What makes a great CEO Review

After 11 years chairing CEO Forums, a singular truth has emerged: CEO reviews are a sensitive, complex, and often inconsistent undertaking. This summer, I'm collaborating with Katja Macura, our Director of Strategy and Research Insights, to delve into this subject. Katja, a seasoned expert in customer experience research with a background at companies such as Meta and Lululemon, is applying her design thinking expertise to explore the "CEO review" experience. The findings so far have been compelling.

As we continue to analyze the data, we can already confirm that distinct CEO profiles appear to prioritize different elements within the CEO review process. Further insights will be shared as our research progresses.  Here is a high level overview.

Founder CEOs:  They often don’t engage in CEO reviews until much later in their journey, but what they most need is a review of their leaderships style and how it is impacting others.  The leaders around them often do not feel comfortable sharing their insights outside of an anonymous trustworthy 360 review process.

Private Equity CEOs:  You would think the CEO review is easier in a PE situation because there are clear exit goals, but it’s not.  When a CEO is managed by a Private Equity Firm the relationship is one of partnership (when done right).  It can be very touchy for the PE firm to give feedback to the CEO if there is fear the partnership will be tense.  Having a structured process with a clear approach really helps.

Hired Gun CEOs:  The hired guns are most likely to be held to the balanced scorecard with an emphasis on a blended set of metrics that include results and leadership values / behaviours.  This is because by the time a hired gun is in the CEO seat the company is more mature.

Public CEOs:  Ultimately it depends on the company, but here there is a great emphasis on a few key financial metrics that will drive financial performance and also innovation initiatives that grow market share.  

We look forward to sharing more and our updated offering on CEO reviews this fall.