Founder & CEO Diligence
For boards, investors and family offices. Fixed fee. Fixed scope. Six weeks for a board, or your deal clock.
A board replacing a CEO and an investor backing a founder are making the same bet. Both buy specialists for the documents, the numbers and the market. Neither buys one for the person. That is the one you cannot diversify away from.
As Seen In
Four people telling you the same thing may be one person telling you the same perspective four times. Co-investors, bankers, managers, agents, family — every one of them is paid by the outcome, and every one of them is in the file.
Diversification is what makes a wrong CEO survivable. A fund with thirty positions absorbs one. A family office with six cannot, and a board with one cannot at all — the same call, an order of magnitude more damage, and none of the apparatus a fund keeps behind it.
About seventy percent of family offices now invest directly. They took the deal flow and inherited none of the diligence stack.
One method, two ways in. Which one you need depends on the decision in front of you — who runs the business, or whether to back the person it depends on.
A defined candidate set, or a sitting leader, measured against a standard built from the next eighteen months. It informs the decision. It does not make it.
Three documents, one evidence base. Written to hold up if the decision is challenged.
Fixed scope · fixed fee · six weeks
Scope, timeline & fee →The same method on a deal clock. A company where the leader is the reason it works. An emerging league, a team, a catalog, a name that is the business.
Three documents, one evidence base. Written to hold up if the decision is challenged.
Fixed scope · fixed fee · your deal calendar
Scope, timeline & fee →The method: count the roots, not the voices. 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, and separating the two is most of the job. The full method →
Both engagements end the same way: findings, a decision that stays yours, and a rule about everything that comes after. What continues →
Search. This is evaluation of a defined set, not finding people.
Confirmation. If you want a yes on one person, that is different work and should be priced as such.
An answer you already hold. If the diligence cannot change the decision, it is theater that exposes everyone who commissioned it.
The method is designed to be able to disappoint the party commissioning it. Without it, the rest isn’t worth paying for.
Boards usually want the person who did the work to stay in the room. We can. Over twenty years of operating and investing sits behind that work — not an upsell we invented to follow a finding.
None of it is proposed or priced while the diligence is running. That is in the engagement letter. An adviser who can sell you the next job during this one is not independent, and the finding is worth less.
Each is agreed with the board, not the person evaluated, and priced separately. None of it is included in the diligence, and the diligence does not depend on any of it.
In business since 1995. Over twenty years operating and investing.
CMO of CORE Media Group, a $300 million revenue public company built entirely on famous names — Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment — through its sale to Apollo.
Brand management on Dr Pepper and Oreo. Four years at Citi. A $130 million strategic marketing P&L at Sony Music. A $40 million P&L as a general manager at MediaMath. The drive-in concert business that put 350,000 fans in 300 venues with Garth Brooks on one night in 2020.
Direct investor in over 20 active portfolio companies and limited partner in two venture funds. Realized exits include Classy, Jackpocket, Geologie and SpaceX (secondary and IPO). Companies co-built with founders, where we hold equity and carry operating responsibility: DOC CARES and MusicNIL. We do not evaluate companies we hold a position in.
Long enough to know who carries the seat, and who only looks like they can.
“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.”
“Chris is a gifted operator with a rare combination of creativity, a forte for management, and an exceptional vision for the future. In a very short time, he guided our department through a highly successful restructuring while providing stellar stakeholder management and a calming authority.”
“Working with Chris is an absolute privilege. His deep insight, expertise, and judgement around the challenges of entrepreneurial and executive activities make for an incredible combination.”
We take a limited number of engagements each quarter. Your counsel is welcome on the first call.
