The Value of People and Culture

Spencer Fleischer, President of private equity firm FFL (Friedman, Fleischer & Lowe) says one of his key jobs is to make “fine judgments about people.” In an exclusive interview with Privcap, Fleischer describes the attention that FFL pays to the people it hires, the operating partners it deploys and the portfolio-company executives it works with.

The conversation touches on how the private equity industry has morphed over the past 15 years, how FFL has added operating partners, how FFL’s internal meetings are a good indicator of the firm’s culture, why the firm – with a $1.5 billion fund – operates out of only one office in San Francisco, and why there are so many athletes at the firm.