In my opinion, targeting a specific industry is less important than ending up at a good shop (good deal flow, returns, and mentorship). The one exception is that a real estate PE shop will set you down a completely different path than one that invests in companies. Most important is the cadence of deal flow. You will learn a lot more from a shop doing 10 deals a year than 1 per year. Structure of the team is also important. If you want to go the search fund route at some point, try to join a team where the team that does the deal is the team that works with the portfolio company going forward. It should give you a better sense for ongoing operations (although usually at a higher level) than a firm that has a specific operating team. Industry is more of a personal preference. If you like tech, pursue firms investing in tech. It’s most important to just get your foot in the door though.

This is a great question. I am in the process of starting my own PE fund Global Frontier Capital that focuses on frontier markets in LATAM. It is a tough question, though, I break it up more on the line of Operating Partners and Financing Partners to look at both making the transaction the most adventitious as possible, but then also the operational capability to build organic, margin, and acquisition growth as quickly as possible.