Private credit platforms have grown faster than their organization charts. Origination used to be something a handful of senior people did personally. At many firms it still reports as though that were true, while the number of people doing it has multiplied several times over. So the peer set now contains very little agreement about what an origination leader is. The title has become close to useless as a screening filter, which is exactly why the structure underneath it is worth mapping.
Three models account for most of what we see. In the first, origination sits under the investment committee and its leader is a senior investor who also carries a portfolio. In the second, it becomes a separate function with its own head, reporting alongside investing instead of into it. That model appears once the sponsor coverage effort outgrows what partners can do between deals. The third splits coverage by channel or by geography, with no single owner. Most firms pass through that stage on the way somewhere else. Spans vary far more than the models do. We have mapped leaders with a handful of direct reports, and others at comparable firms with several times that. Deal volume seldom explains the difference.
What the variation tracks is where a firm believes its edge comes from. A platform that wins on speed and certainty keeps origination close to the decision, because the person promising a sponsor an answer has to be able to give one. Winning on reach means building a coverage organization and accepting the handoff that comes with it. Both models work. The firms that struggle built the second structure while still selling the first promise. You see the symptom when origination people leave inside two years, having found they cannot commit to anything in the room. So a firm about to build this function is choosing which promise it intends to keep.
What the full report contains
The full report gives the structure and the reporting lines at each platform in the peer set, with the span under each leader. Every title in use is listed, alongside what it means at the firm using it. The compensation structures attached to each model close the report.