How AI Gave a Private Credit Firm 50% More Deal Capacity — Without Hiring

In this episode of Just Curious, Stu Willson sits down with Osman Ghandour, Co-Founder and CEO of Soal Labs, to unpack how AI is transforming private equity and private credit operations from the inside out. Osman shares how his team delivers full-stack AI systems that cut month-end close times from 12 days to 3 and boost deal capacity by 50%—without adding headcount. They discuss what “forward-looking” firms are getting right, the frameworks Soal Labs uses to go from idea to execution, and why speed matters more than sophistication when AI is in service of the P&L.

Chapters:

00:00 – Intro
00:30 – Osman Ghandour’s background and the founding of Soal Labs
02:00 – Why private equity and credit firms struggle with data chaos
04:20 – The expertise gap between AI theory and execution
05:45 – What “forward-looking” firms look like in PE and credit
07:30 – Bottlenecks in diligence and reporting workflows
09:20 – How middle-market funds can compete with mega-funds using AI
11:00 – The 4-stage Soal Labs framework: Align, Blueprint, Deliver, Expand
14:20 – Case Study: Cutting reporting delays and boosting deal flow
18:00 – Building vs. buying — how Soal connects existing systems
19:30 – Change management: Co-designing AI systems with deal teams
21:00 – Measurable impact: 70% faster underwriting and 50% more deal capacity
23:00 – Common myths: Why AI tools fail without workflow design
24:00 – Where firms go wrong: Planning vs. execution in AI projects
25:00 – From “cool idea” to business impact — making AI real
26:00 – Closing thoughts and key lessons for operators

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