Why Great Hill Partners: Interviews, Careers, & Portfolio

Great Hill Partners Overview

Great Hill Partners is a private equity firm providing investments of $25 million to $500 million to companies with high-growth potential across the digital commerce, software, financial technology, digital infrastructure, and healthcare sectors.

Since inception, the firm has raised over $12BB of capital commitments and invested in 90+ companies – which served as proof for the firm’s mission to build long-term partnerships with businesses and help middle-market companies scale through flexible solutions.

Due to excellent performance of Great Hill Partners, the firm was placed #5 in the 2021 HEC – DowJones Private Equity Performance Ranking where 517 top PE firms from 2008 – 2017 were evaluated.

Great Hill Partners has a clear criteria when selecting companies that they would invest in:

• Stage: All companies beyond early stage
• Growth: 15%+ annual growth
• Investment Size: $25 – $500 million
• Enterprise Value: <$1 billion
• Ownership: Majority or minority stakes

Christopher Gaffney and John Hayes co-founded Great Hill Partners in 1998. The firm is currently located in Boston, MA.

Great Hill Partners AUM

Based on the most recent regulatory filings, Great Hill Partners has $12.9 billion in assets under management as of March 30, 2023.

Great Hill Partners Interview Process & Questions

Firms can always make modifications in their interview process with each candidate. However, if you interview at Great Hill Partners (or a firm like it), you’ll notice a few consistencies in the general nature of the process such as the following:

• You’ll go through 4 to 6 rounds of interviews.
• Junior investment professionals or the HR team typically lead the initial interviews, while the more senior staff handle the later rounds.
• The entire interview process can take several weeks – unless it is “on-cycle” or “on-campus” recruiting.

Interviews at Great Hill Partners will be composed of behavioral questions, fit questions, and technical / investing questions.

For interview preparation resources, check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

Why Great Hill Partners

When you interview at Great Hill Partners, you’ll come across one of the most common and important questions – “Why this firm?”

If you’ve done networking, this is your chance to mention whoever you’ve met and how their firsthand experience at the firm positively influenced your decision to apply.

Also, it would help you a lot if you do some research about the firm. For this, I recommend listening to interviews with its founders, investors, or management team.

Here’s Bloomberg’s interview with Chris Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner at Great Hill Partners, to get you started:

More interview

• Talk with Suaad Sait, Growth Partner at Great Hill Partners

Great Hill Partners Case Study

Case studies almost always show up during interviews because firms use case studies to evaluate the communication skills and technical knowledge of their candidates.

Most case studies at Great Hill Partners focus on investment recommendations and financial modeling. However, if you’re applying for a junior role, prepare to do a cold calling case study as well.

Need help preparing for case studies? Check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

Great Hill Partners Salary & Compensation

According to Glassdoor, investment associates at Great Hill Partners earn around $175,894 per year; This figure only represents the median and can still change depending on several factors – level of experience, education, and skill set.

Associate

From other public data, recent associates at Great Hill Partners have earned $300,000 per year, while there’s no available data for analyst hires.

Great Hill Partners Careers, Jobs, & Internships

To view open roles at Great Hill Partners, visit our job board where you can also find available positions from similar firms.

Great Hill Partners Portfolio & Investments

As per the firm’s record, Great Hill Partners has raised $12+ billion across eight funds with 99 companies in its portfolio and 190+ add-ons. Some of their notable deals include AffiniPay, Blue Ridge, and Central Security Group.

Notable Transaction: Dealfront

In May 2022, Dealfront was created as a result of the merger of two award-winning companies:

• Echobot – top provider of European sales intelligence
• Leadfeeder – one of the best web visitor intelligence platforms.

Dealfront is the go-to-market platform in Europe that provides businesses everything they need to win and close leads. Dealfront’s multilingual AI can understand European data, so it can access insights and data that other tools cannot.

Great Hill Partners invested €180 million to support the said merger and help Dealfront to continue product innovation and growth. The firm also gave an extra €50 million to Dealfront for strategic acquisition purposes.

According to Derek Derek Schoettle, Growth Partner at Great Hill Partners, by merging Leadfeeder and Echobot, they can create the next-gen sales intel and go-to-market platform.

Next Steps

Want to increase your chances of getting selected for the role when you interview at Great Hill Partners? Be sure to check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

It’s a self-paced online course specifically created for professionals who want to ace their interviews so they can secure their dream role and take the leap into growth/vc. The course contains step-by-step video lessons that tackle case studies, valuation, and many more.

Get the course and start learning today!