INC'D - Roofing Executive Search

01 · The Sector

Roofing

Every other trade sells a service agreement. Roofing sells a $21,000 insurance event. Private equity is rewriting who captures it. The 2026-to-2030 deployment cycle is live.

Wind and hail drive more than fifty percent of all residential homeowners insurance claims nationally. In storm-corridor states - Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, Florida - sixty to eighty percent of residential roofing revenue flows from insurance claims rather than retail purchases. Verisk confirmed total US roof repair and replacement claim costs reached nearly $31 billion in 2024, up thirty percent since 2022. That is non-discretionary, insurance-funded demand flowing through 101,679 contractors where the top three combined hold approximately 3.6 percent of total market share. The consolidation runway extends years ahead.

But the insurance relationship is not straightforward - and this is where roofing differs from every other PE-backed trade. The same carriers funding $31 billion in annual claims are systematically retreating from the markets where demand is highest. At least ten domestic Florida property insurers went insolvent between 2020 and 2023. The Texas FAIR Plan surged 269 percent in a single year.

Allstate, State Farm, Nationwide, and Liberty Mutual have all moved to Actual Cash Value policies for older roofs - on a fifteen-year-old roof, after depreciation and deductible, a $20,000 replacement can leave the homeowner responsible for $15,000 out of pocket. The storm-driven insurance revenue that built most platforms is getting structurally harder to capture at the same margins.

PE buyers now apply a 0.5 to 0.7 times discount to revenue that is more than sixty percent storm and insurance-dependent.

And simultaneously, carrier mandates on roof age are creating a forced-replacement demand wave entirely independent of weather - because when a major carrier refuses to renew a policy on a roof older than fifteen years and the mortgage lender requires active coverage, the homeowner must replace. Twenty-nine percent of US homes with asphalt shingles have fewer than four years of remaining useful roof life. That is non-discretionary retail demand at massive scale.

29%of US homes with <4 years of roof life remaining

0.5-0.7xPE discount on >60% storm-dependent revenue

The platforms built to win are already pivoting. The target revenue mix for a premium-multiple exit is forty percent residential re-roof, thirty percent commercial, twenty percent repair and maintenance, and no more than ten percent storm-dependent work. The platforms that achieve it command a one to two times EBITDA premium over storm-heavy peers. Getting there requires a specific kind of leadership - and that is exactly the search most platforms are failing.

The supplement gap

Every insurance-funded roof replacement generates a Xactimate estimate from the adjuster - and virtually every adjuster estimate omits legitimate line items: starter course shingles, step flashing, ice and water shield, pipe jacks, code-required upgrades. Supplementing adds $500 to $5,000 per claim and represents five to fifteen percent of revenue that unsophisticated operators leave permanently on the table.

Top-quartile performers capture 82 percent of total eligible claim value. Average operators capture 58 percent. On a platform doing $100 million in insurance revenue, closing half that gap is worth $12 to $15 million in additional annual revenue - at margins above forty percent.

It does not require more storms. It requires better leadership.

02 · The Numbers

THE INSURANCE FUNDING

$31B

US roof claim costs. Up 30% since 2022. Wind and hail drive more than half of all residential insurance claims.

Storm and hail demand is non-discretionary because it is insurance-funded. The platforms that built carrier relationships and adjuster credibility before the deal is signed have a structural advantage on conversion that competitors cannot replicate without years of work.

THE DEAL VELOCITY

134

PE roofing deals in a single year. A new acquisition every 48 hours by mid-2025. Platforms grew from 17 to 56 in under two years.

A new acquisition every two days creates an integration challenge most operations teams are not built for. The platforms that paused acquisitions to integrate the existing book are the ones who will exit at premium. The ones still acquiring are losing margin every quarter.

THE FRAGMENTATION

101,679

Roofing contractors in the US. Top three hold ~3.6% combined. The most structurally atomised trade in PE's consolidation playbook.

A hundred thousand contractors with three percent share at the top is the longest consolidation runway in any trade. The hire question is the operations leader who can absorb fifteen acquisitions a year without losing the storm-deployment discipline that drives the unit economics.

03 · The Brief

In roofing, the CRO wakes up on the first of January with zero contracted revenue. Every dollar of the year must be earned from scratch.

There is no service agreement flywheel. No refrigerant replacement cycle. No recurring contract base. In HVAC, a VP of Sales inherits a renewal book with most of next year's service revenue already visible. In roofing, the revenue operations mandate requires running four entirely separate demand channels simultaneously: storm-response canvassing deployed within forty-eight hours of a hail event; year-round digital lead generation for retail reroofs; insurance company and adjuster referral networks; and real estate agent channels for carrier-mandated age-driven replacements. Most candidates can run one of these. The platforms that win have the executive who builds all four into repeatable systems. That person barely exists in the market.

The cultural divide between storm-chaser and platform-builder is the most acute talent gap in any trade PE has entered. Storm-dependent operators generate seventy-five percent of annual revenue in three to four months, deploy 1099 crews at speed, and optimize for close rate. Jim Ziminski, Chairman of CCMP-backed Omnia Exterior Solutions, closed eight acquisitions in 2024 and deliberately reduced to four in 2025 because "a lot of people were just buying businesses and then couldn't make the synergies stick." The Renovo Home Partners collapse - a PE-backed roll-up that filed Chapter 7 on November 3, 2025 - is the sector's read-across: debt-funded roll-up, integration failure, leadership that could not hold together businesses built on fundamentally different operating models.

Then there is the materials brief. The BLS Producer Price Index for asphalt shingle manufacturing has roughly doubled from its 2020 base. Section 232 tariffs of twenty-five percent on steel and aluminium - effective March 2025, escalated to fifty percent in June 2025 - are adding $1,000 to $4,000 to the average roof replacement. NRCA's June 2025 survey reported lead times stretched six to eight weeks. Materials are thirty-five to forty-five percent of contract value. The VP of Operations in roofing is simultaneously a field executive, a procurement strategist, and a supply chain manager in a way no other residential trade demands. Getting procurement wrong destroys the margin on the jobs that should be most profitable.

Where roofing searches break down

Placing a CFO who does not understand ACV-to-RCV insurance payment timing - the gap between what the adjuster approves, what the carrier disburses, and when the contractor gets paid creates working capital dynamics that have destroyed profitable roofing companies. Most PE-experienced CFOs from other trades have never seen this
Treating the Director of Insurance Claims and Supplement Management as a back-office function - on a $100 million insurance revenue platform, a systematic supplement program is worth $12 to $15 million in additional annual revenue. This is not back-office. It is the primary margin defense as ACV shifts compress base claim value
Hiring a CRO who grew up in storm chasing and cannot build year-round systems - as PE buyers increasingly discount storm-heavy revenue and apply premium multiples only to diversified platforms, the revenue leader who cannot build retail and commercial channels is limiting the exit valuation directly
Underestimating the VP Safety hire - workers' comp at thirty-three percent of payroll, mainstream carriers refusing to write roofing in some states, and an experience modification rate that determines whether the platform is insurable at all. This is an EBITDA hire, not a compliance one.

What we bring to it

We know the difference between a storm chaser who built $30 million in revenue on one hail season and an operator who has built sustainable year-round revenue - the EBITDA looks identical in a good year and the leadership profile is entirely different
We understand the specific CFO brief roofing demands - Xactimate-based job costing, ACV timing, supplement claims as a revenue line, commodity procurement against a doubled asphalt index. We do not present a generalist and ask the platform to train them
We have mapped the safety leaders in this market who combine OSHA regulatory depth with the operational credibility to change crew behavior across multiple acquired brands - a combination scarcer than most platforms realize until they have paid the EMR consequences of not having it
We know which founder-operators have genuinely made the transition to platform leadership and which ones will retreat to running their original business the moment integration pressure builds.

04 · Roles We Place

Roles We Place

Storm revenue is not a strategy. The platforms that exit well are built on leaders who understand both. Each role below has a different relationship with the insurance cycle. Getting the wrong one costs more than the fee.

CEO / Platform President

Leads acquisition integration across storm corridors while executing the storm-to-platform revenue transition that most roofing roll-ups fail to complete. Manages the post-reform insurance landscape - ACV shift response, supplement systematisation, retail revenue build - alongside GAF Master Elite and Owens Corning Platinum Preferred certification programs and multi-trade exterior expansion. Must retain founder-operators through a transition that, done badly, destroys the local adjuster and crew relationships the platform just paid to acquire.

Chief Financial Officer

The most structurally complex CFO role in residential services PE. Project accounting with no recurring revenue baseline. ACV-to-RCV insurance payment timing and its working capital implications. Supplement claims as an active revenue line - not cost recovery. Job costing against Xactimate-paid scope. Commodity procurement exposure against record-high asphalt indices and steel and aluminium tariffs. Revenue mix optimization toward the insurance-to-retail balance PE buyers require for premium exit multiples. These searches run 90 to 150 days and frequently fail first attempt.

VP of Operations

Manages weather-dependent scheduling, 1099 subcontractor quality and compliance across multiple acquired brands, storm-surge deployment scaling from zero to full capacity within 48 hours of a major event, and materials procurement through the most volatile supply chain in residential construction. A five percent improvement in procurement cost on a $100 million revenue platform is worth $1.75 to $2.25 million in gross profit. Getting inventory position wrong ahead of a storm season destroys the margin on the platform's most profitable jobs.

General Manager

Branch or regional P&L owner. $15M-$80M revenue. Manages estimating teams, production crews, and supplement capture across residential storm and commercial maintenance work. Requires command of insurance cycle dynamics and the ability to shift revenue mix toward recurring maintenance - the difference between a 0.5x and a 1.2x EBITDA multiple at exit.

Chief Revenue Officer

Runs four distinct demand channels with zero recurring revenue: storm-response canvassing within 48 hours of a hail event; year-round digital lead generation for retail reroofs; insurance and adjuster referral networks; and real estate agent channels for carrier-mandated age-driven replacements. Manages the balance between insurance-heavy revenue and the retail and commercial mix that commands premium exit multiples. This is the hardest revenue leadership role in residential services PE - and the one most platforms fill incorrectly by promoting a storm chaser who cannot build systems.

Director of Insurance Claims & Supplements

A role that barely exists outside PE-backed roofing - and the single largest per-job margin lever on any platform doing insurance restoration work. Top-quartile supplement performers capture 82 percent of total eligible claim value; average operators capture 58 percent. As ACV shifts reduce base claim value, supplement capture is the primary margin defense for insurance-exposed platforms. Owns Xactimate estimating standards, adjuster negotiation protocols, supplement filing workflows, carrier relationships, and ACV-to-RCV payment tracking across the portfolio.

VP Safety & Risk Management

Roofing is the third deadliest civilian occupation in the US - 51.8 fatalities per 100,000 workers, 5.4 times the construction industry average. Fall protection violations have been OSHA's most-cited standard for fifteen consecutive years. Workers' comp averages thirty-three percent of payroll. In some markets mainstream carriers will not write roofing at all. This is not a compliance hire - it is an EBITDA hire. A 0.2-point EMR improvement on a $50 million payroll platform saves approximately $300,000 in annual workers' comp premiums at standard rates.

A sample of the senior leadership positions we place across this vertical. Not an exhaustive list - if the role you need is not shown, reach out.