Boards stopped giving new CEOs time to find their footing
The clock doesn’t start on day one anymore. For decades, the “first 100 days” framework allowed new executives a structured runway—time to listen, assess, and earn trust before making consequential decisions. That window quietly closed. What replaced it isn’t a shorter timeline, but a fundamentally different set of expectations. Boards aren’t granting CEOs time to “learn the business.” They expect judgment from the start, and the tolerance for ambiguity has collapsed. Successful leaders must arrive pre-oriented, understanding the real mandate, the hidden risks, and how decisions are made before they walk through the door. THE PRE-WORK NOBODY TALKS ABOUT My career has spanned more than 25 years at the intersection of education, innovation, and leadership. I help place transformative leaders at the highest levels of the education and edtech sectors. Today, that work increasingly centers on the executives shaping AI’s integration into education—from university presidents navigating institutional transformation to CEOs of venture- and private equity-backed edtech companies building the next generation of learning platforms. This moment is unique because AI is reshaping strategy, governance, product development, workforce planning, and institutional relationships with students and educators. This is not simply another technology cycle. Leaders must understand the pace of technological change and how educational institutions actually adopt change. The nature of the pre-work required has changed, in addition to the speed. When we recruit a CEO for a client, our work continues after the offer letter. Before “day one,” we help the leader understand the organization’s actual culture (not the version in the pitch deck), the informal power structures, and the most important external relationships. We help build the foundation around a new leader so they can interpret signals quicker and act with precision from the start. This matters even more when a leader enters a sector that