Decide who decides, first
The most common cause of a failed C-suite search is that nobody agreed who owns the decision. A chief executive, two investors and a board chair with equal weight produces a process that converges on the least objectionable candidate.
One owner, consulted widely, decides. Write that down before the brief goes out.
What to assess that you would not lower down
- How they handle being wrong in public. An officer is wrong in front of a board.
- What they inherited against what they built. A strong result inside a strong machine says less than a modest one built from nothing.
- Their relationship with the function they will not run. A CFO who cannot talk to a sales leader will not survive.
- Whether they can say no to the chief executive, with an example.
References at this level
Candidate-supplied references are near worthless. What has value is backdoor referencing: people who worked alongside them and were not nominated, taken up with the candidate's knowledge once they are the final choice.
Ask about the hardest quarter, not the best one.
The offer
An officer offer is a package, not a salary: base, bonus mechanism and who sets it, equity and vesting, notice both ways, severance, and what happens on a change of control.
Leaving the last two to be drafted after acceptance is how offers come apart in week three. Put them in the offer letter.
How it fails
- A scope that changed after the offer. The role they accepted is not the role they arrived to.
- No decision owner, so nobody sponsors them in month one.
- Hiring the profile the board is comfortable with rather than the one the company needs.
- Six months of vacancy before the search even started.
Questions
- How long does C-suite hiring take?
- Eight to twelve weeks of search plus notice. Plan six months in the UK and about three in the US.
- Who should make the final decision on a C-suite hire?
- One named person, consulted widely. Equal-weight committees converge on the least objectionable candidate rather than the right one.