Founder & CEO Diligence  ·  A sample engagement

What a board receives, start to finish.

This is a sample. The company and candidates are fictional, so we can show the full work without exposing a real client. It follows the same method as every engagement: read the business, define the seat, test the people.

A real result: our most recent CEO Diligence engagement, for the board of a venture-backed company weighing a CEO transition. Two candidates, seven weeks, and a recommendation the board accepted in full.

Step 3  ·  Test the people

Eleven references can boil down to five sources.

A voice is who told you. A root is where their view came from. Four voices growing off one root are one source, not four confirmations.

Here is what that looks like in a sample engagement: a board weighing an internal candidate who arrived with eleven glowing references. When we traced each reference back to where it came from, this is what we found.

Sample
Sample: internal candidate  ·  11 references

One reference that came through the candidate’s side

One reference we found ourselves

The founder, plus five people he introduced1 source
Current direct reports, who share one view1 source
References we found ourselves, each independent3 sources

11 references → 5 separate sources

Six of the eleven glowing accounts traced back to one person: the founder sponsoring this candidate.

Counted honestly, the candidate who sounded strongest had the thinnest evidence. That changed the recommendation.

A sample engagement. The company and candidates are fictional.

What you receive  ·  From the same sample

A recommendation, and the evidence behind it.

If the answer is yes, you back your leader with evidence, not hope. The recommendation is ours. The decision is yours.

The dark panel is the summary from the sample above. The other boxes show everything else the board receives.

Sample
Sample recommendation

Candidate B

Why. Leads the two most heavily weighted criteria, on decisions the candidate owned.

Risk to manage. Culture transition: a 90-day founder handoff and a plan to retain the internal candidate.

Scores against the agreed criteria, with how firm each one is
The case for and against every candidate
What the chosen leader needs around them
A counsel file, written on the expectation that counsel, or a court, may read it

We don’t give legal advice. Public companies are scoped separately and run eight to ten weeks.

How to start

Call before the decision is made, not after.

Six weeks fits inside a typical close or board cycle. Wait longer, and the decision gets made by default.

01A thirty-minute call, in confidence
02A one-page scope and fixed fee within a week
03Six weeks to a recommendation

Start a conversation →

Back to CEO Diligence. Want to try the first step yourself? The free Source Map counts the separate sources behind your view of a leader, and the one-page tests are free with our newsletter.