Board Dynamics and Transition to PE Ownership

Taking on private equity investment introduces new dynamics — and new pressures.

The composition of the board changes, decision rights shift, and a culture of constructive challenge replaces familiarity.

For many CEOs and executive teams, the first board meeting post-investment is when the “honeymoon” officially ends.

Pre-investment boards often operate with deference to the founder or CEO. Post-investment, PE-appointed non-executive directors bring tougher oversight and sharper questioning — alongside valuable independent thinking.

This cultural shift can feel threatening, particularly when stress responses override rational thought. Individuals may unconsciously switch into defensive brain states, leading to resistance, conflict, or impaired judgment.

Sarah’s role is to translate these human factors into performance levers — restoring logical, solution-focused thinking and enabling effective collaboration between investor and management.

By addressing the underlying neuropsychological mechanisms of leadership behaviour, she helps boards and executives move from reactivity to clarity — ensuring that every discussion, decision, and disagreement remains productive.

The Strategic Value

Research by McKinsey shows a strong correlation between high-performing PE portfolio boards and outperformance at exit.
The boardroom is the formal interface through which a PE team partners with its company — and its effectiveness is fundamental to success.

Sarah’s involvement helps PE firms and portfolio leadership teams:

• Build trust and alignment post-acquisition

• Reduce the cognitive and emotional friction that undermines performance

• Improve the quality and pace of decision-making

• Translate intangible leadership challenges into measurable business outcomes

In short, her work ensures that the human system of value creation operates as efficiently as the financial one.

Translating Intangibles into Returns

When logic replaces threat and clarity replaces reactivity, the impact on performance is immediate.
Boards communicate better, CEOs execute faster, and investors gain greater confidence in leadership’s ability to deliver the plan.

Sarah’s methodology brings neuroscience into the boardroom — creating measurable alignment, accelerating execution, and converting leadership potential into tangible returns.