Portfolio CTO, The Carlyle Group

Overview:

A technology operating executive with past experience working as a CTO in the software industry, working across a portfolio of European mid-market B2B technology and SaaS businesses. You will partner with management teams and deal teams to shape and execute technology value-creation plans — from due diligence through hold period to exit. This is not a single-company CTO role: you operate as a trusted advisor across many companies at once, prioritising where senior technology leadership drives the most enterprise value.

Key responsibilities:

Value creation. Define and drive technology value-creation agendas across portfolio companies — product architecture, scalability, technical debt, cloud and cost efficiency, security, data and AI enablement.

Diligence & assessment. Support technical diligence on new investments; assess engineering organisations, tech stacks, and product readiness, and translate findings into actionable value creation plans.

Partner network. Build, curate and manage a network of trusted third-party technology partners — implementation firms, specialist advisors, fractional leaders and vendors — to deliver execution at portfolio companies without carrying large internal headcount.

Leadership & talent. Coach and mentor portfolio-company CTOs and engineering leaders; help assess, recruit and upgrade technology leadership where needed.

Standards & sharing. Establish reusable playbooks, benchmarks and best practices; drive cross-portfolio knowledge sharing

Exit readiness. Position technology assets for exit — articulating the equity story, de-risking the stack, and evidencing scalability to buyers.

Experience and Background:

At least 15 years of senior technology leadership (CTO / VP Engineering / equivalent), ideally scaling B2B SaaS businesses in the mid-market.

Track record delivering measurable value in a private-equity, portfolio or operating-partner context is preferred.

Deep, current expertise across modern SaaS architecture, cloud, data platforms, applied AI, and AI within the SDLC process.

Demonstrated ability to deliver through partners and lean teams — and comfort operating with a leveraged operating model.

Comfortable operating across multiple companies, geographies and cultures within a European B2B context.

02Competencies and Attributes

• Investor mindset - can translate technology into P&L, valuation and investor outcomes.
• Influence without authority; credible with founders, CEOs, deal teams and boards alike.
• A strong, active external network and the instinct to build and leverage relationships.
• Bias to action, comfort with ambiguity, and a collaborative fit within a team of functional experts.
• Aspires to breadth over depth, relishes novel problems.
• Comfortable operating through others, influencing decision makers, keeping executors honest.

Investor mindset. Maturity to discern what matters to create value, and discipline to focus on it, ignoring the noise.

Commercial. Articulates incisively impact achieved, can talk concisely to financial professionals.

Ability to work in other European languages (beyond English) preferred.

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Who We Are

When people, ideas, and capital come together, opportunity expands across private markets. At Carlyle, this belief has shaped how we invest for decades, fueling growth for companies and delivering performance for investors.

Visit our website to learn more about our firm and the ways our platform is shaping private markets.