January 14, 2020

Good CEO, Bad CEO: Leadership Lessons from InterimExecs’ RED Roundtable

Good CEO, Bad CEO: Leadership Lessons from InterimExecs’ RED Roundtable

Leadership was a prominent topic at InterimExecs’ latest Rapid Executive Deployment (RED) Roundtable event in Chicago. Panel experts discussed leadership early and often as they reflected on change initiatives, the impact of automation on executives and workforces, and the values that make great executive leaders. 

A recurring theme that cut across speakers and topics was the importance of having the right team in place, starting at the top. Executives set the tone for the entire company. Their values trickle down and play an outsized role in the organization’s success or failure. 

“The message from our perspective is that if we have the right team and the right value set, I think any company can find a position and outmaneuver the competition,” said Greg Jones, Managing Partner at the Edgewater Fund, who spoke on day two of the Roundtable with Brian Boorstein of Granite Creek Capital Partners. “I’m looking for someone who puts the organization and the values of the business ahead of their own,” added Greg. “If you don’t have that, it’s a disaster in any scenario.”

Brian also singled out selfishness as one of the least desirable executive traits. “The worst people are those that are really only concerned with themselves,” he said. “If we don’t have the right management team to start, we’re in trouble. We generally go to InterimExecs to find people to help us out.”

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November 6, 2019

V.U.C.A. Helps Companies Deal with Dynamic, Shifting and Challenging Situations

V.U.C.A. Helps Companies Deal with Dynamic, Shifting and Challenging Situations

Our world, our universe is characterized by constant change. Stars are born and die, storms transform the landscape, nations rise and fall, people change over time. In the business world economies grow and collapse, business models evolve, industries transform and even the Top 100 list of leading companies completely changes in a matter of a few years.

But sometimes the speed and scope of change is extremely rapid, its consequences unforeseeable and unpredictable. This makes planning and decision making highly risky because it is so difficult to see what the future holds. “Everybody has a plan,” said championship boxer Mike Tyson, “until they get punched in the face.”

To help explain the often sudden, fluid, rapidly evolving and dynamic forces of change – that “punch in the face” — the U.S. Army War College created the term V.U.C.A. to describe and ultimately deal with highly dynamic, shifting and challenging situations.

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September 3, 2019

Why Most Change Initiatives Fail. And What to Do About It

Why Most Change Initiatives Fail. And What to Do About It

“Write down a change you would like to make in an organization that you are currently with…or  change in the marketplace. Any kind. It can be a big change, it could be a small change – strategic, tactical, something you want people to start doing, something you want people to stop doing,” says Jeff Leitner as he looks around a room filled with CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and other C-Suite executives at this year’s InterimExecs’ RED Team meeting. He continues “You’re change is absolutely, almost certainly going to fail. It’s not your fault. It has nothing to do with your particular genius – has nothing to do with your insights. Changes fail. They almost always fail.”

Jeff Leitner knows a thing or two about change and innovation. He spent the last 20 years improving organizations from the US State Department to NASA, Starbucks, Panera, and the Dalai Lama Center for Peace. In a world where innovation and disruption is key, the question is why does change rarely stick in organizations, markets, and society? Jeff has dedicated years to studying why change fails and in his most recent speaking circuit, is sharing what leaders can do to be more effective in leading change initiatives.

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May 3, 2019

Purpose Driven Leadership: A Better Leader, Better Business

Purpose Driven Leadership: A Better Leader, Better Business

It used to be that business was for-profit or non-profit, and never the twain shall meet. Companies were profit-driven or purpose-driven, but not really both. A survey of Fortune 1000 CEOs and C-suite executives found that 51% believe there is an inherent tension or conflict between a company being profit- or purpose-driven. Such thinking is now becoming outmoded and has reached something of a turning point.

This departure from long-held economic thinking could be a revolutionary change for shareholders, however, many investors are coming to see greater employee purpose and personal “why” working to support long-term success for the company, and in an altruistic sense, the world. Corporate America has taken a look around and some conscientious players noticed that resources were being stripped at an unsustainable rate and decided to alter the way they were doing business. Now, it’s commonplace for a company to have a defined corporate social purpose beyond generating a profit.

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April 11, 2019

How CEOs Drive Growth & Capture Markets With Interim Executives

How CEOs Drive Growth & Capture Markets With Interim Executives

Modern-day CEOs are taking on a barrage of new responsibilities in the age of rapid technological advancement and global expansion. Industry disruption seems to be an everyday occurrence and businesses are transforming at the speed of light. These new realities can pile never before seen challenges on a CEO’s plate that already runneth over.

How does a CEO conquer a growing list of to-do’s from establishing a strong organizational culture to developing growth strategies, and managing delicate political and stakeholder relations while forging ahead in this modern era? Opportunities to enter new markets and continuously innovate are top of mind in this day and age where technology has led to more competition and rapid change. The catch-22 is that a CEO is an army of one yet still are, charged with responding with agility and confidence to seize growth opportunities while ensuring organizational stability.

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April 4, 2019

The Healthcare Industry Leverages Interim Executives To Navigate Disruption

The Healthcare Industry Leverages Interim Executives To Navigate Disruption

Modern healthcare is as complex as physiology inside our own bodies. The healthcare industry is now waist deep in an era of extreme disruption. The breakneck pace of technological innovation coupled with the increasing aging population and chronic diseases is a recipe for historic changes in healthcare.

In the healthcare ecosystem, some organizations will sink, and some swim as disruption occurs. From hospitals to clinics, to patients to pharmaceutical companies, to insurers to medical technology businesses no entity will be unaffected.

Leaders in healthcare say legacy providers must respond swiftly to the changes. The abrupt exit of critical leadership, gaps in capacity and expertise, or old systems that no longer work can quickly become problems. Because these factors are interwoven, health care organizations can find themselves unraveling if they don’t act fast.

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March 8, 2019

InterimExecs RED Team Member Appointed to Lead Colorado State Department

InterimExecs RED Team Member Appointed to Lead Colorado State Department

RED Team Member, Michelle Barnes, was recently appointed by Colorado Governor, Jared Polis, to lead the Colorado Department of Human Services as Executive Director. With an annual budget of over $2 billion, the state department oversees programs ranging from the state’s child welfare division to youth corrections and mental hospitals.

A four year government appointment, the assignment has many parallels to Michelle’s work as an interim executive, where she parachuted into many challenging situations. As a expert Interim CEO, Michelle has led many non-profit and mission based organizations going through change, transition and transformation across a variety of industries from environmental, to outdoor industry, health and medical, youth leadership, entertainment, affordable senior housing, and human service.

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May 29, 2018

How an Interim Chief Information Officer Transforms Good Companies to Great


All companies use information technology to some degree.

Great companies have CIO leadership on the management team to purposefully leverage information technologies in creative and sometimes disruptive ways – to grow business, produce faster than competition, enrich customer experiences, and make business transformation happen.

Many full-time CIOs dedicate their careers to one specific industry, and so their experience is vertically deep. Interim CIOs on the other hand, provide a unique perspective blending innovation and technology transformation across a variety of organizations and industries. They specialize in change, bringing an attractive depth-of-experience from a career of change management, while leveraging ever-evolving technologies. It is this change-leadership experience that is highly valuable to a proactive board or management team facing the challenge of business transformation, especially where information technologies are an enabling and differentiating factor.

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May 14, 2018

RED Team Members Publish Book On Interim Leadership

RED Team Members Publish Book On Interim Leadership

Congratulations to InterimExecs RED Team members Damon Neth, Bill Mince, and Jim Treleaven on the publishing of their new book, X-Formation. Damon, Bill and Jim made a conversation we had a few years back into a reality, combining their expertise to create the comprehensive book on the unique makeup of interim leaders and how they transform companies and bring incredible results to organizations worldwide.

The InterimExecs team added insights on finding, assessing, and engaging interim executives, drawing from years of matching companies with interim leadership. Check out X-Formation on Amazon here: http://a.co/3S42UdS!

March 28, 2018

M&A 101: What’s the Difference Between a Financial Buyer and a Strategic Buyer?

M&A 101: What’s the Difference Between a Financial Buyer and a Strategic Buyer?

The world of mergers and acquisitions can be complex for owners focused on building their companies.

We’re often asked by owners about their options to exit and sell the company. Often, work needs to be done to prepare – in advance of any sale process – to ensure maximum value is realized. Owners may opt to bring in an outside perspective like an interim executive to provide an operational roadmap to improve operations and package the company for eventual sale. This process, however, typically begins with two types of targets in mind:

Strategic buyers (Strategics) are companies who are already operating in the field/industry where acquiring your business will be complementary to their business, expand their customer base, or give them a competitive advantage.

Financial buyers include private equity funds, family offices, and individual investors who provide their own equity funding and borrowing to acquire businesses as a path to future gains.

Let’s dive in to the difference between strategic buyers and financial buyers:

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