I’d say the decision really depends on how ready you feel to lead and how much structured learning you still want. If you already have solid operating experience and are eager to take ownership, the ETA path is ideal — it offers true autonomy and tends to generate a higher potential payout over time, since you’re building long-term equity rather than earning carried interest or salary. If, however, you think you could still benefit from developing under a structured environment, PE Ops is one of the best training grounds before taking on a CEO role. While the experience there won’t directly help you with the search process itself, it will give you valuable insight into how to identify and evaluate the traits of successful businesses — an understanding that will serve you well if you later pursue ETA. Both paths can ultimately lead to becoming a strong SMB operator — it just depends on your current experience level and your appetite for independence versus structure.

I spent 10 years in consulting before going into PE Ops (Head of Transformation role at a portco). I am now working on a self funded search. Typical consulting answer for most of your questions, it depends. Every fund is different in how they utilize and support the ops team and how folks are compensated. In my role, there wasn't a whole lot of structure, but there were some resources to help and it certainly was nice. I feel that I learned more working with PE investors completing DD and portco work while in consulting. I jumped into the ETA path now for greater autonomy. It was nice to save money from the time in consulting to have the optionality of self funding. Send me a DM if you want to chat more.