Sixty terms, defined plainly.

The documents Inside the resume Search Private equity Boards Credentials

The documents

Executive resume

A two-page document that argues you can run something: a function, a division, or a company. Read by search partners, boards, and sponsors for scope, results, company type, and trajectory. Read more →

Board CV

A two-page document that argues you can govern something. It leads with oversight, committee experience, and judgment, and is built separately from the executive resume. Read more →

Board biography

A one-page prose profile of about 300- to 400-words, usually with a headshot. The document a nominating chair reads first and a search partner forwards. Read more →

Board value statement

A note of under 250 words that names a specific board, the gap you fill in its skills matrix, and what you would bring to the committee that needs you.

Executive letter

A one-page letter to a search partner, board chair, or sponsor. It names the seat, states the one or two results that prove fit, and says what you would do first.

PE letter

The sponsor version of the executive letter: under 250 words, naming the situation you are built for, your results in the sponsor's units, and your hold position on recent assets. Read more →

Executive Strategy Brief

The written questionnaire a Dream Executive client completes before the strategy session. It gathers the numbers, decisions, and stories the documents are built from, and takes up to 4 hours.

Strategy session

The 60 to 90 minute private call between client and writer, held after the brief is complete. It is where the argument for the candidacy is found.

Inside the resume

Title line

The line under your name that states the seat you are a candidate for, often with one or two adjacent titles.

Keyword line

A single line of the capabilities and terms a researcher would search for, written in the vocabulary of the target seat.

Summary

Four or five sentences at the top of page one that argue trajectory: who you are and why the next seat is the natural one. In this standard it carries no figures. Read more →

Career highlights

Four or five fully quantified results on page one, each with the lever that produced it. The lines a search partner lifts into a client presentation.

Proven Scope

A sidebar block on page one giving scale in numbers a researcher can lift: P&L, headcount, budget or balance sheet, geography.

Scope line

The line opening each role: reported to, P&L or budget, direct reports, indirect reports, scope. Leaving it out reads as hiding something.

Context line

An italic line above each role describing the company: sector, size, ownership, and situation. The PE version adds sponsor type, entry and exit multiples, and when you arrived.

Mandate paragraph

Three or four sentences under a recent role that tell the story: why you were hired, what you found, what you decided.

Bold lead

The first twelve words or fewer of a bullet, set in bold, carrying the result. The rest of the bullet gives the lever and context.

Result and lever

The bullet rule: state the result first, then the action that produced it, in twenty to thirty-five words.

Owned versus advised

Adam Winfield's term for stating, in every role, which results you carried yourself and which you influenced. A sponsor discounts advisory claims, so the distinction has to be explicit. Read more →

Hold position

Adam Winfield's term for when you arrived and left a sponsor-owned company relative to entry and exit: at close, mid-hold, close to exit, through exit, through transition. Read more →

Exit Record

A sidebar block on a PE resume listing each exit's multiple, hold length and buyer type, and whether the plan beat its underwrite. Read more →

Governance Scope

The board CV's version of Proven Scope: committees chaired, balance sheet overseen, regulators dealt with, boards served.

Search

Retained search

Executive search paid for by the hiring company, usually in stages, for an exclusive mandate. The firm works for the client and approaches candidates confidentially. Read more →

Contingency search

Search where the firm is paid only if its candidate is hired. More common below executive level, and often faster and less exclusive.

Search partner

The senior consultant at a search firm who owns the client relationship and the mandate, and presents the short list.

Researcher

The search firm team member who builds the long list from databases, networks, and public sources, and drafts candidate dossiers.

Long list

The first, broad list of possible candidates for a mandate, built mostly by research before anyone is contacted.

Short list

The few candidates a search partner presents to the client for interview.

Candidate dossier

The search firm's written profile of a candidate for the client, often built from the resume's scope, highlights, and summary.

Mandate

The assignment a company gives a search firm: the role, the brief, the terms. Also used for the remit an executive is hired to deliver.

Confidential search

A job search run while still employed, kept from the current employer through careful settings, outreach, and references. Read more →

Applicant tracking system (ATS)

Software employers use to receive and screen applications. Clearing it is the floor; the people reading after it are the real audience.

Counter-offer

An offer from your current employer, usually more money, made after you resign, to keep you.

Private equity

Sponsor

A private equity firm that owns a company, usually with a board majority. Also called the financial sponsor. Read more →

Portfolio company

A company owned by a private equity fund.

Hold period

The time a sponsor owns a company, from acquisition to exit.

Value-creation plan

The multi-year plan a sponsor sets for a portfolio company: usually three to eight levers, each mapped to a line in the EBITDA bridge with a named owner.

100-day plan

The first sprint after a deal closes: stabilize, assess, take the real quick wins, and set the board cadence and KPIs.

EBITDA

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The profit measure most sponsors value a company on.

EBITDA bridge

A chart or table that walks EBITDA from one period to another, line by line, showing which levers moved it.

MOIC

Multiple on invested capital: what an investment returned, divided by what was put in. A 3x MOIC means three dollars back for each dollar invested.

IRR

Internal rate of return: the annualized return on an investment, which rewards speed as well as size.

Underwrite

The assumptions a sponsor built its investment case on. Results are judged against it: synergy against underwrite, plan ahead of underwrite.

Platform company

The first acquisition in a sponsor's strategy for a sector, onto which smaller companies are added.

Bolt-on

A smaller acquisition added to a platform company.

Carve-out

The sale of a division or business unit by its parent, which then becomes a stand-alone company. Read more →

Transition services agreement (TSA)

A contract under which the seller keeps providing services such as IT, finance, or HR to a carved-out business for a period after the sale. Read more →

Take-private

The purchase of a listed company by a private buyer, usually a sponsor, which then delists it.

Operating partner

An operator who works with a private equity firm on its portfolio companies, as an employee, adviser, interim executive, or specialist. Read more →

Portfolio talent partner

The person inside a private equity firm who runs executive hiring, assessment, and succession across its portfolio companies.

Management equity plan

The share of a portfolio company's equity set aside for its executives, usually vesting on time and on returns.

Cash conversion

How much of a company's profit turns into cash, usually operating cash flow as a share of EBITDA.

Boards

Independent director

A board member with no material relationship with the company or its management. Read more →

Nominating and governance committee

The board committee that leads director succession, maintains the skills matrix and chooses the short list for new directors.

Skills matrix

A table, often published in the proxy, showing which skills each director brings. Its thin column is the gap a new director is chosen to fill.

Audit committee financial expert

A US term for an audit committee member with defined financial expertise. Listed companies must disclose whether they have one.

ICD.D

The director designation of the Institute of Corporate Directors in Canada. Admission expects current board experience.

NACD.DC

The director certification of the National Association of Corporate Directors in the US.

Credentials

CMRW

Certified Master Resume Writer, a credential issued by Career Directors International. Directory →

CERM

Certified Executive Resume Master, a credential issued by Career Directors International. Directory →