CEO transition · Pharma
The first hundred days as CEO
Situation: A VP who moved up to CEO at an international biopharmaceutical group. He knew the company inside out, but the first hundred days as CEO are of a different order. Expectations are high, observations are sharp, and every choice sets a tone that lasts for years.
Intervention: Six sessions spread over his first hundred days. No theory, but real-time sparring on the decisions on the table that week. What is his vision, and how does he make it concrete? How does he build authority without losing connection?
Result: After a hundred days he stood in front of his team with a clear plan, a course of his own and the confidence that he had made the role his own, not just taken it over. Afterwards his board called it one of the strongest CEO transitions they had experienced.
Manufacturing · Leadership
From analytically strong to influential leader
Situation: A senior executive at a large manufacturing group had risen on the strength of his analytical ability. At this new level, delivering analyses was no longer enough. He had no network, no visibility, and did not know how to move people without formal authority.
Intervention: Not communication training, but a fundamental rethink of what leadership at this level requires. How do you build relationships that matter? How do you move people who owe you nothing?
Result: Within six months he had built an internal network that strengthened his work instead of slowing it down. His analyses were listened to, not because they were better, but because he now had the people who listened to them.
IT education · Transformation
From classroom-based IT institute to EdTech company
Situation: An IT training institute drifted along on classroom teaching while the market changed fundamentally. The board and the supervisory board were at odds: they knew something had to change, but not what and not how. The managing director left. The supervisory board wanted to dispose of its shares. Without intervention, this organisation would have gone under.
Intervention: New leadership and new shareholders were brought in. Five concrete scenarios were worked out for a full transformation into an EdTech company. Proactive sales and marketing were set up. Employees with specialist skills came on board.
Result: Revenue grew from 2 to 10 million in five years. Staff rose from 10 to 80 employees. The product portfolio was extended and classroom teaching gave way to hybrid learning, partly physical, mostly digital. An organisation on the verge of collapse became a growing EdTech company.
FMCG · Finance
Finance Director in an international FMCG organisation
Situation: A Finance Director at a large multinational was technically strong but not visible enough at senior level. She had hardly any internal sponsors and lacked connection with the wider organisation. She felt she was not filling her position fully, but did not know how.
Intervention: Together we mapped the full scope of her role: what does the organisation really expect of a Finance Director at this level? Focused work on internal visibility and on building strategic relationships.
Result: She grew out of her technical role into a strategic position that she filled fully and with confidence. Her department followed, because a Finance Director who understands the organisation also attracts a different kind of employee.
Board review · International
A board that wanted to contribute more
Situation: A newly appointed chair and a recently promoted CEO had the same feeling: their board functioned, but added too little. Meetings ran smoothly, but the real strategic conversations did not happen.
Intervention: A guided board review process: how do you assess a board's performance honestly and constructively? And how do you create a culture in which directors do challenge each other, without damaging the atmosphere?
Result: The board developed an evaluation culture in which sharp questions became the norm. The CEO came to experience his board as a real strategic partner, no longer as a supervisor who approves after the fact.
