Pricing Consulting for Private Equity Portfolios
Maximize investment value through strategic pricing.
For private equity firms, pricing is not just a tactical lever—it’s a core driver of EBITDA growth and enterprise value. As deal multiples and holding periods fluctuate, the ability to unlock pricing potential quickly and sustainably is essential. INSIGHT2PROFIT’s pricing consulting services are purpose-built for private equity portfolios, aligning pricing strategy to investment theses and value creation plans from acquisition through exit.
Our pricing consultants have supported more than 100 PE-backed businesses, delivering scalable solutions that integrate with management teams, accelerate growth, and provide measurable impact.
The Role of Pricing in the PE Playbook
Deal environments are high stakes with fierce competition, timelines, and risk management. However, pricing is often the most underleveraged—but high-impact—value creation lever.
Strategic pricing can:
- Expand margins without increasing cost structure
- Drive topline growth through segmentation and targeting
- Improve salesforce confidence and price execution
- Strengthen exit narratives through improved realization
Whether you’re acquiring a platform, scaling a bolt-on, or preparing for exit, strategic pricing matters.
Our Approach to Private Equity Pricing Consulting
At INSIGHT2PROFIT, we tailor our pricing consulting services to match the pace, objectives, and operating models of private equity firms and their portfolio companies.
Rapid Opportunity Assessment
We quickly evaluate pricing maturity and upside through a diagnostic framework that benchmarks critical items such as margin performance, discount behavior, and value communication.
Actionable Pricing Strategy
We develop customized pricing strategies that align with the investment thesis, including:
- Segmentation models based on value delivered
- Strategic list price and discount structure
- Governance and escalation workflows
- Price realization tracking tools
Scalable Implementation
We integrate with management teams to ensure adoption, aligning with cross-functional leaders across sales, finance, and marketing to embed pricing discipline.
Exit-Ready Value Capture
We prepare the business for a stronger story at exit by showcasing improved realization, pricing discipline, and sustainable growth levers.
Sample Engagements
B2B Software Roll-Up
Firm: Mid-market PE fund
Hold Period Objective: Grow platform via acquisition and margin expansion
Approach:
- Consolidated pricing models across 4 acquisitions
- Introduced value-based tiers and usage pricing
- Standardized renewal and upsell strategy
Result: 6-point margin increase and 18% ARPU growth in 12 months
Industrial Distribution Platform
Firm: Global PE sponsor
Hold Period Objective: Exit readiness in 18 months
Approach:
- Conducted pricing audit and opportunity analysis
- Deployed segmentation and discount guidance
- Installed dashboards for sales enablement
Result: 250bps improvement in EBITDA and stronger CIM narrative at exit
How We Partner With Private Equity Firms
We embed with your firm and portfolio teams across the lifecycle:
- Stage: Diligence
- How We Help: Conduct pricing maturity and upside assessment to inform bid strategy
- Stage: Year 1
- How We Help: Implement strategy with cross-functional enablement and technology
- Stage: Value Capture (Years 2+)
- How We Help: Measure, optimize, and expand pricing gains
- Stage: Exit Prep (6-18 months prior to exit)
- How We Help: Package and position pricing results for investor audiences
When to Engage
Pricing strategy is not a one-time initiative—it’s a continuous value lever. Private equity firms engage INSIGHT2PROFIT during:
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Buy-Side Diligence
Identify pricing upside early and inform valuation modeling.
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Hold-Period Value Creation
Implementing targeted improvements, scaling them across the portfolio company, building sustainable capabilities, and establishing measurement systems to drive continuous profitability throughout the hold period.
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Post-Close Value Creation
Implement pricing improvements within 90–180 days of acquisition.
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Exit Planning
Articulate pricing improvements in CIMs and management presentations.
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Underperformance
Course-correct lagging margin or volume performance through pricing redesign.
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Competitive Dynamics
Awareness of competitive dynamics is critical for success, including: recent price actions, market share, supply availability, product developments, pricing and channel structures, and customer perceptions on value, performance, and price.
Our Pricing Experts
Our team includes former operators, pricing experts, PE professionals, and commercial strategists who understand how to work within a hold-period timeline. Our consulting model flexes to support value creation plans without overburdening the management team.
Charles Lukkes
Charles is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT, leveraging over 25 years of pricing experience in both industry and consulting services. He has driven price realization and building pricing capabilities across a multitude of clients. Charles has experience in developing and leading price realization strategies across multiple organizations with revenues exceeding $1B during his tenure as a consultant and industry practitioner.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Charles worked for Booz & Co. as a general management consultant developing and implementing pricing strategies and capabilities globally. He also created and led strategic pricing teams for several large consumer packaged goods companies, building capabilities and price strategies from the ground up.
Examples of Charles’ experience include:
- Established pricing teams, processes, analytics and governance for a large food/snack manufacturer in the U.S. and Australia/New Zealand; developed pricing strategies across the portfolio, achieving +3% price realization while mitigating channel conflict
- Provided a price quoting tool for an industrial client in the U.S. and Europe that incorporated key value drivers of new products, enabling the client to capture more value from new offerings driving substantial revenue improvement
- Developed a new pricing strategy for a software provider that resulted in a +30% increase in revenue by capturing true value provided to their client’s versus selling, transitioning from a software license to subscription model
Charles earned his MBA and B.A. in Finance from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.
Gary Gebenlian
Gary is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT, bringing over 20 years of experience dedicated to unlocking growth within the consumer, hospitality, retail, and technology sectors. He co-founded a technology start-up in the dining space, played a pivotal role in the growth of an early online-to-offline hospitality commerce business, and led marketing and e-commerce for a Private Equity-backed B2B enterprise.
Gary is passionate about growing businesses by integrating science (data, algorithms) with art (change management, effectiveness) across industries. He excels in pricing strategy, growth strategy, and general management.
Examples of Gary’s experience include:
- Led discovery for an environmental services business, identifying and implementing opportunities to drive a 10% incremental profit, actions included addressing peer-price-index outliers, improving fee/surcharge realization, enforcing list-prices in advantaged areas, establishing analytics capability, and implementing governance/cadence for sustained gains
- Led assessment and implementation of customer-specific repricing of lists and discounts and pricing quick-wins for a multinational transportation and logistics services company, targeting $45M of incremental profit
- Led assessment and implementation of target inflationary price adjustments, margin floor implementation, measurement and reporting structure and capability for an industrial equipment manufacturer, generating mid-single-digit impact for core products and double-digit impact for parts.
- Led design and implementation of a segmented margin-target model for a transportation services business with nationwide operation, generating 8% revenue impact to the bottom-line during the pilot phase
Gary earned his MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management and a B.S. in Engineering and Computer Engineering from McGill University.
Justin Seefeldt
Justin is a Managing Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT and brings 15 years of experience as a management consultant focused on pricing, sales and marketing strategy. Over the past decade, Justin has spearheaded over 70 engagements across various industries concentrating on pricing and profit strategy, resulting in delivering clients more than $1B of value creation.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, he spent several years at a Fortune 500 wholesale distributor, focusing on strategic pricing, private brand management, and commercial analytics.
Examples of Justin’s experience include:
- Collaborated with an industrial holding company to develop a scalable pricing structure and process across more than 40 individual businesses, yielding over $30M of EBITDA impact and 500 basis points margin improvement
- Achieved over $10M of EBITDA impact for an omni-channel building products manufacturer by developing a gross-to-net waterfall that identified key areas of profit leakage and creating corresponding strategies to mitigate them
- Served as a centralized pricing function for a Fortune 500 multinational specialty manufacturer to coordinate pricing strategy and action plans across businesses, executing a $400M pricing action against downward margin pressures
Justin earned his MBA in Corporate Finance and Marketing Strategy & Planning from DePaul Driehaus College of Business, Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Consumer Economics & Finance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Mike Brenner
Mike is a Vice President of Private Equity at INSIGHT2PROFIT, where he has over 15 years of pricing experience across multiple industries and within the consulting field. He specializes in B2B pricing strategy & implementation for distribution, manufacturing, and service providers. Mike has led more than 3 dozen engagements at INSIGHT, excelling in identifying profitability improvement opportunities and offering pragmatic solutions to change management to ensure tangible financial benefits are achieved.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Mike managed a pricing team at GOJO Industries, focusing on establishing market-based pricing for its PURELL line and heavy-duty cleaning products. During this period, Mike lead the launch of the pricing function within Salesforce.com, along with additional data & systems integrations within the pricing domain.
Examples of Mike’s pricing experiences include:
- Drove over $100M in price improvement for a national sanitation services provider through the launch of an optimized pricing engine, differentiated price increases, and enhanced leakage management
- Led a $20M margin improvement initiative for a primary supplier of packaging solutions by identifying and correcting profitability outliers, implementing a process for strategically addressing cost increase events, and launching price management tools to support optimization of freight recovery and surcharge capture
- Delivered over $20M in margin improvement for a leader in lubricant sales & distribution services through the establishment of a value-based pricing strategy, development of integrated pricing tools, and robust change management program
Mike earned his MBA in Finance and a B.A. in International Business from the University of Akron, College of Business. He has also studied at the Rennes International School of Business in France.
Price Consulting Insights
In inflationary markets, firms must move quickly across the portfolio to address rising costs and profitability challenges.
Private equity exit planning strategies to maximize transaction value and increase ROI
Practical strategies for building momentum and differentiating your business
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, private equity firms have to be smarter about creating value for shareholders. In this report, you’ll learn how to pro-actively create value through smarter pricing strategies.