You’ve been working hard and have gained a lot of insight into your new organization during your first 90 days on the job as CEO. During that time, you’ve developed your Strategic Leadership Plan (Project Parts I, II, and III) to take the organization forward. In doing so, you’ve taken a close look at the internal and external competitive environments, you’ve examined the financials and determined what’s needed to accomplish your plan and what the payback should look like, and you’ve looked at the current people and structures in light of what may be needed to execute your Strategic Leadership Plan. Now, there’s just one thing left to do – convince the Board to give you the go-ahead. This week you’ll make your pitch! Your presentation will need to be well-organized and compelling, and it will need to be delivered with the “executive presence” expected of a CEO. It will include the key insights, ideas, investments, arguments, and support for your Strategic Leadership Plan. Your presentation should make use of PowerPoint or other visual tools to support your delivery, but there is no required sequence or organization for your presentation. You must decide how you wish to initiate, advance and conclude the presentation. Even though you are presenting to your Board as the CEO, you should not assume they have any prior knowledge of key facts. If there is data that is important in presenting your plan, you must reference these in your presentation, but do NOT waste your opportunity in front of the Board by delivering a “data dump.” Judiciously referencing key data to support your position is a demonstration of your depth of knowledge and your capability as a leader, but analytics alone will not win the day.
