FIT TO LEAD
Essays
From Between Thesis and Exit - essays for PE investors and portfolio CEOs on the people and decisions that make or break value creation.
Hiring & Talent
Evidence over instinct - assessing and appointing the leaders the plan actually requires.
Interview
8 August 2026
What a mis-hire actually costs a fund - and why the most expensive interview is the one you didn’t structure.
Read on Substack▶Descriptions
19 October 2025
A job description hires a replica of the past. Why every critical hire starts with a ValueContract, not a recycled JD.
Read on Substack▶Over Experience
31 August 2025
“Been there, done that” is the most expensive comfort in PE hiring. Why attributes predict what experience can’t.
Read on Substack▶Teams
A group of capable executives is not a leadership team - designing the one the plan requires.
Nobody Designed
22 March 2026
PE firms hire for individual strength and rarely design for collective performance.
Read on Substack▶Become Culture
9 March 2026
One softened answer in a board meeting becomes the template for every hard conversation below it.
Read on Substack▶Stops Thinking
15 February 2026
How leaders infect their teams with anxiety they haven’t processed - and why groups stop thinking when the stakes rise.
Read on Substack▶People Go Quiet
25 January 2026
Truth gets expensive in some rooms. How leaders train their teams to stop telling them what they need to hear.
Read on Substack▶Leadership
The deal backs a person before it backs a plan - how leaders grow at the pace the hold period demands.
the Destination
24 July 2026
Equity can align the destination. It can’t supply the energy for the journey. What PE misses about motivation.
Read on Substack▶Are the Hungriest
25 May 2026
The best CEOs share two habits: hunger for feedback, and the speed to act on it. Why coaching is for the strongest, not the struggling.
Read on Substack▶4 January 2026
Execute hard where it’s knowable. Learn fast where it isn’t. How PE CEOs stay credible before the answers arrive.
Read on Substack▶Get Defensive
9 November 2025
Defensive leaders make decisions with filtered data. Why managing defensiveness drives trust, speed, and enterprise value.
Read on Substack▶to Capacities
29 September 2024
A map of how leaders develop the capacity - not just the skills - to lead through complexity.
Read on Substack▶The Next Level
September 2024
Horizontal development adds skills. Vertical development changes how you think. Why the second decides who breaks through.
Read on Substack▶(Part II)
21 July 2024
How to get the best of both poles - a five-step process for the tensions that can’t be solved.
Read on Substack▶(Part I)
2 June 2024
Some tensions are problems to solve. Others are polarities to manage. Leaders who know the difference perform better.
Read on Substack▶Strategy and Value Creation
The thesis is a hypothesis - strategy is how it survives contact with reality.
Work. Then What?
26 April 2026
Productivity is the easy answer. The harder question: what can you now do for customers that you couldn’t before?
Read on Substack▶13 July 2025
Firms that turn pure optimiser at exit sell a snapshot, not a trajectory. Winning short while compounding long.
Read on Substack▶22 June 2025
If the opposite of your strategy isn’t a credible choice, it isn’t a strategy. Why 90% of strategy decks fail the test.
Read on Substack▶Have a Strategy
1 June 2025
Every company runs a strategy - stated or not. The gap between the two is where exit multiples get cut.
Read on Substack▶Playbook Approach
23 February 2025
The playbook that transformed two portfolio companies can wreck the third. When to run the playbook and when to reach for the toolkit.
Read on Substack▶Value Creation Masters
3 November 2024
Financial engineering no longer earns the return. The levers and enablers that separate value creators from deal shops.
Read on Substack▶