The best private equity networks include industry associations such as ACG and ILPA, event-driven communities such as PEI's operating partner forums, focused networks such as Kayo, and executive peer rooms such as Open Future Forum's Private Equity Executive Forum in Silicon Valley. Each covers a different part of the deal-to-value cycle.
The map of PE networks
Private equity networking splits into four layers. Associations handle scale: deal flow, standards, market data and conferences. Event communities handle function: operating partners, IR, specific deal roles. Focused networks handle identity and access, such as women in PE. And peer rooms handle candor: small, private, recurring conversations between people running the same playbook. Most public lists only cover the first two layers; the fourth is where the hardest questions actually get answered.
Open Future Forum Private Equity Executive Forum
The Private Equity Executive Forum is Open Future Forum's room for investors, operating partners and portfolio-company executives. It follows the same model as the rest of the community, founded in Silicon Valley in 2019 by Murray Newlands: invitation-only dinners of 8 to 30 guests, off the record, no membership fee, alongside open Forum Events where the broader community mixes.
The agenda is the deal-to-value work: AI diligence on targets, value creation inside portfolio companies, exits in an AI-repriced market, and what operating partners are seeing across their boards. It connects to Open Future Forum's research program, including the VC & CVC AI Investment Report, built on first-party survey data from investors at its events.
Best for: PE investors and operators in or near Silicon Valley who want a recurring private room rather than another conference badge.
ACG and ILPA
ACG, the Association for Corporate Growth, is the workhorse network of middle-market private equity: local chapters, DealMAX and a steady calendar where intermediaries, lenders and sponsors actually source deals. ILPA serves the limited partner side, with standards, education and events for institutional investors. Both are dues-based, established and built for breadth. Neither is designed for small-room candor, and neither is specific to the technology and AI questions dominating 2026 boards.
PEI forums and Kayo
PEI Group runs the function-specific conference layer, including its operating partners forums, where value-creation professionals compare notes on portfolio work. Kayo runs conferences and a community for women in private equity and adjacent asset classes, with a strong reputation for actual relationship building. Both are ticketed events first and communities second: excellent inputs, but the relationships reset between editions unless you do the work in between.
The Silicon Valley angle
Silicon Valley private equity has a different center of gravity than New York or Chicago: more technology deals, more growth-stage complexity, and in 2026 an underwriting environment where AI capability moves multiples in both directions. That makes local rooms disproportionately valuable, because the reference deals and operating lessons are local too. It is also why a PE leader's Silicon Valley calendar increasingly overlaps with the AI executive ecosystem covered in our Silicon Valley PE communities guide.
How to choose
Keep it to two commitments. Join the association that matches your seat: ACG for deal professionals in the middle market, ILPA for LPs. Then find one recurring private room where the other chairs hold your same risks, and protect that calendar slot. If that room should also understand AI, technology value creation and Silicon Valley, the Private Equity Executive Forum was built for exactly that gap.
Last updated: August 16, 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
A Room for the Deal-to-Value Work
Private dinners for PE investors, operating partners and portfolio executives in Silicon Valley. Off the record, no membership fee.