In private equity, the exit is often treated as the finish line. Bankers run their processes, advisors polish their decks, and dealmakers celebrate when proceeds are distributed. But for the finance leaders who live through these journeys, who build the financial architecture that makes those outcomes possible, the real story is what happens in the years before the transaction closes.
Few CFOs have navigated that terrain more than once at scale. Gary McGaghey has done it twice. Currently Group CFO of OCS, one of the leading integrated facilities management businesses in UK&I and APAC Middle East, backed by Clayton Dubilier and Rice, McGaghey previously led the finance function at Williams Lea Tag through one of the most complex global carve-outs in the digital marketing services sector, a process that ultimately resulted in a successful sale to Dentsu under Advent International’s ownership. Before that, he held senior finance exec roles at Unilever across Southern Africa operating entities before moving into global roles across Unilever M&A, shared services and joint ventures with PepsiCo.
What emerges from McGaghey’s track record is not a formula, but a set of disciplines, practised consistently and adapted intelligently, that explain why the businesses he has led have consistently delivered for their investors.
The CFO as value architect, not scorekeeper
The traditional view of the CFO in a PE-backed business positions the finance function as the organisational conscience: the team that tracks results, flags variances and keeps the board honest. McGaghey operates from a fundamentally different premise.
In a PE context, where investor expectations are demanding and the timeline to exit is finite, the CFO who limits themselves to financial reporting is leaving value on the table. McGaghey’s approach has consistently been to position finance as a genuine co-architect of the investment thesis, present in the operational conversation, fluent in the commercial dynamics of each business unit, and capable of translating financial complexity into robust performance data metrics and clear strategic guidance for management and investors alike.
At Williams Lea Tag, that meant standing up an entirely new financial infrastructure across more than 140 legal entities following the carve-out from its former parent. Treasury operations were redesigned from scratch, core business processes were separated and Management information frameworks were rebuilt to give business unit leaders the unique visibility they needed to run their respective operations. The finance function was not a spectator to the transformation. It was one of its primary drivers.
That philosophy carries forward to OCS, where McGaghey and his team are managing the integration of two substantial acquisitions against the backdrop of a business already operating across multiple markets and service lines. The finance function at OCS is not simply recording what the business does. It is shaping what the business becomes.
Integration is never finished
One of the most expensive misconceptions in M&A is the idea that integration has an end date. Deal teams negotiate integration timelines. Boards approve integration budgets. And then the business discovers, invariably, that the work is more complex, more human and more continuous than any project plan anticipated.
McGaghey’s experience across multiple integration cycles has produced a more durable framing: integration is not a project. It is a discipline, one that must be sustained through every stage of an organisation’s development, particularly in businesses that are growing through acquisition.
At OCS, the initial post-merger integration following the formation of the group has been successfully completed. The focus now is on embedding two further acquisitions into the group’s operating model, each bringing its own culture, its own ways of working and its own relationships with clients and employees. The challenge McGaghey and his leadership team face is one that will be familiar to anyone who has worked in consolidating industries: how to capture the operational and financial benefits of scale without destroying the local expertise and client intimacy that made the acquired businesses worth acquiring in the first place.
It is a balance that requires more than process. It requires judgment, patience and a leadership style that takes the human dimensions of integration as seriously as the financial ones.
Why cash is the discipline that cannot be faked
Ask McGaghey what the single most reliable indicator of integration health is, and the answer is immediate: cash.
EBITDA can be managed. Reported earnings can be shaped by accounting choices. But cash conversion, the rate at which a business turns its operating performance into actual liquidity, tells a more honest story. Operating cash flow generation, working capital trends, overhead absorption, free cash flow and covenant headroom: these are the metrics that reveal whether an integration is genuinely working or simply producing optimistic narrative.
This conviction has shaped McGaghey’s approach to financial management across his career. At Williams Lea Tag, the carve-out required establishing new banking relationships across multiple jurisdictions, migrating cash pools from the former parent’s treasury structure and implementing new payment controls across a global organisation, all simultaneously and under time pressure. The businesses that manage that kind of complexity well, in McGaghey’s view, are the ones where the CFO has anticipated the cash flow implications in advance and built the treasury infrastructure to handle them.
At OCS, granular operating cash flow and working capital tracking and rigorous covenant management are central to how the integration programme is run. Integration costs, which in businesses of this scale can be substantial, are planned, approved and tracked against budget with the same discipline applied to operational expenditure. For PE investors and banking partners, that transparency is not just reassuring. It is a signal that the business is being run by people who understand that financial credibility is earned through consistency, not assertion.
The team question
If there is an aspect of Gary McGaghey‘s leadership philosophy that surprises those who encounter it for the first time, it is the emphasis he places on what he describes as emotional intelligence in finance leadership.
In PE-backed environments, the pressure on finance teams is intense. The pace of change is relentless, the workloads are heavy, and the tolerance for error is limited. In that context, the quality of the team, their resilience, their ability to operate under pressure and their ability to navigate the differing paths required to drive change whilst partnering the business leaders, is as consequential as any technical competency. In his experience there is no “one standard solution” to these softer aspects of driving performance. Good finance leaders and teams flex their approach to fit the cultural needs of the business, navigating the fine lines of leading and driving change whilst supporting the business to drive performance.
McGaghey’s approach to building finance teams combines rigorous capability development with a genuine investment in psychological safety. He wants people who will challenge assumptions, disagree constructively and bring problems to the surface before they become crises. That, in his experience, requires a leadership environment in which people feel trusted and respected, not simply directed.
PE investors conducting management due diligence are, in effect, assessing whether a leadership team can be trusted to deliver under the pressure of an exit process. A CFO who has built a finance organisation capable of running an exit process, a refinancing and a transformation programme simultaneously, without the wheels coming off, is a CFO who has earned that trust. McGaghey’s record suggests that the investment in team quality is among the highest-returning decisions a PE-backed CFO can make.
The enduring lesson
PE exits are momentary events. The businesses they involve are not. Employees, clients, suppliers and operations persist long after the transaction closes, often under new ownership, with new expectations and new pressures.
The CFOs who create the most enduring value in PE are not those who optimise for the exit process. They are those who build businesses that are operationally excellent, AI enabled and financially transparent and culturally coherent. These are businesses that perform not because their CFO is in the room, but because the systems, disciplines and teams that CFO built are strong enough to run without them.
That is the standard Gary McGaghey has set across his career. And it is the standard against which the most serious PE investors are increasingly choosing to measure the finance leaders they back.
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