Fortune 500 to Private Equity CEO: Better Work-Life Balance?
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Marc Boreham made a decision that would puzzle many successful executives: he walked away from running a billion-dollar business at Agilent Technologies—a role he'd achieved before turning 40—to become CEO of a private equity-backed laboratory services company. Most people climbing the Fortune 500 ladder don't voluntarily step off. But three years into his role at Technical Safety Services, Marc has zero regrets and plenty of perspective on what private equity actually looks like from the inside.
We sat down with Marc to talk about career pivots, portfolio construction, and whether PE-backed companies really are the sweatshops some people imagine them to be. What we got was a conversation that challenges assumptions about corporate ambition, risk tolerance, and what actually makes for better work-life balance.
Guest Name: Marc Boreham
Titles: President & CEO, Technical Safety Services
Credentials: Former VP & GM of Agilent Technologies' Laboratory Enterprise Division (scaled to ~$500M revenue); Former VP of Worldwide Customer Service & Support at Agilent ($1B+ business, 3,000+ employees)
Current focus: Leading a PE-backed rollup in laboratory testing, inspection, and certification services
Additional areas of expertise: M&A integration, scaling service businesses, corporate development, life sciences operations
Risk, Returns, and the Psychology of Enough
We started the conversation with a question that came up in Long Angle's community: if you've already accumulated significantly more than you'll likely spend, should you go completely risk-off and put everything in bonds?
Marc's answer was refreshingly honest. He splits his portfolio into two buckets. The first is what he calls his "don't break glass" money—a 60/40 portfolio (60% equities split between 40% US and 20% global, plus 40% bonds). He pays someone to manage this portion so he doesn't have to think about it. The second bucket goes into higher-risk alternative investments.
Why bother with the risky stuff when you've already got enough? Marc doesn't pretend it's purely rational:
"There's a little bit we all have to different levels, some competitive nature. You see potential large opportunities out there. You would feel bad sitting on the sidelines, at least for me. If someone says, hey, you want to do some investment in SpaceX, which I have... I wouldn't want to leave that behind and not be able to play."
He's clear that it's not about accumulating more for the sake of accumulation. It's about staying engaged with interesting companies and enjoying the journey of being part of their growth. When you've spent your career building and scaling businesses, sitting entirely on the sidelines can feel worse than the risk of losing some capital.
One detail worth noting: Marc holds a significant amount of Colorado state and local bonds for the tax benefits. The strategy might sound boring, but it's working—especially given recent bond returns have been better than many expected.
The Fortune 500 Exit: Why Leave When You're Winning?
Marc's move from Agilent to TSS wasn't driven by burnout or being passed over for promotion. He was already running significant businesses and had a clear shot at even bigger roles. So why leave?
Part of it was scope. As a division president at a massive, matrixed organization, Marc found himself spending enormous amounts of time in meetings that didn't seem to accomplish much. The global nature of the business meant coordinating across time zones, managing through multiple layers of stakeholders, and navigating a risk-averse culture where every decision required 30 people in the room.
But the bigger pull was the opportunity to actually run an entire company. At TSS, Marc isn't just managing a division within someone else's strategy—he's setting the strategy. He's making acquisition decisions, building the leadership team, and directly shaping the culture. The learning curve has been steep (he jokes about watching YouTube videos on stock-based compensation and suddenly having to care about insurance costs), but the ownership over outcomes is real.
Key differences between corporate VP and PE-backed CEO:
Decision speed: Same-day decisions on major strategic moves vs. months of stakeholder management
Meeting load: Fewer meetings overall, but higher stakes when they do happen
Skill breadth: Need to understand every function deeply vs. having specialists handle each area
Risk tolerance: Expected to take calculated risks vs. avoiding risk at all costs
Direct impact: Clear line of sight between decisions and outcomes
Private Equity: The Reality vs. The Reputation
One of the more surprising parts of our conversation was Marc's take on work-life balance in private equity versus public companies. The conventional wisdom is that PE firms run their portfolio companies like rented mules—extract maximum value, work people to death, flip them in 3-5 years.
Marc's experience has been the opposite:
"The hours and the meetings and the meetings where you don't feel like anything's actually been accomplished are really heavy [at large public companies]. I'm not going to sit and say I don't put in long hours... but yeah I actually think the pressure and intensity was higher at least at Agilent to where we are."
Part of this comes down to the specific PE firm. Marc's worked with two different sponsors now, and he's clear that not all private equity is created equal. But there are structural reasons why PE-backed companies can actually enable better work-life balance:
They're not managing to quarterly earnings calls. The constant cycle of reporting, forecasting, and explaining near-term performance to public market analysts creates a pressure cooker environment. PE firms care about value creation over a 3-7 year horizon, which paradoxically allows for more long-term thinking.
The organization is leaner. Without layers of corporate overhead and matrix management, there's less time wasted on coordination and political maneuvering. When you need to make a decision, you make it—you don't spend three months building consensus across seven different stakeholder groups.
Marc is quick to note that this doesn't mean PE is easy. The expectations are high, and when he says they can make same-day decisions on major strategic moves, that's both empowering and intense. But the intensity comes from building something, not from managing internal bureaucracy.
The Economics of PE Rollups: How the Model Actually Works
Marc runs what's known as a rollup—buying smaller laboratory services companies and integrating them into a larger platform. For anyone who's looked at these deals from the outside and wondered how the math works, Marc broke down the basic economics:
Small lab services companies (doing $2-5 million in revenue) typically trade at 5-6x EBITDA. Once you roll them into a larger platform and professionalize the operations, the combined business can eventually trade at 10-11x EBITDA when it's time for an exit. That's the arbitrage.
But Marc pushes back on the idea that this is purely financial engineering. The value creation comes from real operational improvements:
Small owners often don't take full advantage of tax optimization strategies
They're not running sophisticated sales and marketing systems
Technology and systems are frequently outdated or inconsistent
There's limited career development, making it hard to retain good people
Revenue synergies from cross-selling services across a broader customer base
The companies they're buying are often run by operators who built something successful but are ready to move on. The founder has made their money, they're 60-65 years old, and they want to retire. TSS provides liquidity at a fair multiple while keeping the business running and the employees secure.
Marc is also clear-eyed about where the returns come from. Some of it is multiple arbitrage (buying at 5-6x, selling at 10-11x). But the real value comes from revenue synergies and operational improvements. If you're purely playing the multiple game without actual operational enhancement, you're leaving money on the table—and probably not building something sustainable.
Making Big Company Practices Work (Without the Big Company Bloat)
One of Marc's mantras at TSS is: "Do the things that big companies do that made them big, but don't do the things that big companies do because they are big."
This distinction matters. Large organizations have excellent execution power—once you decide to do something, they have the project managers, program managers, and resources to get it done. But they're terrible at decision-making because every choice requires consensus from dozens of stakeholders.
Small companies have the opposite problem. They can make decisions instantly, but then everyone looks around wondering who's actually going to execute on them.
Marc's trying to build something in between: the decision speed of a small company with the execution capability of a large one. It's easier said than done, but he's clear that size alone doesn't require bureaucracy. What creates bureaucracy is risk aversion and lack of clear ownership.
"There's no zero risk approach to living life and certainly not to running a business. So I think those large companies almost try to operate... of like zero risk... and it paralyzes the organization into decision making."
At TSS, Marc's working to establish clear risk tolerances for different types of decisions. Not everything requires exhaustive analysis. Some moves are easily reversible—you try something, and if it doesn't work, you try something else. Treating every decision like it's permanent and catastrophic is what grinds large organizations to a halt.
The Unexpected Learning Curve
Marc was candid about the areas where moving from corporate VP to CEO caught him off guard. Compensation planning is now his problem. When you're running a division of a Fortune 500 company, corporate HR handles equity grants, bonus structures, and total rewards strategy. As a CEO, you're setting all of that.
Same with insurance. At a large company, someone else negotiates the health plans and manages the risk. Now Marc needs to understand the trade-offs and make the calls.
The breadth of knowledge required as CEO is significantly wider than what you need as a functional or divisional leader. You can't just be great at operations or sales or finance—you need to be conversant in all of it. Marc jokes about learning via YouTube, but the reality is that CEO roles require rapid skill acquisition across domains you've never touched before.
That said, he's energized by it. The learning keeps things interesting, and the direct connection between decisions and outcomes makes it worthwhile.
What This Means for Other Executives Considering Similar Moves
For people in senior corporate roles wondering whether to make a similar jump, Marc's advice would likely be: understand what you're giving up and what you're gaining.
You're giving up:
The safety and predictability of a large organization
Deep specialist support in every functional area
The prestige of a recognizable brand name
Potentially, some compensation stability (though PE CEO packages can be lucrative with the right equity structure)
You're gaining:
Genuine ownership over strategy and execution
Faster decision cycles and less bureaucracy
Broader skill development across all business functions
Potentially significant upside if the company succeeds and exits well
The experience of actually running an entire business
Marc's clear that this path isn't for everyone. But for executives who feel constrained by corporate structures and want to see what they're capable of building with fewer constraints, PE-backed CEO roles offer a viable alternative to the traditional Fortune 500 climb.
Memorable Quotes
On risk tolerance and investing:
"You see potential large opportunities out there. You would feel bad sitting on the sidelines, at least for me. If someone says, hey, you want to do some investment in SpaceX, which I have... I wouldn't want to leave that behind and not be able to play."
On work-life balance in PE vs. public companies:
"I honestly think that the public companies, at least in my experience of Agilent, they work people like crazy over there. The hours and the meetings and the meetings where you don't feel like anything's actually been accomplished are really heavy."
On building a company culture:
"We have to understand the things that big companies do that made them big, and do that, but don't do the things that big companies do because they are big."
On risk management in large organizations:
"There's no zero risk approach to living life and certainly not to running a business... those large companies almost try to operate... of like zero risk, and it paralyzes the organization into decision making."
On the move from corporate to PE:
"My carbon business, we can make decisions instantly, really good, same day, big decisions. We're working on our execution power... Great, we made the decision. So we're really working on execution power."
