Portfolio Company Operations

They exist but are very rare. I've never seen an analyst level position, but a few firms with strong ops groups will hire associates to help manage projects. If the operating partners know what they're doing, you would get a great experience out of it. Its a great gig if you can get it but, like I said... very rare. You might get a similar experience with lower pay at a rotation program within a large, multi-industry conglomerate (like GE).

Some of the biggest funds have in-house consulting arms. KKR's is called Capstone. A number of energy-focused funds have "asset-management" groups (asset management in the energy sense of managing/operating the company's plants). I've seen a growth equity fund or two as well, again usually for ones that have a pretty specific focus, otherwise it's tough to ensure that your expensive non-deal partners can be worthwhile.

I've never seen someone with a purely banking background working solely on operational improvement - why would they be able to add any value?

What is reasonably common is ex-Deloitte auditor types working with the companies to improve financial reporting / governance, although this is more common is Emerging Market and smaller MM funds.

gores group has an operations team and an investment team. operations team takes junior guys from mostly consulting backgrounds and investment team takes mostly junior guys from ibanking backgrounds.

im assuming platinum may have a similar approach.

bain cap has an operations group

We have Portfolio Anslysts but they are all ex Auditors/Transaction Services/Management Consultants -> MBA types. I can say for certain that they have a really fascinating job and are constantly developing some envious skills.