← CEO DesksCEO Career DeskReadiness Audit & Strategy
Strictly confidential
Are you ready for the larger seat? And if not yet, what exactly stands in the way?
₹30,000, all-inclusive of GST.
Why one audit will not do
Can you lead a group of businesses, and the CEOs who run them?
Can you lead a board, without running the company?
Before you pay anything
For each of the ten, ask one thing: could I show this to someone who has never met me? Nothing you choose here is stored or sent.
Running several businesses with different cycles, margins and markets, and judging each on its own terms.
The usual gap Most CEOs have run one business very well. A group seat asks you to run businesses you do not know as deeply.
Leading business CEOs who run their own companies and answer to their own boards.
The usual gap Leading a top team is different from leading people who are CEOs themselves.
Deciding which business gets capital, which gives it up, and what return each must earn.
The usual gap A CEO argues for one business’s plan. A Group CEO has to say no to a business CEO.
Being the person investors, analysts and rating agencies trust on the group’s direction.
The usual gap Unlisted experience, or a parent that kept investors to itself, leaves this thin.
Working with a group board and the boards of listed subsidiaries, including related-party matters between them.
The usual gap Most CEOs have answered to one board. A group seat tests you in front of several.
Buying, selling, merging and demerging businesses, and integrating what is bought.
The usual gap Leading one acquisition is not the same as reshaping a portfolio.
Being the person the promoter family or the global parent trusts with the group, and the one who tells them what they do not want to hear.
The usual gap It is earned in private, so it rarely shows on a CV. It has to be shown another way.
A ready successor for your own seat and for the seats below it, named and known to the board.
The usual gap A board looks at who you would leave behind. Many CEOs have no one ready.
Leading tens of thousands of people across businesses, sites and cultures, mostly through others.
The usual gap What works through personal reach in one company does not travel across a group.
Representing the group to government, regulators, the media and industry bodies.
The usual gap A business CEO speaks for one sector. A Group CEO is asked to speak for the whole group, often in public.
Time as an independent or non-executive director on boards other than your own.
The usual gap Many sitting CEOs have never sat on a board they did not report to.
Leading the board without running the company, and letting the CEO lead.
The usual gap A former CEO who keeps managing from the chair is the risk boards and proxy advisers watch for first.
Setting the agenda, running meetings in which every director is heard, and leading the board’s own evaluation.
The usual gap Taking part in a board is different from running one.
Supporting the CEO and challenging them, and knowing which one the moment needs.
The usual gap CEOs know how to be held to account. Doing it to someone else is a different skill.
Running a CEO succession and choosing directors, with the Nomination & Remuneration Committee.
The usual gap A CEO has usually been the subject of a succession, not the person running one.
Sitting on the audit, nomination and risk committees as a member, not as the person reporting to them.
The usual gap Attending a committee as management is not the same as serving on one.
The Companies Act, the listing regulations, related-party approvals, and the chair’s own duties under them.
The usual gap Often left to the company secretary. A chair is expected to own the answer.
The trust of institutional investors, minority shareholders and the proxy advisers who guide their votes.
The usual gap A CEO meets investors about results. A chair meets them about governance, pay and succession.
Holding the confidence of the promoter family and of the independent directors when the two do not agree.
The usual gap In a promoter company the chair sits between them. Neither side trusts a chair who takes one side by habit.
Steadying the board through a CEO’s exit, a fraud, a regulator’s action or a hostile bid.
The usual gap In a crisis the CEO leads the company. The chair leads the people who may have to replace the CEO.
What you receive
Strictly confidential · Prepared for you alone
Readiness Audit
CEO to Group CEO
VerdictClose, with two gaps to fill
First moveName a ready successor to your board within the year.
Illustrative layout
Your audit
All-inclusive of GST, for the audit and the strategy together. No account is needed.
Free, 3 minutes
You rate yourself and see where you think the gaps are.
Take the free self-check →One seat, your actual record
We read your record as the people deciding would, and show how to close what is missing.
All your moves
For when you have not settled on a seat: pathways, pay and global mobility.
See the Career Strategy →How it works
Group CEO, Board Chair, or both if you have not decided.
We contact you within one working day to take them in confidence.
Against all ten dimensions, as the people deciding would.
The audit and the strategy, together.
Why an executive search firm
Gladwin International has been an executive search firm since 2010. Its CEO practice, led by Anandh Shanmugaraj, has made 200+ CEO and MD placements across a decade-long practice. This audit gives you the reading a committee would not.
A board rarely tells you why you were passed over. We do, before they have the chance.
We do not contact your employer, and nothing is published.
Before you decide
You are ready when your record, not your own rating of it, answers what the people deciding will ask. For Group CEO that means leading a portfolio of businesses and the CEOs who run them. For Board Chair it means leading a board without running the company. This audit reads your record against ten dimensions for that seat and gives a plain verdict.
₹30,000 for the audit and the strategy, all-inclusive of GST.
A CEO runs one business. A Group CEO runs several: deciding where the group’s capital goes, leading the CEOs who run each business, managing the promoter or the parent, and answering to a larger board, often in front of public markets.
Boards look for evidence that you can lead a board without running the company: a record as a non-executive director, time on audit and nomination committees, the restraint to let a CEO lead, and the trust of shareholders and independent directors alike.
The Ascent is a free three-minute audit in which you rate your own effectiveness as a sitting CEO. This audit reads your actual record as the people deciding would, for Group CEO or Board Chair, and comes with a strategy.
Tell us. We read your record against both and say which one is closer.
Yes. If your record does not support the seat yet, the audit says so and shows what would change that.
We do not contact your board, your chair or your employer, and nothing is published.
No. It is separate from our retained searches: buying it does not put you on a shortlist, and not buying it does not keep you off one. No one can promise a role, and we do not.
₹30,000, all-inclusive of GST. A plain verdict, and the route to the seat.
The CEO Career Desk
Reads your record against the market and shows which moves are worth making.
OpenWhat a board or a search firm finds when they look you up, in your own words.
OpenReads the market against your own brief, in silence. Your name stays out of it.
OpenOne career, presented for the people who will read it first.
OpenReads your record against the seat you want next, and shows how to close each gap.
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