To help CEOs who are new in the role and have not reported to a board before, we’ve published this comprehensive checklist to prompt your thinking and help to proactively identify issues. The questions may also help CEOs who are reporting to a new or different board.

The questions below provide comprehensive coverage across:

  • Considering the challenge ahead
  • Getting to know the rules
  • Understanding directors
  • Working with the chair
  • Understanding the strategic imperative
  • Building the reporting framework
  • The executive leadership team
  • Independent support and guidance
  • Company support and guidance

The questions are designed to start you thinking about issues that you may have noticed but not yet considered addressing as well as to help you to notice issues of which you may currently be unaware. The answers are not necessarily good or bad; they should reflect the current and desired state of your unique board, organisation, and competitive situation.

Don’t ask all of the questions. Trust yourself to recognise and ask the most important ones. You can return to the list at intervals to consider your progress. For example:

  • When you, personally, first think about becoming CEO
  • When you have accepted the CEO appointment
  • Preparing for your first meeting with the board
  • After your first meeting with the board
  • After agreeing your short- and long-term goals
  • After your first 90 and 365 days in the role

At the end of the checklist, we have listed some references that you may wish to investigate for additional reading on the topic. We have also included some suggestions for putting into action the ideas that result from considering the checklist.

Considering the challenge ahead

 
1. Why did the board appoint you to the role?
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2. What are the board’s key spoken (and possible unspoken) expectations of you? How will you verify any unspoken expectations?
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3. Why is the former CEO no longer in the role?
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4. Do any of your competitors for the role have positions on the board or in the senior management team? How will you interact with them?
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5. Is the company in a perilous position either financially, competitively, legally, or in its relationship with any key stakeholder?
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Getting to know the rules and stakeholders

 
6. Have you read and understood the company constitution
 
1? Are the powers of the board clear? Is there anything that limits your power as CEO or the board’s power to delegate to the CEO?
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7. Do you have a clear understanding of powers delegated to the CEO and how those powers are to be used in practice?
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8. Is the company subject to any specific performance or restraint agreements? Are you listed or regulated and, hence, subject to reporting or performance constraints?
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9. Do you have a comprehensive position description that included key criteria for measuring your success in the role? If not, how will you ascertain this information?
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10. What are the key relationships you will need to nurture and manage amongst the board, board committees, shareholders and other stakeholders, and your direct reports?
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11. Have you reached an understanding of what must be decided and done by you, what will be decided by you and the board working together, and what will be decided by the board and done by you?
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12. Who should you meet, in the first week, month, quarter, and year? Have you started to schedule those meetings? Who will accompany you to those meetings?
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Understanding directors

 
13. Do you understand the role of a board? Can you confidently identify the independent and non-independent directors?
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14. Which directors, if any, are approaching the end of their tenure? How will you ‘download’ their experience and insights?
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15. Which directors, if any, are relatively recently appointed to the board? What support do they need to help them be effective?
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16. What are the terms of the D & O insurance, deeds of access and indemnity, or any other agreement between the company and directors?
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17. Which directors are natural leaders of the board’s conversation? Which are questioners or disruptors, and which are team- or consensus-builders?
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18. What are the rules about directors and shareholding? Is there a strong conflict of interest and/or share-trading policy?
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19. Which directors have strong relationships with shareholders? Are the conflicts of interest well managed?
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20. Which directors have strong relationships with your direct reports? Are the conflicts of interest well managed?
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21. What are the principal concerns of the board? Are they the most important issues facing the company? Have they changed recently? Will they change if you meet certain performance criteria?
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22. Do the board unite behind a single agenda or are there conflicting pressures that you must identify and understand?
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23. Which directors have previously been a CEO? Which have been a senior executive in a company similar to this one? Which have been a leader in a company at the same stage of growth as this one? Which have solved problems similar to the ones you are grappling with? How can you access their expertise?
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24. Which directors have relationships that you may wish to use?
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Working with the chair

 
25. It is usual for a board to delegate the liaison between board and CEO to the chair. Does your board follow this practice?
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26. How often will you talk with the chair? (During your first few week, During your first few months, When you are established in the role)
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27. What will define the point at which you become ‘established in the role’?
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28. How often do directors expect the chair to report to them on your performance? What information is needed from you to help the chair conduct effective in camera sessions
 
2?
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29. How confident are you that the chair is an appropriate source of the information and insights you will need to perform your role?
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30. Do you feel confident discussing your weaknesses, shortcomings, and doubts with the chair?
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Understanding the strategic imperative

 
31. What do the directors want you to do different to the former CEO? What do they want you to do the same?
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32. What are the three most critical aspects of the strategy that you must understand and lead successfully? Does the whole board agree on these?
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33. What are the two or three most critical relationships that you must nurture? Does the whole board agree on these?
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34. What are the two or three most important achievements that you must attain in the first 90 days, year, and strategic plan period? Does the whole board agree on these?
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35. How is the company performing? Do you need to continue to implement the strategy, improve the strategy, refresh the strategy, or completely remake the strategy? Does the whole board agree with your answer to this question?
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36. Which competitors should you analyse to understand the competitive landscape? Who in the company has information on those?
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37. Does the board have a formal risk appetite statement? Is it clear and easily understandable by management? If not, who can you work with to understand and document the board’s risk appetite?
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Building the reporting framework

 
38. What information must the CEO provide to the board? At what reporting frequencies?
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39. What is the frequency of board meetings and other reports?
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40. How does the board like to receive information? (In formal board papers and presentations at meetings, In informal meetings, briefings and conversations, In site visits, In phone calls either one-to-one or as a group, Via a brief email)
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41. What other executives report to the board? How will you coordinate reports?
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42. What is the preferred format of board reports? How far in advance of the meeting do the directors prefer to receive their papers?
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43. Who minutes board meetings? What is the process for approving and issuing board minutes?
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The executive leadership team

 
44. Who are the key members of the executive team? How did you define ‘key’?
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45. What support or leadership do the team members need from you?
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46. Where is the team strong? Where does it need resourcing or development?
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47. Is your CFO most skilled at strategic financial structuring or accounting/reporting? Which type of CFO does the company most need? How can you support these skills
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48. Is your CHRO
 
3 most skilled at developing leadership and talent, or skilled at documentation, contracts and administration? Which sort of CHRO does the company most need?
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49. Where do you need to supplement the executive team with external consultants and/or contractors? Does the board agree?
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Independent support and guidance

 
50. What information do you need? How long will it take to access and assess? How much information is free from bias or conflict?
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51. Do you have strong professional mentors among your personal circle of friends who will offer you support and guidance?
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52. Is there any information about the previous incumbent that you want to access?
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53. Would an external professional mentor help you transition to reporting to this board? What do you want help with?
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Company support and guidance

 
54. Who is responsible for helping you with the administration arrangements?
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55. Who, outside of your executive leadership team, must you meet?
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56. Which operations must you visit to avoid the appearance of being ‘remote’?
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57. What is the development plan and budget that was agreed as you were hired? How confident are you that the board (and chair) will support you in any requests you make for support and guidance?
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Taking action

Read the questions and note which ones you can confidently answer. Make a record of any actions that you wish to take to help answer any questions that you were not confident about. Schedule those actions as immediate, within the first four weeks, within the first three months, within the first year.

After the first four weeks

  • Review your action list and ensure that you have not omitted any important actions due to time pressure or other distractions.
  • Create a detailed schedule of the actions for the next two months.
  • Review your performance in the first month with the chair and board. Agree targets for the next two months. Discuss any questions to which you have not been able to generate a satisfactory answer.

After the first 90 days

  • Review your understanding of the strategic imperative with the board. What has changed since you first started in the role? What are the impediments to your success that the board can help you with? Can you agree on your targets for the year ahead?
  • Review the senior management team. What changes would you propose? How will you communicate these to the board?
  • Review the reporting framework. How satisfied are you – and how satisfied is the board – with the current frequency, content, format, and length of reports? What changes would you propose?

After the first year:

  • Revisit all the questions. Which ones did you correctly answer? Which did you get close to correct? What new insights do you have?
  • How will these new insights alter your interactions with the board? How will they change the strategy? How will they change your executive leadership team?

Additional reading and reference sources

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded, Michael Watkins, Harvard Business Review Press 2013

The Successful New CEO: The Core Leadership Principles That Will Guide Your First Year Paperback, Christian Muntean, Business Expert Press 2020

Boards that Lead, when to Lead, when to Partner and When to Get out of the Way, Ram Charan, Mike Useem, Denis Carey, Harvard Business Review Press 2014

What Got you Here Won’t Get You There, Marshall Goldsmith, Hyperion Books, 2007