Mehlman, who said Petraeus will have work space in KKR’s Manhattan headquarters, declined to say how Petraeus will be compensated. The retired general may, for example, be asked to evaluate how a portfolio company’s footprint in a foreign country is perceived by its population, Mehlman said.

“To be the CIA director, you’re a student of the world,” Mehlman said in an interview. “Dave will help us ask questions that we didn’t think about before. You end up being better investors when you understand the world better.”

GE, Boeing

The retired general also brings his experience dealing with big corporations. Petraeus said when he was overseeing the U.S. strategy in Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki asked him to call chief executive officers of “huge” U.S. companies to ask them to return to the country after the violence led them to leave. Petraeus called General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt to personally urge him to revive the company’s power-generation plants in Iraq, he said. Both GE and Boeing Co. brought back some operations in the country.

Petraeus said he has closely followed trends in North America including what he called revolutions in the energy, manufacturing, life-sciences and information-technology industries. As CIA director, he urged the agency to study their implications for the continent and the global economy.

“My assessment has been that it will be the United States and the greater North American region that pulls the world economy out of the global slowdown,” Petraeus said.

KKR, founded in 1976 by Kravis, Roberts and their partner Jerome Kohlberg Jr., regularly employs former government officials to help the firm find, evaluate and streamline deals, typically as senior advisers. The firm has at least 25 such advisers, consisting of former chief executives or government insiders who in some cases also serve on the boards of KKR’s portfolio companies. Kohlberg left the firm in 1987.

$3 Trillion

The firm last year named former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack as a senior adviser to help make KKR “smarter investors,” Kravis said at the time. Other KKR advisers include Honeywell International Inc. CEO David Cote, former Caterpillar Inc. CEO James Owens and Qantas Airways Ltd. Chairman Leigh Clifford.

Private-equity firms pool money from investors including pension plans and endowments with a mandate to buy companies within about five to six years, then sell them and return the funds with a profit after about 10 years. The firms, which use debt to finance the deals and amplify returns, typically charge an annual management fee equal to 1.5 percent to 2 percent of committed funds and keep 20 percent of profit from investments.