As the controversy over Stephen Hestor’s pay at RBS continued to rage, Justin Rowlatt turned to Steve for an independent perspective on CEO’s remuneration.
You can listen to Steve explain the difference between rewarding great CEOs for sustainable value creation with overpaying for average or poor performance here:
The full interview is at 09.00 – 13.48.
The BBC are not the only journalists who’ve been in touch, intrigued by CEO burn out in the wake of Antonio Horta-Osorio’s leave of absence from Lloyds Banking Group.
CNN asked Steve to do a CNN special on whether CEOs are burning bright-or burning out.
Read the full article here.
Steve’s conclusion? Of course, being a CEO is a huge and complicated job, and each business needs a bespoke approach. But CEOs can make a start with five steps:
1. Clarify your dream. Western CEOs should learn from the Chinese. What do you truly dream of building? Rediscover the excitement and thrill that drove you to the top in the first place.
2. Build a fellowship. Most CEOs take too much direct personal control. It stifles those around you and it exhausts you. Learn to build a fellowship you trust and who will deliver for you every time.
3. Rekindle the spirit of your business. Narayana Murthy, founder and chairman Emeritus of Infosys, arguably the most globally successful Indian business of the last 25 years, told me: “To me, leadership is primarily about raising the aspirations of people, making people say that they will walk on water.” Use your dream to inspire your teams and businesses. Share it with business partners to help you build trust.
4. Build a personal support system to ground you. Make rules to safeguard your recharge time, reconnect with your partners and kids and stay healthy.
5. Get out of the day to day. The best CEOs work on business as usual by exception, not as the norm. They maintain a tight grip of their business with robust systems and review but do not lurch from day crisis to day crisis.
Ultimately, CEOs who are suffering need to find a new way of leading. In this high octane world, they can either work in a new way or burn out.
Notes to editors
Xinfu
We are the world’s first global CEO confidants.
We are working with top CEOs from around the world to build a new generation of businesses that win in the right way. Our ambition is to work with a small number of ambitious global clients to generate extraordinary returns for their owners and create exceptional environments where talented people can fulfil themselves.
“The New Secrets of CEOs”
“The New Secrets of CEOs” is a completely updated edition of the bestselling “The Secrets of CEOs”. Drawing on 200 interviews with top global CEOs from both East and West, Steve and his co-author, Andy Cave of the Telegraph, really dig into how the best CEOs are leading to win in the reset world. More on the book here.
Take a look at the front page of the Sunday Times Appointments today for our latest views on how to build sustainable long term value and get more information and apply here: www.xinfu.com/talent.
Read the Sunday Times tomorrow for our latest views on how to build sustainable long term value. As you’ll see on the front page of the Appointments section, we’re looking for a few simply exceptional people to join our team. If that’s you – take a look at www.xinfu.com/talent
Until this month, there had only been 27 women CEOs of a Fortune 500 company. Taking the helm at IBM, Virginia Rometty is the 28th. James Stewart of the New York Times was intrigued by what role Ms Rometty’s husband plays in her life and, more widely, how important spouses are to CEOs’ success. He turned to Steve for comment.
Personal performance, being at your best every day, is crucial to CEO’s success. Talking with James, Steve focused on the need for CEOs, married or otherwise, to ensure they ground themselves on secure foundations:
“Top executives with high-powered spouses — or even no spouses — can now build “a great support system as long as they’re not financially constrained. They need life assistants and deep levels of support from friends and confidantes. It can even save them time not having to sustain a relationship.”
Read the full article here.
Notes to editors
Xinfu
We are the world’s first global CEO confidants.
We are working with top CEOs from around the world to build a new generation of businesses that win in the right way. Our ambition is to work with a small number of ambitious global clients to generate extraordinary returns for their owners and create exceptional environments where talented people can fulfil themselves.
“The New Secrets of CEOs”
“The New Secrets of CEOs” is a completely updated edition of the bestselling “The Secrets of CEOs”. Drawing on 200 interviews with top global CEOs from both East and West, Steve and his co-author, Andy Cave of the Telegraph, really dig into how the best CEOs are leading to win in the reset world. More on the book here.
With Antonio Horta-Osorio granted a medical leave of absence from the Lloyds Banking Group with stress, the BBC’s News Hour wanted to understand what pressures CEOs really face. Listen to Hugh talking about DIY lobotomies, the emotions CEOs really feel and how to build trusted fellowships to spread the load here. (the interview starts at 19:50).
Notes to editors
Xinfu
We are the world’s first global CEO confidants.
We are working with top CEOs from around the world to build a new generation of businesses that win in the right way. Our ambition is to work with a small number of ambitious global clients to generate extraordinary returns for their owners and create exceptional environments where talented people can fulfil themselves.
“The New Secrets of CEOs”
“The New Secrets of CEOs” is a completely updated edition of the bestselling “The Secrets of CEOs”. Drawing on 200 interviews with top global CEOs from both East and West, Steve and his co-author, Andy Cave of the Telegraph, really dig into how the best CEOs are leading to win in the reset world. More on the book here.
Steve started his monthly column in Fortune China magazine on August 12th with an article examining the myth of the superstar CEO.
With Steve Jobs, the superstar CEO par excellence, resigning as CEO 2 weeks after Steve’s article, time will tell the extent to which Jobs has created a durable team at Apple and whether Tim Cook can build a fellowship to take Apple on to yet greater heights.
Read the Chinese language article online here.
Notes to editors:
Xinfu
We are the world’s first global CEO confidants.
We are working with top CEOs from around the world to build a new generation of businesses that win in the right way. Our ambition is to work with a small number of ambitious global clients to generate extraordinary returns for their owners and create exceptional environments where talented people can fulfil themselves.
“The New Secrets of CEOs”
“The New Secrets of CEOs” is a completely updated edition of the bestselling “The Secrets of CEOs”. Drawing on 200 interviews with top global CEOs from both East and West, Steve and his co-author, Andy Cave of the Telegraph, really dig into how the best CEOs are leading to win in the reset world. More on the book here.
On Wednesday, exploring the recent press around Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the BBC’s Daily Business turned to Steve to try to understand the pressures that top CEOs really face today.
Listen to the interview here (scroll to “IMF crisis”18 May 2011) or here. Steve’s contribution runs between minutes 11 and 18 of the broadcast.
Notes to editors
Xinfu
We are the world’s first global CEO confidants.
We are working with top CEOs from around the world to build a new generation of businesses that win in the right way. Our ambition is to work with a small number of ambitious global clients to generate extraordinary returns for their owners and create exceptional environments where talented people can fulfil themselves.
“The New Secrets of CEOs”
“The New Secrets of CEOs” is a completely updated edition of the bestselling “The Secrets of CEOs”. Drawing on 200 interviews with top global CEOs from both East and West, Steve and his co-author, Andy Cave of the Telegraph, really dig into how the best CEOs are leading to win in the reset world. More on the book here [www.thesecretsofceos.com].
Our search for an outstanding person to become our Xinfu FTSE100 CEO confidant apprentice is the “featured Escape” on www.escapethecity.org. If you’re interested in this special role, email us at hugh@xinfu.com.
The full details are:
Xinfu FTSE100 CEO confidant apprentice
Fastest route to being the business & personal confidant of the best CEOs of the biggest companies in the world
Opportunity for an outstanding individual to train to become personal confidant on business & personal leadership of the world’s best CEOs. Join global start-up finding a better way for CEOs to lead corporations for greater results and to make them more inspiring & fulfilling places to be.
Location: London, UK (medium term potential for China and global locations)
Salary: Near term competitive with strategy houses in line with your experience, medium term very high potential earnings
The Organisation & The Role
Xinfu are the world’s first global CEO confidants.
We work with top CEOs from around the world to build a new generation of businesses that win in the right way. We are proud to be working as CEO confidants to over a dozen FTSE100 CEOs and boards from offices in London and Beijing.
We are risk takers and a super growth young business. Two years in, we are entrepreneurial to our core and lead and organise ourselves in a radically different way to traditional “advisory” firms.
We are doers and confidants, not advisors. We are actively shaping the CEO agenda globally with books, events, on- and offline media, speaking platforms and a developing global CEO community.
Our ambition is to work with a small number of global clients to generate extraordinary returns for their owners and create exceptional environments where talented people can fulfil themselves. We love making a shift in CEO, top team and company-wide performance by working the whole CEO agenda. Where conventional advisors have a narrow focus, we address the whole CEO agenda (business performance and leadership + personal performance and leadership) by integrating a unique team of exceptional global experts.
We want Xinfu to be a home for exceptional people who work in fellowship with each other while they have an extraordinary impact on client CEOs, businesses and the wider CEO agenda.
CEO confidant apprentice
This is a unique, one-time opportunity for an exceptionally talented individual to train to become the personal confidant on business and personal leadership of the world’s
best CEOs.
You will work on all aspects of building Xinfu including:
The apprenticeship could take anything up to 10 to 15 years but by the end of it the apprentice will be able personally to support FTSE100 and Fortune 500 CEOs to transform their leadership and their companies.
Over the apprenticeship you will be supported fully to develop all areas of yourself and will play a central role in shaping Xinfu.
Compensation
We are looking for someone exceptional and recognise that in the team’s earnings. Initial packages broadly benchmark to the top strategy consulting houses. In the medium term, the earning potential is very high.
The whole core team, which you will become a key member of, are entrepreneurs who have taken significant personal risk in establishing Xinfu. In structuring your package during the joining process we will expect you to put some “skin in the game” early on to demonstrate your entrepreneurial commitment (e.g. lower salary during probationary period).
The Xinfu DNA
To be our apprentice, you will have the Xinfu DNA:
Highly entrepreneurial mindset
…plus you are high performing, successful and ambitious – and willing to start at the bottom.
Your path so far:
High flyer? You may be on the conventional “high potential” path: a top degree, 2-4 years of corporate and/or consulting experience, perhaps experience of a start up. But – you are not satisfied. You still haven’t found home.
Unconventional? Or you might not have taken a typical career path at all: certainly haven’t found home and feel that you are not even close to fulfilling your potential.
Get in touch
We are under significant time pressure so please use your judgment to show on one page why you should be our CEO confidant apprentice and email with a CV to hugh@xinfu.com.
Steve was back out to SuperReturn in Berlin, the most influential private equity forum in the world, today. He was once again speaking alongside key industry figures including David Bonderman of TPG Capital, Dwight Poler of Bain Capital, David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group and John Moulton of Better Capital.
Today, private equity investors are searching for the right evolved role to increase their returns.
Steve shared his belief that one of the biggest factors constraining private equity returns we see in our work at Xinfu is the ability of the CEO to drive growth.
Steve shared Xinfu’s view that private equity owners therefore now need to evolve their role from being financial engineers and expert challengers on operational efficiency to today being agitators for growth in their portfolio companies.
That means challenging portfolio CEOs and boards in terms of the scale of the growth ambition management sets and the time frames to deliver that growth. It means ensuring management can set the right culture for growth in their specific business and put the right governance around growth so that standard governance of the strategic and operational plan does not strangle it. It means getting the best people and freeing them to give their best.
It’s time for general partners to really challenge their CEOs. Steve shared 10 questions to use to get the CEO focused on what really matters to growing his business for value creation:
10. Are we giving the teams space to experiment, think freely and take place some bold bets?
Bold private equity firms who focus on driving ambitious growth in their businesses by properly developing and challenging their CEOs and leadership teams will outperform their peers in the years to come.
Notes to editors
Xinfu
We are the world’s first global CEO confidants.
We are working with top CEOs from around the world to build a new generation of businesses that win in the right way. Our ambition is to work with a small number of ambitious global clients to generate extraordinary returns for their owners and create exceptional environments where talented people can fulfil themselves.
“The New Secrets of CEOs”
“The New Secrets of CEOs” is a completely updated edition of the bestselling “The Secrets of CEOs”. Drawing on 200 interviews with top global CEOs from both East and West, Steve and his co-author, Andy Cave of the Telegraph, really dig into how the best CEOs are leading to win in the reset world. More on the book here.
