So you want to be a CEO, raise millions of dollars and take your company to the ‘liquidity event’ promised land?
Well, this CEO Scorecard, which was provided to me by a first tier VC, and friend of mine, will help you get started (or keep your job, if you are already in the CEO hot seat).
What follows are the criteria items on the scorecard:
- Meets or exceeds plan
- Identifies/upgrades management on a timely basis
- Recruits world-class people; does not under hire
- Keeps company and team focused
- Has respect of executive team and employees
- CEO level selling, does the big deals
- Crisp, fast decision-making
- Anticipates financings and executes a strategy
- Cost/Expense control and cash management
- Articulates the vision internally and externally
- Honestly and Objectively Assesses the Company status
- Seen as an industry leader/leading company
- Communicates well with the board
- Available and allows board level access to the exec team
- Effective at partnering
- Appropriate focus on technology and new products
- Focus on building shareholder value
- Thinks globally
- Crisp, on time preparation of annual operating plan
- Business has appropriate metrics/dashboard
This particular VC maintains a spreadsheet with each of the fields ranked on a scale of 1-5 and color-coded “GREEN,” “YELLOW” or “RED” so visually there is no confusion how you are doing in a given area, and your cumulative scores are re-rated after each board meeting.
Thus, scores are easy to track over time and can be compared to the performance of other CEOs in the firm’s portfolio.
Ala my recent post on the Three Steps on the Path to Success, the CEO Scorecard has the benefit that it is SPECIFIC, is easy to COMMUNICATE and provides a mechanism to COORDINATE going forward expectations relative to current and past performance levels.
