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Talent Risk Assessment

The executive question that gets answered too late

A seven-day leadership evaluation built for sponsors, boards and chief executives: PE, venture and growth investors, private credit lenders, family offices, and the leaders accountable for a management team. It gives you an independent, evidence-based read on up to five executives across eight dimensions, in private capital-backed businesses across the UK and Europe, while there is still time to act on what it finds.

What the assessment covers:

  • Strategic vision and execution, the distance between the plan the business has committed to and the team that has to deliver it.
  • Financial command, how well the numbers that move value are understood and used: margin, working capital, cash conversion.
  • Operational leadership, whether operations can scale at the pace the plan assumes.
  • Building the team beneath, the ability to attract and keep the people the plan actually depends on.
  • Change and transformation, how the team performs through growth, restructuring or a move into new markets.
  • Board and investor relationships, how well the board and the executive team communicate when something is going wrong.
  • Judgement under pressure, how decisions get made when the information is incomplete and the clock is running.
  • Culture and alignment, whether the way the business is run matches what it has committed to deliver.

How the assessment works:

  • Briefing Call (Day 1), We agree what the business has committed to deliver, the pressures on it, and what you already suspect, before any assessment begins.
  • Assessment (Days 2–4), Structured interviews, psychometric tools, and behavioural exercises conducted by our Chartered Psychologist team.
  • Report & Debrief (Days 5–7), Full written report, with a 60-minute debrief for the board, the investor, or the chief executive, depending on who commissioned it.

Delivered with Talentpraxis Group. Assessors are Chartered Occupational Psychologists.

Talk to us about an assessment

Fill in your details and we will come back to you about your business or your portfolio.

Currently offered without charge to a limited number of investors, boards and chief executives.

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Case study: a business partway through a hold

Growth had stalled partway through a hold and nobody could agree why. The assessment was commissioned across the executive team and found two things: a gap in commercial leadership, and a mismatch between how the chief executive ran the business and the pace the plan assumed. The business brought in a commercial lead, and the chief executive took on a development plan instead of a departure. The business was back at its target run rate within two quarters.

The question that gets answered in year two

Almost every chief executive is assessed before a deal closes. Very few are assessed again afterwards, which is when the plan changes, the pressure arrives, and the gap between the team and the task actually opens up.

What happens instead is well documented. In AlixPartners’ eleventh annual private equity leadership survey, published in March 2026, 65% of investors reported chief executive turnover during a holding period, concentrated around year two. Their tenth annual survey put 86% of that turnover down to the investor’s decision rather than the executive’s. AlixPartners’ own reading of it is that these changes are costly, disruptive and, in their words, frequently avoidable with earlier alignment, assessment and targeted executive support.

A team can present with confidence, a credible record and strong references, and still be mismatched to what the business has committed to do next. That is not a character flaw and it is not usually visible in a board pack. It is a question about fit that can be answered in a week, and is instead answered in year two by a replacement.

Both surveys draw mainly on North American respondents: a quarter of the 2026 sample is European, including the UK.

Finding that out early, while it is still a development question rather than a replacement decision, is the purpose of the Talent Risk Assessment.

When to commission an assessment

There are four points where it earns its place:

Before a deal

Whether the team in place can deliver what the deal assumes, answered before anyone commits to it. The findings carry into the first hundred days.

In the first months

The plan lands before the team is settled around it. Assessing early means the structure follows evidence rather than first impressions.

When performance slips

Numbers are behind and the diagnosis is contested. The question is whether the cause is the strategy, the operation or the team, and it is worth settling before anyone acts on a guess.

Before an exit

The 12 to 18 months before a sale, when the team has to hold trading together, run a process, and stand up to a buyer’s own diligence at the same time.

What you receive

One assessment covers up to five executives. The report follows within a week of the briefing call, and covers:

  • Executive summary, an overall risk rating (Green, Amber, Red) with key findings and recommended actions
  • Individual profiles, a breakdown for each executive across the eight dimensions, with the evidence behind every rating
  • Team dynamics analysis, how the leadership team functions collectively, including gaps, dependencies, and friction points
  • Prioritised recommendations, ranked by urgency, and honest about which gaps are developable and which are not
  • Debrief call, 60 minutes with our assessment lead and whoever commissioned the work

Assessments are delivered with Talentpraxis Group, a firm of Chartered Occupational Psychologists.

Want an independent read on the team? Start a conversation with HMN Capital.
Backing a business and unsure the team can deliver the plan? See how we work.
Want the whole thing on four pages? Read the brochure.