Job Title: Private Equity Associate
Company: Solen Software Group
Location: New York, NY (in-office, hybrid)
Employment Type: Full-time

About the Role

The Private Equity Associate is a high-ownership deal execution role responsible for leading the full due diligence process across Solen's active acquisition pipeline.

You will own diligence end-to-end-from LOI through close-serving as the central operator who scopes workstreams, manages internal teams and third-party advisors, synthesizes findings, and translates a data room into a clear, defensible point of view for the investment committee. You will partner closely with corporate development, portfolio leadership, finance, and legal, and you will be a primary point of contact for sellers, bankers, and counterparty advisors.

Success in this role comes from combining deep transaction craft with sharp business judgment-moving fast without breaking discipline, and consistently producing diligence outputs that hold up under owner-grade scrutiny.

Core Responsibilities

1) Due Diligence Leadership (End-to-End Process Ownership)
• Own the full due diligence process across live transactions, including commercial, financial, operational, technology, legal, tax, and HR workstreams.
• Scope diligence, build and maintain the master diligence calendar, run working sessions, and drive workstream owners to clear, on-time outputs.
• Select, scope, and manage external advisors (QoE, consulting, legal, tech, insurance) with rigor on cost, quality, and timeline.
• Synthesize hundreds of pages of diligence output into a sharp investment thesis, key risks, and a defensible recommendation-owner-grade, not academic.

2) Investment Analysis & Modeling
• Build and maintain detailed financial models from a blank sheet; pressure-test management projections against diligence findings.
• Lead working capital, net debt, and quality-of-earnings analyses in partnership with QoE providers; develop a clear point of view on adjustments.
• Translate diligence findings into bid mechanics: purchase price, structure, earnouts, escrows, and reps & warranties positioning.
• Maintain valuation rigor across cases tied to specific operating drivers.

3) Investment Committee & Deal Communication
• Draft IC memos, deal updates, and board materials that translate complex diligence into the three things that actually matter for the decision.
• Maintain a single source of truth for deal status, open items, and decisions across the deal team.
• Communicate clearly and directly with senior leadership-surface risks early, frame trade-offs cleanly, and bring recommendations, not just analysis.

4) Transaction Execution & Negotiation Support
• Coordinate across internal stakeholders (corporate development, finance, legal, portfolio operations) and external counterparties (sellers, bankers, lenders, advisors) to keep deals on timeline.
• Support negotiation of LOIs, purchase agreements, disclosure schedules, and ancillary documents alongside legal counsel.

5) Cross-Functional Partnership & Post-Close Handoff
• Partner tightly with corporate development on opportunity evaluation, target screening, and management meetings.
• Own structured post-close transition handoff to integration and portfolio operations teams-diligence findings, value creation hypotheses, open risks, and Day-1 priorities.
• Provide feedback loops that sharpen Solen's diligence playbooks, scorecards, and execution standards over time.

Ideal Candidate Profile
• 2 years of investment banking experience.
• Demonstrated ownership of executed transactions.
• Mastery of financial modeling; able to build from a blank sheet without a template.
• Strong command of accounting and QoE concepts, including working capital normalization and net debt mechanics.
• Excellent written communication-can turn a messy data room into a tight, decision-grade memo.
• High integrity, low ego, strong executive presence; comfortable in ambiguity and energized by ownership.
• Bachelor's degree with a strong academic record; concentration in finance, accounting, economics, or a quantitative field preferred.
• Based in or willing to relocate to New York City.

Strongly Preferred
• Exposure to vertical-market software, B2B SaaS, or other recurring-revenue businesses.
• Experience working directly with private equity sponsors, evergreen holding companies, or software consolidators.

Benefits
• Opportunity to lead deal execution within an evergreen software compounder with a long-duration ownership model.
• High-ownership role with meaningful influence on capital deployment and acquisition outcomes.
• Direct exposure to senior deal leadership and a clear path to broader investing responsibility.
• Competitive compensation and benefits package.