April 30, 2026

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

Key Takeaways

Critical Reminders for Companies When Your CEO Quits

• 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.

The feverish pace of CEO exits from US companies has slowed a bit during the first quarter of 2026, but there still were 351 CEO exits announced in the first two months of the year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

“Boards rushed leadership changes through 2024 and 2025 in response to economic pressure, AI disruption, and political uncertainty. February’s drop suggests a wait-and-see approach,” says Andy Challenger, labor expert and chief revenue officer for the consulting firm.

Globally, Russell Reynolds says exiting CEOs have been in their jobs longer (average of 10 years vs. 6.6 years during Q1 of 2025). And, the consulting firm says, boards are replacing those CEOs with “a sharper focus on readiness, credibility, and continuity.”

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April 30, 2026

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

Key Takeaways

Three Reasons Fractional Leadership Continues to Grow

• 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 CFO: Which Is Right for Your Company?

key takeaways

Choose a fractional CFO for ongoing, part-time leadership. This model works when a company needs stronger forecasting, cash management, and strategic finance but doesn’t yet need or can’t yet afford daily CFO coverage.

Choose an interim CFO for an urgent or time-limited mandate. Interim CFOs provide daily financial leadership during executive vacancies, organizational turnarounds, transactions, and transformations.

Choose a full-time CFO when the complexity is permanent. A permanent hire makes sense when CFO-level decisions, stakeholder management, and finance-team leadership are required every day now and for the foreseeable future.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to identifying the right Chief Financial Officer. Depending on your company stage, challenges, and goals for the future, this post explores whether hiring a fractional CFO, an interim CFO, or a full-time CFO makes the most sense.

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April 29, 2026

When to Hire a CFO: 7 Signs Your Company Needs Financial Leadership

key takeaways

Financial complexity, not a specific revenue number, is the best signal. When leaders cannot confidently forecast cash, assess risk, or connect financial results to business strategy, it is time for CFO-level expertise.

Major events trigger the need. Fundraising, acquisitions, refinancing, rapid expansion, an exit, or a CFO departure may require experienced financial leadership immediately.

CFO support can be scaled to the situation. Fractional CFOs provide ongoing part-time leadership, while interim CFOs take control during urgent transitions, crises, and transformations. Permanent full-time CFOs are the answer when the organization needs full-time, ongoing financial leadership into the foreseeable future.

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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?

Key Takeaways

Navigating CFO Transitions

• Surging CFO Turnover

Global CFO turnover hit a seven-year high in 2025 and departures remain elevated across both public and private sectors.

• The Succession Gap

Only 16% of organizations have a proactive CFO succession plan, leaving 84% exposed to sudden financial leadership gaps.

• The Interim Advantage

A vetted interim CFO bridges the vacancy immediately, maintains financial continuity, and can assist in onboarding or mentoring the permanent successor. It’s no surprise, then, that 12 percent of CFO appointments in Q1 2026 were interims, up from 6 percent in 2025.

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. The pace cooled a bit in Q1 2026, but remains well above historical norms.

According to the management consulting firm Russel Reynolds Associates, which keeps track of CFO comings and goings,”even big public companies are at risk of CFO turnover, whether by resignation, retirement, or termination.”

In the first quarter of 2026:

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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!

Editor’s Note: This post offers an executive-readiness review and should not be considered legal, accounting, tax, or investment advice.

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 a whopping 550 private companies to public markets with fewer barriers than the standard IPO process.

When market conditions tightened and stocks declined, SPAC activity slowed significantly. Now, according to data reported by PitchBook, a Morningstar company, SPACs are surging again as the venture market searches for liquidity. The company reports there were 123 SPACs raised in 2025 and 2026 is on track for 200 more.

Despite the less-than-stellar performance of SPACs in recent years, hundreds of blank-check companies still are actively searching for acquisition targets.

The most successful companies pursuing this route share one trait: experienced executive leadership guiding the process.

Let’s start with some definitions.

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March 4, 2026

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

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

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)

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

“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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March 4, 2026

The Agentic AI Shift: Why SaaS Companies Must Rethink Growth, Valuation, and Leadership

Agentic AI changes how software works by executing workflows instead of supporting users. This shift challenges seat-based SaaS economics and requires experienced executive leadership to guide transformation.

For years, SaaS valuations were built on a familiar model: growth, recurring revenue, and expanding user seats. Companies scaled by adding customers and increasing adoption inside organizations.

No more.

Agentic AI is changing not just how software is built, but how work itself gets done. And for many SaaS companies, especially those in the broad middle of the market, that shift has immediate implications for valuation, growth narratives, exit strategies, and executive leadership needs.

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February 16, 2026

The Not-So-Secret Weapon Middle-Market CEOs Use to Accelerate Growth

Every CEO eventually faces the same leadership dilemma: the opportunity ahead is bigger than the team you have today.

Markets open and close faster than ever.

Revenue targets climb.

Competitive threats appear without warning.

Boards and investors demand performance.

In these moments, the difference between hitting growth milestones and watching them slip away comes down to having the right leadership in place. Successful CEOs know how to ensure they always have the leadership capacity they need when they need it: they bring in top-tier interim executives.

Interim leadership is much more than a stopgap: it’s a strategic force multiplier. Interim executives with a strong track record of accelerating growth know how to orchestrate change fast, decisively, and with minimal disruption.

Strategy Alone Isn’t Enough

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