CEO Campfire Chat

When COVID first hit, we got together a group of CEOs a few times a month to collectively build a strategy for navigating an unprecedented event. Sure, we’ve dealt with financial crises and economic recessions in the past, but there was no playbook for a global pandemic.

By popular demand, we started recording parts of the sessions and created a podcast, so we can help an even broader audience of PE-backed CEOs.

In this episode of the CEO Campfire Chat, we sit down with Sam Reese, CEO of Vistage Worldwide, a Providence Equity portfolio company.

Vistage is a company that offers mentorship, coaching, and support to CEOs of small to mid-size businesses. They’re the largest such organization globally, and their model has always focused on creating local support groups where CEOs can meet in-person to learn from each other.

The coronavirus pandemic presented an interesting challenge for Reese and his team. Suddenly, gathering together was an impossibility. But their CEO members were facing an unprecedented challenge and were in dire need of the type of community that Vistage provides.

Sam admits that he and the team, like most of us, were initially blindsided by the realities of the pandemic. But then he reflected back on something he had heard from Patrick Lencioni, well-known author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

Lencioni talks about the importance of developing a rallying cry during difficult times. So that’s exactly what Sam did. The Vistage rallying cry became, “Whatever we do, what will define us is how we can help our members outperform their non-Vistage counterparts.”

Hear more about how he rallied his troupes by listening to the podcast here.