BILLION DOLLAR RETURNS
“While working with John, we built out our entire C-Suite team, more than
doubled the company in size, and ultimately sold for Billions.”
About Us
We help CEOs hit key milestones, build and develop their C-Suite, work more effectively with their Board, prepare for a raise or IPO, and minimize the kinds of surprises that can disrupt momentum or derail a career.
Boards and VCs count on us to enhance the leadership skills of their newer CEOs with a science, technology, or medical background, or to help when there are missed targets, unclear focus, troubling surprises, and unproductive conflict with the C-Suite and Board.
We believe better results stem from alignment around shared objectives and meaningful skin in the game, therefore, whenever possible, we prefer to put a significant portion of our fees at risk in the form of stock or options.
If this sounds like a potential fit for you or one of your portfolio companies, let's start a conversation.
Why CEOs Call Us:
- To help develop leadership and communication skills of promising executives, especially those with scientific, medical or engineering backgrounds
- Missed targets and milestones are eroding confidence, unacceptable surprises are occurring more frequently and explanations sound more and more like excuses
- Growing tension with the Board and Investors or to help establish effective controls, boundaries and decision rights between the Board, CEO and C‐Suite
- To serve as a confidential sounding board to review various options for the most challenging business, strategic and performance problems
- Team dysfunction or the interpersonal skills of an otherwise strong executive are disrupting the effectiveness of the C‐Suite
- To assist with succession planning, including the leadership development of a high potential successor
- Adjust process and management practices with a newly formed management team or to help build and enhance C‐Suite results
- To improve confidence, respect, Boardroom gravitas and leadership impact of newer CEOs or high potential executives
- To improve the impact of Board and investor presentations
- To unravel and address messy, unproductive team dynamics such as turf wars, selfish behaviors and poor performance
Why Investors Call Us:
- The leader is an accomplished scientist with a great idea, but needs to develop additional skills to lead a venture‐backed company.
- Recent Board meeting performance suggests that the CEO may lack the experience and discernment to read a room for nuance, to adjust based on cues, to listen and act upon direction or suggestions of the Board.
- Cracks are beginning to surface: poor follow through, dropping the ball, missing critical milestones, or unacceptable budget misses
- Weakness on the team is getting more evident, and the CEO is not moving quickly enough to address performance; avoids tough conversations.
- A troubling pattern is emerging with surprises, delays, missed targets, finger pointing and explanations that sound like excuses.
- The Board senses that the CEO may lack the gravitas to inspire confidence with the markets and potential investors to maximize value in the next capital raise or IPO.
- Eroding trust in the CEO due to excessive hyperbole, lack of transparency, abrupt shifts/changes or catching the Board off guard with unexpected setbacks and bad news.
- Ego and a big personality is causing friction and tension in the relationship with the Board, investors, and/or the team.
What We Do:
Investors rely on us to improve their returns by enhancing the leadership skills and impact of newer CEOs with an academic, science, technology, or medical background.
We incorporate a bundled package of advisory and executive coaching services consistent with the philosophy and leadership practices highlighted in my book, “The Billion Dollar CEO” and the management principles in our proprietary, “Framework for High Performance.”
Our work begins with an assessment phase that will identify specific areas of potential focus.
Together, we will review the major themes, establish objectives and discuss how progress will be measured. Then, much of our ongoing work will be a combination of conversations, meeting observations, video conferencing, and unlimited impromptu outreach via phone, email and text.
While the client always influences the agenda based on current issues, in nearly every exchange there is a discussion about progress toward critical milestones, Horizon Issues, leadership impact, the evolving relational dynamics of the Board and performance of the executive team.
Testimonials:
Given that our firm manages a portfolio of venture capital and equity investments, I find occasion to engage John to support our portfolio company CEOs and management teams.
John is not afraid to confront the most difficult conversations or situation. He intensely listens, carefully observes, and unforgivingly shares insights and searing perspectives that enhance the performance of our leaders and their teams.
John is a partner as I prepare for Board meetings, a counselor as I consider key hires and team issues and is usually the first call I make when I need a second opinion or to talk through thorny strategic issues.
I use John with my C-Suite to pull-out the unspoken challenges with people and process. His non-threatening style serves him well, and me too. He listens and then brings incredible insights forward that were not obvious or evident to others.
John is a trusted advisor not only for me, but for our C-Suite.
John meaningfully elevated my effectiveness as a CEO and the tools and processes he developed for me have now cascaded down throughout our company.
Sample Clients:
The Book
As a confidential advisor to Billion Dollar CEOs for more than two decades, I’ve had a front row seat to the leadership corridors of many of the world’s largest, most respected, and successful private and public companies, from venture-backed start-ups to unicorn IPOs through trillion-dollar multinationals.
The Billion Dollar CEO includes stories, ideas, and approaches that my CEO clients have used to build and enhance many multibillion-dollar companies on my watch. These clients span many industries, but what they have in common is the unique ability to separate signal from noise, vital from urgent, and strategic from mundane. They excel at directing limited resources toward the greatest opportunities, they understand the power of leverage and the incredible advantage of crisp execution around a narrow set of objectives, while minimizing surprises and wasted effort.
A pre-release edition of The Billion Dollar CEO has been produced for our clients, their Boards, and investors; the book is not currently available for commercial distribution or purchase. If you were directed to us by one of our clients and would like to be considered for a complimentary copy, please contact us.
About the Author
Mr. Callos brings decades of insights from his insider’s access observing and advising the world’s most successful CEOs and their C-Suite teams, notably in the biopharma, life sciences, high tech and financial services industries.
A graduate from USC’s combined Marshall School of Business and its Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Callos enjoyed a distinguished career in banking prior to developing his CEO advisory practice.
Callos attained considerable recognition in the ultra-endurance community as a sponsored athlete in the 320-mile Ultraman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii and the 155-mile Marathon Des Sables in Morocco’s Sahara Desert, recognized as the “toughest footrace on earth.”
Now retired from ultra-endurance, Callos spends his private moments as a fledgling vintner and olive oil producer in the Santa Barbara wine country, which is the perfect location to engage in one of his passions... driving his mercurial, vintage Porsches through the vineyards and winding backcountry roads.
The Framework for High Performance
The Framework is a collection of timeless leadership principles and management practices that predictably and consistently lead to superior individual and team performance.
The Framework consists of six leadership gears that work synergistically to improve performance, maximize impact, and minimize the kinds of surprises that can derail progress.
The Framework is meant to be a quick read companion piece to the book “The Billion Dollar CEO,” which highlights the most impactful management practices used by business leaders worldwide, many of whom have built and are running multi‐Billion‐dollar companies.
Contact Us:
If you’d like to learn more about our approach and philosophy, please
contact us for a pre-release copy of our book, The Billion Dollar CEO.