In this presentation, Bill Canady addresses newly appointed CEOs, presidents, or division leaders—especially those operating under private‑equity ownership—about how to succeed in the first 100 days. He begins by framing the role’s purpose around three pillars: exceptional opportunities for employees, strong partnerships with customers and vendors, and superior returns for investors. The core of his advice is a four‑step, 100‑day playbook. First, the leader sets a clear, financially‑driven goal (typically EBITDA growth and a target multiple on invested capital, MOIC). Second, the team is tasked with devising a strategy to hit that goal, with ownership of the plan resting on the team rather than the CEO. Third, the organization is restructured to align resources, processes, and geography with the chosen strategy. Fourth, actionable, shallow plans are produced and iterated as the 100‑day window closes. Throughout, Canady stresses transparent communication—regular all‑hands, town halls, and the “Stockdale Paradox” of honest optimism—to keep the workforce engaged. He then introduces his Profitable Growth Operating System (PGSO), a toolkit built on five management practices (80/20 Pareto principle, talent, lean, strategy, M&A) that serve as the “tools” a leader uses regardless of company size. The talk blends private‑equity imperatives (organic growth plus acquisitions) with practical leadership habits, aiming to give new leaders a concrete roadmap to deliver rapid, profitable growth.
Chapters
Well, hey, congratulations! You did it. You got the big job. You're in charge now. Whether you're the CEO or president or division leader, whatever it is, people are counting on you to deliver the results that it takes to make sure this company does well. You know, the 3 things we always talk about is we want to give exceptional opportunities to our folks, be a great partner to our customers and our vendors, And give a superior return to our investors. The fact that you've been brought in, you know, is typically really comes out of just a couple of different issues, right? First is maybe someone's retired or they've moved on to something bigger and better, or a lot of times more likely, it wasn't going that well and the board or leadership has decided to make a change. But the good news is you've got the opportunity now. The thing you got to think about is how are you going to go about this? For myself, well, I've always looked at is what can I get done in 100 days? And I use 4 very simple steps. The first step is we need a goal. And as the leader, as a CEO, that goal that I set is typically financially driven. There's a lot of reasons for this, but spending my time in private equity, the most important thing that we're looking at is getting a superior return in a short amount of time. Private equity does a lot of amazing things, really, really has to take and invest and turn around companies to get it right. The ultimate goal is these companies need to go to their next iteration. In order for that to happen, we have to grow the earnings. And the typical measure is EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. We're gonna be focused on that goal. All of this is driven through contracts. The goal is very clear. It'll be some, some number, and I'm just gonna call it 100. It's the easiest way to think about it. And we're at 100 and we're gonna go to 200. And the question is, how are we gonna go get that extra 100? There'll be 2 steps to that. There's 2 pieces. The first is organically, and the second one is through acquisitions. On the organic side, It is, we have to take this company and make it so that it can grow and prepare it for acquisitions. And this is super important for 2 reasons. The first is a company that you can show that is growing by itself, growing on its own, is far more valuable. And the second one is in order to do that, it typically indicates it's a healthy company. Now, if you're partnered with a great private equity firm, what happens at that point They can use capital to buy acquisitions. That's the rocket fuel. A growing business organically with acquisitions brought in is a winning hand. As a CEO, it's your job with your CFO to figure out what that number is. It's typically very simple. And the general goal, not always, is we would like to get a 3x return on our invested cash, also known as multiple on invested cash. May have heard that called MOIC, right? So we'll figure that goal out. We get our team together offsite, we sit down and we walk through it. We want everyone to understand absolutely what it is and make sure that we're all aligned. The next piece about private equity, those folks in that room typically have equity in the company. They're an owner. And so naturally, they're gonna wanna win too. And that's the number that determines what winning looks like. You know, back in the years ago, uh, it, uh, folks would come in and, and maybe, uh, strip down a company, pull the assets out, go sell them off. That isn't possible anymore today. If you're going to win, you have to figure out how to grow it, and you have to figure out how to grow it pretty quickly. And like I say, it's a combination of organic and acquisitions. So you get your team in the room, you walk through the numbers, you make sure that everybody understands and they're bought in. Step number two is what is the strategy that will achieve for us to get to achieve that number, to to hit that number in the shortest amount of time? And our windows are typically three to five years. The average private equity today takes a little bit more than that, generally around six years or so. But we believe we're better and we can take and hit it quicker than that. That's not always the case, but if we've chosen well around the the company. And we understand clearly what it's gonna take. We'd like to hit that at 3 years or sooner, but nonetheless, that's what we're looking at. As we take and work with our team to understand what the strategy is, it's their job, it's the team's job to figure out the strategy or the path that we're gonna take to get to that earnings number. And it's important that they do that, right? As the CEO, the field general, call it whatever you wanna call it, We set the goals, the team figures out how to go there. And what you get by setting it up that way is you get ownership, right? It's not your plan, it's their plan. And when they own it, they're going to take and do everything they can to make sure that it gets there, right? So, first 30 days we come in, we get that goal set. Typically, we have that meeting within 2 weeks of taking over. And then 30 days after that, We will get together and go over the strategy. Now, 30 days isn't a very, very long time, of course, but it's typically enough. These are ongoing companies. They're existing. They have a core strategy. If you're sitting in that role and that company's been bought, it typically means that the strategy was believed in. So, we're going to look at the core, figure out what it is, and go around that. So, if you're an industrial company and you're manufacturing pumps or you're a financial services company, And you're working with asset management or software and it's SaaS, you're probably not gonna cross over from a software and get into the pump manufacturing business and probably not gonna go from pumps into managing people's money. So, you stay in your core and focus with that. The team's job is to figure out what that strategy is that it's gonna take to get us there. 30 days after that meeting, so we're now approaching About 75 days or so, we'll have a structure meeting. And this is the piece that I find many companies mess up on, right? They've been doing what they have through the last few years and now they've got something new coming in. They don't give up the old and they just add the new to it. It doesn't work, right? There's not more hours in a day. People don't have additional hands or arms or anything like that. You can't go out and hire all that much staff. You have to reorganize the company. You have to structure the company to fit the new strategy. So, if you're going into new geography, you've got to make sure you've got the folks there to go do it. If you're bringing out new products, if you're taking on new lines, if you're whatever it is doing, you've got the same resources you had before you started. You're going to need to make sure that those folks have the time and energy and capability of going to do it. Step 3 is to how are you going to restructure the company? And then, the final step is around action plans, right? So, 30 days later as you are on your journey, so now you're at about the 100-day mark, is you're looking from the plans from your team that are the detailed steps that are going to take you from where you are to where you're going. Now, listen, it's taken about 100 days to get to this point. And so, these plans are naturally going to be very wide and very shallow, right? It'll be like a puddle. They just hadn't had time to put it together. But the most important thing that has happened to this is you've got your team aligned. They've got a common goal with a strategy how to do it. And they know how they're going to organize their resources, their operations to go. From that, all the changes start happening. They start happening really, really fast. Super important that the team owns it because they're the one that's going to have to do it. Now, as you started this journey from your very first day over this 100-day plan, you should expect to have at least 3 all-hands meetings or town hall meetings, fireside chats, whatever you like to call it. But you want to get in front of as much as you can everybody in the company. Now, today, that's a lot easier than it used to be. You know, we have— Video conferencing, things like Teams and Zoom and all that. It works fantastic. I highly recommend that you use that. But you want to, after each key step, make sure you get the team in and tell them where they are in the journey. It's important. They need to know where you're going because without that, they're gonna maybe not have as much hope. The second piece of it is you need to make sure that you are absolutely clear with them the situation that you're in. So, if you're in a turnaround situation, It's important they know that things are going to have to change. People are going to have to take and bear down on this. What they were doing is going to come to either stop or a big change. Not everyone likes that, of course, right? But if you're in the right situation and the company is struggling, it's the only way you can save it. And by being open and honest and candid with people, It really makes all the difference with it. They're in it with you. And, you know, that's today, that's known as the Stockdale Paradox. Admiral James Stockdale was taken prisoner in the Vietnam War and he was the longest serving one in there. And he led those men and looked after them during that period of captivity. And afterwards, he was interviewed. By Jim Collins. And Jim asked him, you know, how did he make it when so many died? And he said, well, that was easy. The optimists died first, which, you know, Mr. Collins was taken aback by that. And he asked him to explain. And Admiral Stockdale went on to say, look, when you're in this type of situation, you have no idea how long it's going to take, right? And you need to have a realistic view with it. You need to understand that, you know, Is terrible, right? People are tortured. Many people die. A lot of folks don't make it. But given the right situation and the right attitude, you will make it through there. And that's what people need. They need an open and honest leader who's transparent with the situation is so that they can understand exactly what's happening and where you're going. And they'll join you within that, right? People want to win. And the people who work in your company, as they work in mine, They believe strongly in it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be there. You know, I think there's a myth that a lot of people just show up for a paycheck and maybe that's true. But I actually believe people care about each other and they want to make it better and they want to be part of a winning organization. And if done correctly, you can give them the hope and the drive and the determination to help them go through it. Let's go back and look at it one more time. So, you got your dream job. Congratulations! You show up on your day 1, what are you gonna go do? The first thing is you need to take and get a goal. As the leader, it's your job to set what that goal is, and it should be absolutely aligned with your board and your investors. Most important that it is, because there's no need of running after something if it's not gonna get you where you need to go. Step 2 is to get your team together and make sure that they can come up with a strategy that is appropriate for achieving that goal. The size of that goal in relation to where you are sets the prize. It also says how big and important that strategy needs to be. And that strategy has to be focused. You can't win by doing a thousand things, right? Step three after that is how do you organize or reorganize your company to go take full advantage of that strategy? And the final step is what are the steps that you need to do from today through the next three years? To go and achieve that, you know. Given the fact that you did Austin 100 Day, the plans are going to be pretty shallow. So a couple things I strongly recommend: you need to understand that it's progress, not perfection. Plans aren't going to be perfect. They're not going to be looking— they're either going to look very attractive and they're going to be shallow in a lot of really important ways. It's okay. You got to stop. Get— you got to start. You get your team aligned, get them going. This will absolutely help. And it helps quickly because that team built that plan based on the information that's coming out of the company. It's a real plan. But you need to know it will change and mature as time goes by. You'll learn, they'll learn, you'll make those steps with it. You need to carry your whole team, your whole company through this journey. You do that by communicating openly and honestly with them. So, our next step that we'll go through is we'll talk about the tools that we use To accomplish these things. Over the years, I put together what I call, have fondly called the PGSO system. So, Profitable Growth Operating System. But you know, there's nothing new in these tools. They've been around a long time. The foundational piece of it is 80/20, Pareto's principle. We'll talk a lot about that. There's also talent, lean, strategy and mergers and acquisitions in there as well. So, 5 simple management practices. We'll go through each and every one of them. But the golden thread that pulls it all together is 80/20. And it's very simple. And the reason is this. It's just based on the data. It's just based on what's actually in the company. As a leader, you don't come in with the answer. You don't know what the answer is. And candidly, each one of these that you'll do, It will be very different what happens, but the toolset you use is exactly the same every time. I like to liken it to being a master carpenter. You could be building a condo, a mansion, a skyscraper, a small house. It doesn't matter. What you need is the blueprint. You need to know what you're going to build. But the tools you use to be a condo or build a condo is exactly the same tools that you use to build a skyscraper, right? Right? Use hammers and saws and levels and things like that, right? It's the same thing here. The tools that you need to run a one-man startup is the same exact tools that you need to run a multi-billion dollar company that expands the world. And I know this because I've done both, and I'm gonna share some learnings about those tools and help you understand how to go do them. My goal is not to give you the answers, but to show you how to be a master carpenter. To show you how to be an extraordinary leader who gets results in a very timely fashion. I look forward to taking this journey with you. Thank you very much.
