April 30, 2026

What to Do When a CEO Quits: 5 Critical Steps for Stability

What to Do When a CEO Quits: 5 Critical Steps for Stability

When a CEO quits, companies must immediately stabilize leadership, appoint an experienced interim CEO, communicate with stakeholders, and begin the search for a permanent replacement.

Key Takeaways

  • Act immediately: When a CEO quits, the priority is stabilizing leadership; successful companies appoint an interim CEO within days to maintain continuity.
  • Control the narrative: Clear communication with employees, investors, and stakeholders is critical to preserving confidence and avoiding disruption.
  • Stability matters: An experienced interim CEO is the most effective way to bridge the gap while you conduct a thorough search for a permanent leader.

What to Do When a CEO Quits: 5 Critical Steps

  1. Appoint an interim CEO immediately
  2. Begin the search for a permanent CEO
  3. Communicate with stakeholders
  4. Maintain operational focus
  5. Update succession planning

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April 30, 2026

What is a Fractional Executive? How Part-Time CEOs, CFOs, and COOs Generate Big Impact

What is a Fractional Executive? How Part-Time CEOs, CFOs, and COOs Generate Big Impact

A fractional executive is a senior C-suite leader (such as a CEO, CFO, or COO) who works with a company on a part-time or ongoing basis, providing strategic leadership without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.

Key Takeaways

  • A fractional executive is senior leadership without full-time commitment: Fractional executives provide C-suite-level strategy, decision-making, and accountability on a part-time basis aligned to actual business needs.
  • Offers a flexible, lower-risk, lower-cost alternative to full-time hiring: Boards gain experienced leadership while controlling costs, reducing long-term obligations, and maintaining the ability to scale involvement up or down.
  • Built for moments that matter most: Fractional executives are especially effective during growth, transformation, transitions, and periods where targeted expertise delivers outsized impact.

Fractional executives, including fractional CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and CIOs, are the hottest thing in the C-suite. What started as a niche workaround has gone mainstream, with companies from fast-scaling startups to Fortune 500s tapping part-time leaders for big-impact roles.

These aren’t consultants or advisors — they’re deeply embedded executives, delivering high-level strategy, leadership, and results without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.

But what exactly is a fractional executive? How is this different from an interim or full-time hire? And when does it make sense to go fractional in the first place?

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April 29, 2026

Fractional CFO vs. Interim CFO vs. Full-Time: Which Is Right for Your Company?

Fractional CFO vs. Interim CFO vs. Full-Time: Which Is Right for Your Company?

Not every company needs a full-time CFO—but choosing the wrong type of financial leadership can be costly. This guide compares fractional, interim, and full-time CFOs so you can understand the differences, when to use each, and how to choose the right fit for your company’s stage, budget, and goals.

Key Takeaways

  • Fractional CFOs are best for ongoing strategic support without full-time cost
  • Interim CFOs step in quickly for transitions, crises, or urgent needs
  • Full-time CFOs make sense for larger companies needing permanent leadership

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April 29, 2026

When Should You Hire a CFO?

When Should You Hire a CFO?

Knowing when to hire a CFO can be the difference between scaling confidently and flying blind. As companies grow, financial decisions become more complex—from forecasting and fundraising to managing cash flow and expansion. This guide explains the key signals it’s time to bring in CFO-level leadership and which model fits your stage.

Key Takeaways:

  • Complexity is the trigger: When financial decisions, forecasting, or cash flow questions outgrow basic accounting, it’s time for CFO-level strategy.
  • Growth events often require a CFO: Fundraising, M&A, expansion, or operational inefficiencies are common points where companies, especially startups, bring in a CFO.
  • You don’t always need full-time: Interim or fractional CFOs provide senior financial leadership without the cost or commitment of a permanent hire.

Whether you’re running a startup, scaling fast, or facing financial complexity, the question eventually comes up: Is it time to hire a CFO? This guide breaks down when to bring in a full-time, fractional, or interim CFO — and how to know which one is right for your company’s stage.

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April 29, 2026

CFO Resignations Hit Record Highs. Who Will Fill the Role When Your CFO Leaves?

CFO Resignations Hit Record Highs. Who Will Fill the Role When Your CFO Leaves?

When a CFO leaves a company — whether by resignation, retirement, or termination — the clock starts immediately. CFO turnover hit a seven-year high in 2025, making succession planning more critical than ever. As a consequence, demand for highly skilled interim CFOs remains high.

A whopping 262 CFOs left their jobs globally in 2025, continuing a multi-year trend of high turnover. In the S&P 500 alone, CFO turnover surged to a record 106 appointments in 2025, up sharply from 89 the year prior.

According to the management consulting firm Russel Reynolds Associates, which keeps track of CFO comings and goings, “Global CFO appointments reached a seven-year high in 2025, with 316 incoming CFOs (+10% YoY) and 12% above the seven-year average of 281 appointments. This continued upward trajectory is a clear signal that elevated CFO churn is now a persistent feature of today’s governance landscape.”

That means even big public companies are at risk of CFO turnover, whether by resignation, retirement, or termination, and every company needs a strong succession plan to ensure continuity in financial leadership.

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March 25, 2026

How To Do a Reverse Merger Into a Public Shell Company in 9 Not So Easy Steps. Or SPAC in 10!

How To Do a Reverse Merger Into a Public Shell Company in 9 Not So Easy Steps. Or SPAC in 10!

A reverse merger into a public shell company or completing a SPAC merger can provide a path for companies going public without an IPO. While these strategies can happen faster than a traditional IPO, they are complex transactions involving regulatory compliance, financial restructuring, governance changes, and investor scrutiny. That means they need seasoned C-suite leadership to execute properly.

During the market surge of 2021, SPAC mergers became one of the most talked-about alternatives to the traditional IPO. In a zero-interest-rate environment, special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) brought many private companies to public markets with fewer barriers than the standard IPO process.

When market conditions tightened and stocks declined, SPAC activity slowed significantly. However, the SPAC market has begun to rebound.

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March 4, 2026

Why Interim and Fractional CIOs and CTOs Are Essential in this Age of AI Transformation

Why Interim and Fractional CIOs and CTOs Are Essential in this Age of AI Transformation

AI transformation is not just a technology initiative; it is an organizational shift that requires experienced leadership. Interim and fractional CIOs and CTOs bring the expertise needed to help companies align people, processes, and architecture as agentic AI reshapes how work gets done.

Artificial intelligence has moved beyond experimentation. Boards and leadership teams are no longer asking whether to adopt AI, they are asking how quickly they can execute without destabilizing their organization.

What many companies discover is that the biggest obstacle is not technology. It is leadership.

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March 4, 2026

From SaaS to Agentic BPO: How AI Is Reshaping Business Models

From SaaS to Agentic BPO: How AI Is Reshaping Business Models

Agentic AI is pushing companies to rethink traditional SaaS economics. As agents begin executing workflows, organizations are exploring outcome-driven models that resemble AI-powered BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) services rather than seat-based software platforms.

For decades, SaaS growth relied on expanding users and licenses. The more seats a company sold, the higher its perceived value.

Agentic AI introduces a different possibility, one where software doesn’t just support work, but performs it.

That shift has led to a “SaaSpocolypse.” Software as a Service companies have shed market value in the face of the rapid emergence of agentic AI. In response, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block, laid off 40 percent of his workforce and was rewarded with a 24 percent jump in the company’s stock price.

Is that the only way forward? No, says one of our InterimExecs RED Team CIOs.

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March 4, 2026

The Workforce Crisis Driving AI Adoption (That No One Wants to Admit)

The Workforce Crisis Driving AI Adoption (That No One Wants to Admit)

The most successful organizations adopt AI not to replace workers, but to solve talent shortages and scale expertise through AI agents.

AI is often framed as a productivity story. But, according to one of our RED Team Interim CIOs whose expertise involves transforming organizations using AI and technology, the problem is something very different.

“They don’t have the workforce.”

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March 4, 2026

What Is Agentic AI? An Interim CIO’s Guide to Real Transformation Beyond AI Hype

What Is Agentic AI? An Interim CIO’s Guide to Real Transformation Beyond AI Hype

Agentic AI shifts work from humans navigating software to AI agents executing workflows directly under expert supervision.

“Agentic AI” is one of the hottest terms out there. But what does agentic AI really mean? It’s not chatbots, copilots, or incremental automation. That is so last week in our AI-fueled world.

In our interview with an Interim CIO who has led multiple deployments, the distinction was clear: agentic AI isn’t about assisting users, it’s about artificial intelligence agents actually doing the work.

And it’s big. Really big. In fact, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in his keynote address at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show that enterprise AI agents would create a “multi-trillion-dollar opportunity” for many industries, from medicine to software engineering.

So how do you get a piece of that?

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