Case Studies - Becoming C Level

Becoming CEO
At a small advertising agency that was part of a global advertising holding company, the agency’s founder, who had built the business and sold it to the conglomerate, was behaving in a manner that was demotivating many of the senior executives. The conglomerate management decided to appoint a new CEO and chose the COO of the agency who had worked under the founder for several years. At the same time, the founder was kicked upstairs as non-executive chairman. The conglomerate was concerned that the former COO might be overwhelmed by the founder who was unhappy with the role as non-executive chairman. A coach was engaged to facilitate the transition of the COO into a fully functioning CEO so that he could, in fact, run the agency with no interference from the founder.

This coaching engagement had a very singular focus. The need for coaching was created by the conglomerate's restructuring of the positions for the founder to non-executive chairman and former COO to CEO. In this case, the coach served two valuable roles. First, the executive – namely the newly appointed CEO – needed an opportunity to vent significant frustration regarding the behavior of the founder. Secondly, the new CEO needed to identify specific action steps that would achieve the goals of minimizing the effect from the founder while at the same time guiding the agency to growth in revenue and profits. Over several months the coaching maintained this singular focus. The coach continuously reviewed the executive’s current activities involving the founder to help identify the appropriate action steps.

This reorganization of the top executives has resulted in a new burst in revenue growth and profits for the agency. This positive outcome reflects the effective managerial style of the newly appointed CEO and his effectiveness in isolating the impact of the founder. The coach’s contribution was to reinforce the resolve of the newly appointed CEO to exercise the power and authority of his new position.