标签： North America

For generations, the standard career path for top Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduates in the United States followed one of two well-worn routes: climb the corporate ladder at a major multinational, or launch a risky startup from scratch. But a growing cohort of ambitious young business school graduates is now taking a third, far less conventional path: raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in investor capital to purchase existing, established companies and install themselves as chief executive officer immediately after graduation.

This trend, known as entrepreneurship by acquisition or search-fund investing, has exploded in popularity in recent years. Data from 2023 shows that a record 94 new search funds were launched across the U.S. that year, with a total of $682 million in investor commitments poured into the model across 2022 and 2023. Specialized investment firms including Search Fund Partners, Aspect Investors and Anacapa Partners have emerged to back these young, would-be CEOs, drawn by data showing strong, stable returns: a study from the Yale School of Management describes the returns from search-fund acquisitions as “juicy by any standard,” even as critics question the wisdom of putting inexperienced 20-somethings in charge of long-standing businesses.

For 30-year-old Ania Aliev, the journey to the CEO’s office began in an unlikely place: a hospital bed, while she waited to be induced for the birth of her first child in late 2023. Fresh off graduating from Dartmouth College’s prestigious Tuck School of Business, the former finance professional was still finalizing her acquisition deal for Life Support Systems, a Massachusetts-based medical equipment manufacturer, even as investors urged her to pause and focus on childbirth. Three months after welcoming her son, she stepped into the role of owner and CEO.

Mindful of the common stereotype of a young, finance-trained newcomer arriving to dictate sweeping changes to long-tenured staff, Aliev intentionally adopted a slow, listening-first approach. “If you judge a book by its cover, it’s very easy to be like ‘oh, young girl, Wall Street background, coming in here and telling me what to do’… I was really conscious about that,” she explained. “I really didn’t want to come off that way to my team. My initial approach was just to observe and learn, not come in swinging with a new agenda.”

More than two years into her tenure, Aliev has delivered on her growth promise: she led the acquisition of a competing firm, a move that has doubled the size of Life Support Systems. While most staff have embraced the new direction, the transition has not been entirely seamless: some longtime employees have left, and Aliev made a small number of roles redundant for workers who were unwilling to adapt to the growth-focused culture. Meaghan Richardson, a long-tenured team member at the company, acknowledges the adjustment was challenging, but frames the change as positive: “It can be a little bit challenging sometimes for those of us who have been here a long time… but it’s been really great since she’s come in because she’s just turned a lot of stuff around, which is really exciting.”

For every success story like Aliev’s, however, the model carries significant risk, as 39-year-old Scott Duncan can attest. A Harvard Business School MBA, Duncan launched his own search fund in 2018 and ultimately acquired F&M Tool and Die, a Massachusetts-based industrial parts manufacturer that looked like a perfect fit on paper, aligning with his prior engineering experience. At 31, he stepped into the CEO role, but struggles began almost immediately.

Within months, key skilled employees left the company – including one who launched a low-cost competitor and poached a major client – and remaining staff pushed back against proposed changes. Duncan quickly realized the business had been built entirely around the personality and leadership of the previous owner, and it was nearly impossible for an outsider to take the reins. What followed was seven years of mounting challenges: the Covid-19 pandemic, rising competition from cheaper Chinese imports, and even a major flood that damaged the company workshop. Duncan describes the slow, grinding struggle as “death by a thousand cuts.”

In February 2024, Duncan had no choice but to shut down the business permanently. He broke the news to his assembled staff, and later filed for personal bankruptcy. “I was a shell of a human being,” he recalled of the period. Now working as a business consultant, Duncan does not oppose the search-fund model, but he urges extreme caution for the young MBAs who enter the space assuming they are immune to failure: “It’s really, really hard, even when things are going well.”

Leadership experts note that the success or failure of a young new CEO often hinges less on age and more on how they manage uncertainty. Jacqueline Ackerman, a leadership coach and managing partner of Chicago-based Vantage Leadership Consulting, explains that employees do not inherently resist younger leaders: “I don’t think people actually resist youth. I think they resist uncertainty. A lot of times people would associate younger leaders with a lot of change, which creates that uncertainty.”

For successful young acquirers like Aliev, the model has delivered on its core promise: a career that feels far more fulfilling than the traditional corporate finance roles many leave behind. “I knew I didn’t want to do banking… I just was so unfulfilled by it,” she says. As the number of search funds continues to hit record highs, the debate over whether this trend is a brilliant shortcut to the C-suite or reckless overconfidence will only grow louder among investors and business leaders alike.

San Francisco-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Uber has launched one of its largest corporate restructurings in recent years, announcing it will eliminate roughly 10% of its global workforce – totaling more than 3,000 roles – to trim bloated management layers, refocus spending on high-priority core operations, and position the company for long-term growth.

The workforce reduction will bring Uber’s total employee count back to just under 30,000, a level last recorded in 2021 before the company’s period of rapid expansion that followed the COVID-19 pandemic. In an internal memo sent to all staff, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi explained that the company’s fast-paced growth over recent years had led to an accumulation of unnecessary management tiers and fragmented small teams, which created bottlenecks that slowed critical decision-making across the business.

“These changes are designed to make Uber simpler and faster, while unlocking capital that we can reinvest in the areas that are most central to our future success,” Khosrowshahi wrote in the email, adding that the leaner structure will put the company in a stronger position to capitalize on its biggest upcoming opportunities.

The layoffs impact both managerial and non-managerial staff across the organization. As part of the broader overhaul, Uber plans to merge most of its smallest underperforming teams into larger, more cohesive business units. As of the announcement, the company has not publicly disclosed which geographic regions or office locations will see the heaviest job losses.

Alongside workforce cuts, Uber is revising its office and remote work policy: nearly all employees will be required to work in person at company-designated hub offices, with only around 1% of all roles approved for permanent remote work. Market analysts project the restructuring will generate up to $2 billion in annual cost savings for the company, capital that will be redirected to key growth initiatives. Uber is currently ramping up investment in autonomous vehicle partnerships, expanding its core ride-hailing and food delivery networks, and scaling up its emerging robotaxi operations.

Investors reacted positively to the restructuring announcement, with Uber’s share price climbing nearly 2% in trading following the news. The layoffs mark a notable shift for Uber, which had avoided large-scale workforce reductions seen across many other major tech firms after the pandemic, when countless big tech players cut jobs while redirecting massive budgets to artificial intelligence research and development. The restructuring confirms the company’s strategic shift toward a leaner, more agile operating model that prioritizes investment in its highest-growth, future-facing business lines.