Founder & CEO Diligence  · 
Executive Coaching  · 
Company Building

When the leader is also
the asset

We help the people backing a leader, and the leader themselves, see clearly and act with conviction.

If you are backing a leader CEO diligence See them clearly. An independent read on the founder or CEO, for investors, family offices and boards. How diligence works → If you are the leader Executive coaching See yourself clearly. A thinking partner for founders and CEOs carrying the seat. How coaching works →

Kept apart: we never evaluate a leader we have coached.We also co-build a small number of companies with founders. Applied Ventures →

As Seen In

SBJ WSJ Newsweek Dallas Morning News D Magazine Dallas 500 D CEO Business Insider
Why this exists

Most of the people you would normally ask have a stake in the answer.

An investor backing a founder and a board choosing a CEO are making the same bet. Both pay specialists to read the documents, the numbers and the market. Few pay anyone to read the person, a risk that is hard to diversify away.

The seller, co-investors, bankers, managers and the references the leader supplied can each have a reason to shape what you hear, and each is already in the file.

One wrong read on a leader
A fund with 30 positions1 of 30
A family office with 6 holdings1 of 6
A board with one CEO seatThe whole bet

The same gap shows up from the inside. A leader is often the last to hear what the people around them already see.

Founder & CEO Diligence

Is your CEO the right one for what comes next?

Before you appoint, extend or back a leader, get an answer from someone with nothing riding on it. Most of our work is for investors and boards already in a company that is at a turning point.

01

Read the business

Where does the company need to be in 12 to 18 months?

02

Define the seat

Weighted criteria, agreed with you before anyone is scored.

03

Test the people

Interviews, references we source ourselves, and company records. Only decisions a candidate owned count.

Six weeks · one fixed fee · a recommendation and the evidence behind it

The method: count the roots, not the voices. Eleven references can boil down to five sources. Four voices growing off one root are one source, not four confirmations, and separating the two is most of the job. It is not a search, a personality test or a background check.

How CEO diligence works →

The newsletter  ·  Leadership, Underwritten

The method, applied in public.

Every two weeks, one leadership decision from the news, read the way a diligence team would read it. Free, with five tests you can use on your own decisions. Subscribers also get our four one-page tests.

All issues, tests and the Source Map →

The firm

Operators, not analysts.

Chris Gannett

Chris Gannett has held senior operating roles for more than two decades. He was CMO of CORE Media Group, the public company behind American Idol, through its $509 million sale to Apollo, a general manager at MediaMath and president of EarBuds, a Techstars-backed music tech startup. He has sat on both sides of the term sheet, hired more than 10 senior leaders and made the call to replace 5. He supervises every engagement personally, with a small team of operating partners and an advisory board.

Chris’ full background and the team →

“From corporate development, to product development, to commercial development, Chris navigates all altitudes to drive the strategy. He is a consummate professional, a strategic thinker, gregarious, inquisitive, and someone I’d like to work with again.”
Erich Wasserman
Co-founder, MediaMath
Start a conversation

If a leader is at the center of it, start with a conversation.

We take a limited number of engagements each quarter. Counsel is welcome on the first call.

We do not evaluate a company we hold a position in. See where our capital is committed.