He is equally clear about the shared language between a management team and its investors. “Our language of communication is facts and data,” he said. Trade-offs are laid out plainly, so that every choice is visible: if we make this investment, here is what it returns, and if we do not, here is what we forgo. That habit builds the trust a CEO needs when conditions turn, and in this industry they will. Anish’s own plan did not anticipate recent geopolitical turmoil or the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, because, as he put it, “you can never know the unknowable.” A clear, evidence-led plan is what lets a team absorb those shocks without losing direction.

Step 3: Stay in Your Lane, and Lead From the Pivot Point

The third shift is about roles. New CEOs sometimes try to think like their investors, or resent them for not thinking like operators. Anish sees the healthiest relationships built on a clear division of labour.

“I love that expression, you stay in your lane,” he said. “They’re investors, we’re operators. I could never do your job, and I don’t think you could do my job.” When both sides accept that, the partnership gets stronger because each brings a different view of the same market, pipeline, and competitive picture.

That does not make the CEO’s job simpler. If anything, it concentrates the difficulty. The chief executive sits at the centre of investors, employees, regulators, customers, and partners, each with different needs. “The leader is the pivot point between all the different stakeholders,” Anish said. Knowing what to communicate, when, and to which group is the part of the role that a divisional seat never fully prepares you for.

The Evidence

Anish has applied this approach across more than ten years in private equity-owned companies, and the pattern holds. When a CEO takes full ownership, aligns quickly on a credible plan, and keeps communication honest, good businesses become better ones without losing their footing.

He is careful about what “better” means. “Better is not just more EBITDA,” he said. “Better really is a better pipeline, a wider geographical footprint, a more effective cost of goods footprint.” That definition matters because it aligns everyone, including the owners. In Anish’s experience, serious investors share the goal: “They want to sell a better company than they bought.”

The time horizon is part of what makes this work. Rather than optimising for a quick exit, the best owners and management teams think in decades. Anish points to a business that will soon mark 35 years and where the conversation is already about the long future: “We always talk about what’s the 70th year going to look like, not five years from now or seven years from now.” Done well, the company is handed on stronger than it was received, with a healthier pipeline, a wider footprint, and more patient impact behind it. That is what good looks like in a private equity-backed life sciences business.

Your Next Move

If you are weighing a move into a private equity-backed life sciences business, or you have just made one, resist the urge to lead the way you always have. Instead, ask yourself:

1. Can I write down, in one page, what value creation means for this business over the next three years, and would my board sign it today?
2. When I bring bad news to my owners, do I arrive with a plan and the data behind it, or just the problem?
3. Am I clear on where the investors’ lane ends and mine begins, and do we both agree on it?
4. If a shock hit next quarter, would my team still know the direction we committed to?