Transform Your Top Execs

Read Time: 3 minutes.

Our C-Suite is outdated.  

While the familiar titles provide a helpful shorthand for telling the world what jobs you have, they no longer meet the demands of today's business. 

Let me propose an alternative structure. 

• One that acknowledges modern work and amplifies the modern worker.

• One that focuses on shared goals, not isolated functions.

• One that might take us further than we imagined.

Even if you do not control the C-suite, reframing the core functions might help you rethink your team's design.

Let’s start at the the top…

Chief Executive Officer → Chief Evolution Officer

Every organization needs three things: 

• A clear destination

• An agreed-upon path

• Agility and courage to adjust

If combining those three elements is easy, someone has already extracted the value. What's left are unproven, novel, and hard-to-scale combinations. 

To counter the inertia of the known, you need someone who constantly applies force to ensure we brave past our collective boundaries. 

Optimization is increasingly code for force and focus. 
Which means they're often the Chief Editing Officer, too. 

Chief Operating Officer → Chief Optimization Officer

Operations is the means, not the end.  
The end is optimization.  

And it's never been easier to get leverage.
Nor more complicated to decide how.  

Outsourcing. Automation. AI.  

The ideal candidate is also the Chief Optimism Officer. 
Problems are nothing more than puzzles yet to be solved.

Chief Financial Officer → Chief Flywheel Officer

Cash is fuel for business. 
Every dollar is a precious resource that requires replenishment.

The best businesses create flywheels that are hard to start but then turn every dollar spent into more. Each step feeds the next. 

Here's an example that Jim Collin's sketched out with Jeff Bezos in 2000.

Amazon made $2.7 billion in 2000. In 2024, they made $675 billion. 

It's not enough to count the money. 
They need to increase the money's velocity. 

This also means they're the Chief Foundation Officer. 
To reap the rewards of a flywheel, it needs to stand the test of time.

Chief Information Officer → Chief Impact Officer

We don't need more information. 
We need better intelligence.  

And we don't just want intelligence.  
We need it to inform our actions and create impact. 

Moving at high speeds over unmarked terrain, intelligence meets creativity.
So the best CIOs are also Chief Innovation Officers.

Chief Marketing Officer → Chief Momentum Officer

In physics, Momentum = Mass x Velocity. 
So, the only choices for the CMO are to make it bigger or faster. 

Bigger means more awareness, more prospects, more customers. 
Faster means more usage, more adoption, more upsells. 

Both require delivering value that massively outstrips the cost.
Which makes you the Chief Measurement Officer, too.

Chief People Officer → Chief Potential Officer

The war for top talent is only getting harder. 

This gives us three paths:

1. Get better at fighting for the same talent

2. Get better at spotting untapped talent

3. Get better at growing the talent we have

Winning top talent can produce outsized value. Small increases in ability can mean orders of magnitude more impact. But the cost is high and the chances of winning are low for all but the most successful companies. 

This means most of us must attract the right mispriced talent and immerse them in an environment that unlocks their full potential. 

How do you attract the right talent?
By also being the Chief Purpose Officer.

Chief Administrative Officer→ Chief Automation Officer

We administer tests. 
We administer shots. 
We administer punishments. 

Even the existing CAOs will welcome a rebrand. 

Rules, policies, procedures, overhead.
These are bugs to eliminate, not features to laminate. 

If the Chief Evolution Officer introduces the creative chaos and the Chief Optimization Officer organizes that into a scalable design, the Chief Automation Officer prunes away everything but the essential. 

They've won when they've become the Chief Autonomy Officer. 
For themselves and their teams. 

Do I believe this could work?

Let's test it and see what's missing: 

The CEO names the destination and constantly compares that to the present to uncover the most valuable obstacles to overcome. 

The COO converts these broad signals from the CEO into the vehicle—people, processes, and technology—to match the terrain. 

The CPO supplies the engine, uncovering overlooked, high-potential talent and accelerating each person with opportunity and support. 

The CMO, CAO, and CFO work in tandem (and purposefully designed tension) on the fuel—money:

• The CMO unlocks dollars via better markets and better offers.   

• The CAO frees up existing dollars via automation and elimination.

• The CFO seeks perpetual motion by generating more fuel than we burn.

The CIO is the peak performance coach—the navigator—empowering each team to maximize their impact through timely, data-fueled insight.

Take it for a spin, and let me know what you think.

What You Missed

Here are a few posts that got outsized attention this week.

• How To Give Feedback That Is Heard and Understood

• Where Do You Stand On The Job Security Index?

• 7 Skills That Make a Manager a Leader

• How To Handle an Underperformer

• Anyone Can Lead

Apparently, the first triggered some of my former Bridgewater colleagues. Sorry.

Podcast Alert

My latest stop on the podcast tour: Exit Five.

Here’s a small taste of what we covered:

• Using action to navigate ambiguity

• My favorite interview tactics

• Can you motivate people?

Find it on Spotify, Apple, or your favorite platform.

Thank you for reading. Appreciate you!

Dave