Shall we start a list of specific attributes for our ideal CEO? They should be tangible, verifiable characteristics; they must be somewhat realistic (I don't believe there was a Business Management school on Krypton) and achievable. We will need to think critically on this. Before suggesting attributes to Titan, we should discuss them amongst ourselves with pessimism to ensure this isn't a pipe dream.
As examples, there have been posts regarding a CEO who knows people in the finance world. More specificity would be a good start, i.e. do we want someone with a finance background, or is this suggesting the new CEO would have some corporate investment sugar daddy in his hip pocket with a few dozen million dollars to spare? The latter is unlikely and probably not realistic to suggest. If we suggest a finance background, why would that be better than a marketing background or a technical background? Each has their merits for CEO of a tech startup looking to get into a market that is about to explode.
Requesting some number of years of experience can also have contradictory indications. Is the organization more in need of youthful energy and a "get it done" attitude than a highly experienced, more mature executive who may take extra time for all options to be considered in a given scenario?
I'm up for the exercise, but we will need to consider the duality of some of these characteristics, and try to figure out what we think is best for the company. If we take this seriously and do it well, it could potentially be used as a checklist or scorecard they could use when evaluating potential candidates, if they are not yet that far along in the process. They would certainly be free to modify their priorities within the categories we offer, and it still would be a beneficial exercise on our part to offer it for their consideration.
If nothing else, we as investors and posters on this board should develop a healthy respect for the task they are faced with. It is surely much easier to write about it than to have the responsibility of making the selection and living with the consequences.
My first quick list of attributes for consideration:
Background: Tech, finance, sales/marketing, med device vs. some other tech background. If we make a suggestion on this, we should be able to offer rationale as to why our suggestion is superior to others.
Years experience: As a CEO, would need to consider track record of the organization while under his/her leadership and what other challenges the company faced at the time which could impact this assessment. Also, youth vs. experience probably shouldn't be too strictly considered; Mark Zuckerberg did pretty well at the helm, as did Jeremy Hitchcock at Dyn (local boy for me; NH resident, co-founded Dyn as a school project, and just stepped down as CEO to pursue other interests if I heard correctly - maybe he's looking for a new challenge!)
Communications history: In last position(s), did he generate external communications such as press releases, or did he have a team of folks including legal team to generate and review everything? (Is the legal side of communications part of what EVC is contracted to do?)
Management of rapid growth: Titan is still quite small but will need to grow quickly when the time comes. It would be beneficial to have someone who has been through the process of dealing with company growing pains and remained firm enough to resist hiring the janitor's daughter because she can read. (Not intended to be a slam on Paige or JH; sometimes nepotism can bring in truly superior employees but it can also put blinders on the hiring team).
Phase-based leadership focus: Guiding and organization from development to clinical trials to limited market to full-blown market domination would be wonderful, of course. A candidate who has a history of shifting gears as the company needed to re-focus its energies would be a good find, since this will surely need to happen.
Well, I already have more time into this post than I was planning, but hopefully this will plant a couple seeds for fruitful, thoughtful discussion, and I'll be taking notes when I can. I appreciate all reasonable input!
