Founder & CEO Diligence ·
Company Building
Independent diligence on the person a business depends on.
For boards, investors, sponsors
and family offices.
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.
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 →
Where it does not fit. We turn down search, requests to confirm a yes already decided, and diligence that cannot change the decision. The method has to be able to disappoint whoever commissions it.
Chris Gannett has built, banked and operated for more than twenty years: CMO of CORE Media Group through its sale to Apollo, a $130 million P&L at Sony Music, four years at Citi, and the drive-in concerts that put 350,000 fans in 300 venues with Garth Brooks in one night.
He works with a small team of operating partners and an advisory board drawn from media, sports and consumer companies, and is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Yale Ventures.
“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.
Not ready for a full engagement? An Evidence Review maps how independent the evidence you already hold really is, as a written memo, and is credited against an engagement. How it works →
We do not evaluate a company we hold a position in. See where our capital is committed.
