Dear Reader,
I was talking with a board about hiring their next CEO and asked whether they had agreed the profile they were looking for.
"Yes, we have the job description."
But that wasn't really what I meant.
CEO job descriptions in our sector often look remarkably similar. Raise money. Build the culture. Develop and deliver the strategy. Demonstrate impact. Build partnerships. Work effectively with the board.
All important.
But what are you actually looking for?
Does this person need previous CEO experience? Do they need to have scaled an organisation? Is the next phase actually about stabilisation or redesign rather than growth? Where should they be based? Do they need deep fundraising experience? Government relationships? Experience managing across countries?
And then comes the harder question:
Which of those things matter most?
Because you won't get everything.
One of the most useful things a board can do before a CEO search starts is agree the four or five things that really matter and force rank them.
Otherwise you can get to the final two candidates before discovering that one board member thinks the CEO must be based in Africa, another thinks proximity to US funders is critical and someone else thinks previous CEO experience is non negotiable.
At that point, you aren't really discussing the candidates.
You are having a conversation you should have had three months earlier.
The job description tells you what the CEO will do. The profile tells you who you actually need.
Are we hiring for today's problem?
There is another trend in CEO recruitment that I am watching with some concern.
I am seeing more Development Directors moving into CEO roles.
There are brilliant Development Directors who will make brilliant CEOs. In fact, I think we should see development roles much more explicitly as part of the pipeline to CEO.
And I completely understand why boards are prioritising fundraising experience right now.
Money is tight. Competition is fierce. Fundraising already took a lot of CEO time and, for many organisations, it is taking even more now.
But fundraising is not the CEO's job. It is part of the CEO's job.
CEOs also have to set direction, make trade offs, decide what to stop, build the senior team, shape culture, allocate scarce resources, oversee implementation, manage performance and risk, work with the board and make difficult decisions when there isn't an obvious right answer.
Ultimately, they are accountable for whether the organisation delivers.
A Development Director may have developed many of those muscles. Every CEO candidate will have gaps, whatever role they come from.
The important thing is understanding what those gaps are and whether the leadership structure and support around them compensate for them.
What worries me is boards defining the CEO they need around the most immediate problem they face.
Right now, that problem is often money.
Hiring primarily for today's funding crisis risks creating tomorrow's leadership problem.
For me, these two issues come back to the same question.
Before you start searching for your next CEO, don't just ask what you need them to do.
Ask what does this organisation need from its CEO over the next three to five years?
Then decide what capabilities, experiences and characteristics matter most for that future.
That is the profile you should be hiring against.
Warmly,
Liz
Strategic Advisor | Former CEO | Founder, Volante
Based in Kenya, available globally
