Hg's Chris Kindt - AI's transformative role in value creation for private equity

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. Today’s episode provides a fascinating window into the world of private equity value creation and how AI can help transform both portfolio company and investment firm processes and operations to create value. We sat down in New York with Hg Partner and Head of Value Creation Chris Kindt to dive into how he spearheaded the growth of the firm’s in-house value creation efforts and has built a high-performing team to meet the evolving needs of portfolio companies. Chris brings 15 years of experience in architecting and driving value creation to bear, with 11 years of experience at Hg and another 8 years as a consultant at BCG and Parthenon. Chris and his team are responsible for driving value across a portfolio of 55 companies that represents over $180B in enterprise value and would represent the second largest software company in Europe after SAP if it were a conglomerate. Chris and I had a thought-provoking discussion about value creation and the impact of AI on investing and operating companies. We discussed:How to build a high-performing value creation team.Where value creation has the biggest impact.How AI is transforming investment processes.How Hg has become an “AI-first” investment firm.Where AI will have the most impact in a company today and why agentic AI is transforming certain roles and processes within companies.How professionals can generate the most leverage from utilizing AI – without having cognitive decline.Why prompting and prompt engineering is so critical in the age of AI (and how you can use your weekends to perfect prompt engineering).How a management team can buy into AI and why the current time period represents an interesting opportunity for incumbents, particularly for those building mission-critical enterprise software. Thanks Chris for sharing your expertise and wisdom on company building and AI. We hope you enjoy. Note: this episode was filmed in August 2025. A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus Fund Solutions, a leading full-service fund administrator for asset managers in private and public markets. As private markets continue to move into the mainstream, the industry requires infrastructure solutions that help funds and investors keep pace. In an increasingly sophisticated financial marketplace, investment managers must navigate a growing array of challenges: elaborate fund structures, specialized strategies, evolving compliance requirements, a growing need for sophisticated reporting, and intensifying demands for transparency. 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Visit www.ultimusfundsolutions.com to learn more about Ultimus’ technology enhanced services and solutions or contact Ultimus Executive Vice President of Business Development Gary Harris on email at gharris@ultimusfundsolutions.com. We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream. Show Notes 00:00 Message from our Sponsor, Ultimus 01:18 Welcome to the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast 02:10 Guest Introduction: Chris Kindt 03:58 Chris Kindt’s Background and Journey 05:43 Value Creation at Hg 06:55 Pre-Investment and Diligence Process 07:44 Management Team Dynamics 08:40 Common Value Creation Interventions 11:14 Building a Cross-Functional Team 12:31 Scaling the Value Creation Team 15:40 Measuring Value Creation Impact 17:49 Investment Philosophy: Inch Wide, Mile Deep 19:28 Partnerships with Management Teams 20:03 Embedding AI in Value Creation 20:24 Internal vs External AI Applications 21:47 AI First Culture 22:18 Effective AI Utilization 24:04 Prompt Engineering and Whispering 26:25 Choosing the Right AI Models 26:50 AI Models: Strengths and Weaknesses 27:42 Transformative Impact of AI 28:21 Skills Needed in the AI Era 28:26 AI's Role in Investment Firms 28:55 Core Insights and Judgements 29:04 The Core Skillset and Efficiency 29:12 Philosophical Questions on AI and Talent Development 30:18 Building Grit in the Age of AI 31:12 Maintaining Discipline with AI 32:08 AI as a Value Creation Lever 32:35 Operational Efficiency and Copilots 33:43 Emergence of Reasoning Models and Agentic Frameworks 34:31 10x Efficiency in Engineering 36:24 Challenges in Implementing AI 37:16 AI Immersion Strategy Days 39:52 Organizational Agility and AI 42:15 AI's Impact on Investment Strategies 43:26 AI in Mergers and Acquisitions 45:29 The Importance of Proprietary Data 47:12 AI Fatigue and Disillusionment 48:07 Building AI Products and Agentic Products 48:58 Hg's Internal AI Incubator 49:59 The Next Wave of AI 51:19 Voice and Multimodality in AI 51:55 Globalization and Internationalization of AI 53:35 Overestimating and Underestimating AI's Impact 54:54 The Competitive Landscape of AI 55:42 The Future of Value Creation with AI 56:23 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.