CEO-CF Program/Stream Overview 2011

•What is the CEO Collaborative Forum

•The Community

•Our Groups, Programs and Streams

•Collaborative Learning

•Forum Structure and Meeting Diversity

What is the CEO Collaborative Forum?

CEO-CF is an exclusive community of international growth-company leaders either based in Europe or with strong business interests here. Members meet to:

• Identify and explore practical solutions to critical problems from raising finance, board and other stakeholder items, through sales channels, market segmentation and other commercial issues to operational challenges such as hiring and retaining senior staff. 

• Learn and share best practices in cooperation with IESE, a leading business school. 

• Develop and grow their own competences and the performance of the companies they lead.

The Community...

The CEO-CF community consists of about 100 members from 20 nationalities, in different Programs and Streams. The Programs cater to CEO members while the Streams cultivate a better ecosystem for CEOs by applying the same methodologies to groups around the CEO.

Our Groups, Programs, and Streams

Both Programs and Streams utilize CEO-CF's unique problem-solving methodologies and, receiving powerful constructive and relevant feedback from a critical peer group has been identified as one of the main member value benefits. Our members commit to our powerful, singular, trust-based collaborative process and find themselves in a space where business leaders can be relaxed, honest and brutal. Please click on any Program or Stream in the diagram below for more detailed information.

Collaborative Learning 

The programs focus on working through what we call Member Challenges (MC). At each meeting, every CEO presents the most pressing problem on his or her strategic agenda to the peer group and receives feedback from them. Member Challenges follow a structured format, unique to CEO-CF, which is designed to elicit the strongest, most action-oriented advice.

Participation helps our members attack and resolve their challenges quickly amid an unrivalled pool of like-minded talent. This process expands members’ leadership skills while simultaneously accelerating the development of the member’s company.  Members bring many challenges to the group, from the most personal, “Am I the right person to lead this company?” to the most technical, “How do I best restructure my shareholding?" to the most immediate “Should I replace my VP Sales?”

Through working and learning together, members develop a best-practice blueprint for success. Additionally, the agenda contains workshops to complement the MC process with content learning targeted to the needs of each group. CEO-CF purchases materials from leading business schools or similar for presentation and distribution at meetings where appropriate.

Forum Structure and Meeting Diversity

Each member is selectively placed in a “Native” group of about 15 members, organized to form in-depth understanding of their peers and provide great diversity in company and nationality. Confidentiality is strictly maintained within the group, with a high level of trust built up over time between the members. Competing companies are kept in separate groups.

New members are appropriately admitted and integrated into a group when membership space becomes available.

Each group convenes three times a year, in the spring, summer and fall. To allow greater diversity and collaboration, one meeting per year is combined with another Native group (always maintaining a high level of “nativeness” in the sessions).

Once a year the Pan-European meeting provides a unique opportunity with the entire global CEO-CF member community to meet, together with world class keynote speakers. 

Program pricing ranges from €12,500 to €15,000 per year, with an €8,000 fee for those with an early stage designation. Stream pricing ranges from €9,500 to €10,500. There are flexible payment terms, including a discount to pre-pay membership.

CEO Collaborative Forum aims to provide a 24/7 service to its members. Ahead of each of the three Forum meetings,a coach helps each member personally prepare their Member Challenge. In between meetings, there is a group telephonic Mid-Forum Connect™ call. At any time, eligible members can request a telephonic MC, called a “CEO with a Red-Flag Issue” services which provides real-time advice and feedback. Members can also contact Group Leaders or other members for ad-hoc help. The website also provides on-going access to content and resources.

The CEO

Global and National Programs

CEOs either join a National Program that meets locally, aimed at CEOs with a focus on the domestic market, or the Global Program where members meet at a central location, normally in Barcelona. The Global Program is designed for CEOs with global plans and ambitions. All CEO programs are also open to Managing Directors and divisional leaders with CEO-level responsibilities.

National and Global program members come together at the annual Pan Euro meeting, providing a unique opportunity to network with business leaders across Europe.

Members are seasoned CEOs and entrepreneurs, generally running a company with some combination of significant revenue, capital and global footprint. They may be hired CEOs or have founded company themselves. A limited number of places is kept for Early Stage members: first time CEOs running companies that are at an early stage, who benefit from reduced fees for up to 2 years.

Maximum benefit of the learning and collaboration is reached after about 3 years of membership, sometimes more. At the end of this period, a member has experienced and contributed to solving the vast majority of the challenges facing CEOs. They can then progress to Masters or Chairman and Board Stream if they are by then in a portfolio career.

Membership does not have a time limit.

Masters Program

Experienced CEOs, who have been in the forum for a few years and made a positive contribution to the growth of the forum and its members, may be nominated by their peers to become Masters. This special designation is not a right, but a privilege.

The focus of the Masters Program is ‘learning by teaching’, including coaching members, preparing and delivering content and the opportunity to publish content jointly with IESE, the business school. They are also eligible to run parts of other programs, as well as becoming Group Leaders.

Members remain attached to their original native group and can join in all the group activities if they wish to, in addition to Masters’ meetings.

Alumni program

As with other educational and professional development, members in good standing who have been in a program or stream for at least a year, and wish to remain connected without attending meetings are eligible to be active in the alumni program.

The CEO Ecosystem

Finance Stream

Finance Stream is aimed at the senior financial officer (CFO, Finance Director or VP Finance) of CEO-CF member companies and certain outside organizations.

Many companies have outside shareholders such as Business Angels and Venture Capitalists, and a Board of Directors. High growth often brings requirements for rounds of investment. The role of the senior financial officer is vital in managing these financial transactions and external bodies together with the CEO.

The CEO-CF collaborative problem solving and learning methodology is complemented with targeted content sessions from expert speakers. The focus on the content sessions is on the following main areas:

• Corporate governance, board & investor relations and working relationship with the CEO
• Corporate finance: equity, debt and hybrid structures, including liquidity events
• Operational and structural issues, including organization design, management of international businesses, taxation, planning and reporting.

Chairman and Board Stream

Chairman and Board Stream, or CBS for short, is aimed at non-executive Chairs and directors, angel investors, Venture Capitalists and others with a portfolio career. The program is not open to executives such as CEOs.

An effective non-executive board member can play a key role in balancing the interests of the company, its external investors, founders, hired management and other stakeholders. Managing the different agendas of the various interest partners, navigating conflicts of interests and above all ensuring boards deliver real value to companies is hard. CBS is uniquely placed to help non-executives learn from others and from experts.

In addition to the unique CEO-CF collaborative problem solving, CBS content includes:

• Determining the company’s mission, public standing, legal and ethical integrity
•  Selecting and on-boarding of a new CEO; supporting and evaluating CEO performance
•  Building a competent, balanced and good value board
•  Ensuring effective planning, program monitoring and asset protection
•  Securing adequate financial resources

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