How to present to your CEO
How to present to your CEO
Be prepared to move fast, encourage them to interrupt you, and more
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Today, we’re talking about how to prepare for and run a meeting when you present to your CEO (or busy executives). We’ll cover:
Be prepared to move fast.
Encourage them to interrupt you.
Get right to the meat.
Have supporting documents ready.
Bring an agenda.
Remind them where you left off.
Take advantage while you have their attention.
Show a draft or mock-up.
Be specific about where you’re blocked.
Know your numbers.
Fewer status updates. More next steps or discussions.
Aim for a good decision, not necessarily your exact recommendation.
Let’s dive in.
Read time: 11 minutes
Meetings with CEOs and executives can go in any direction. Like doctors with bad handwriting, executives are notorious for zooming in on one detail or unexpectedly changing the topic. This is rightfully stressful for their teams, especially if you went in with one idea, and within five minutes, they’re asking you about something else.
One day, you’ll be asked to present to an executive in your company. This is a useful skill to develop and a highly visible opportunity to shine. Here’s how.
1. Be prepared to move fast.
Your executive is probably straightforward and their brain moves fast. Frame the conversation upfront and be direct with what you need. Are you looking for feedback? Sharing an FYI update? Getting their sign-off? Be explicit upfront because it will help them get oriented on how to absorb everything else you’re about to tell them.
Moving fast does not mean talking quickly with an urgent tone—this will only create unnecessary anxiety. Moving fast means being organized, direct, and clear.
There may be times when you’ll be shocked at how direct your CEO is with you. They might say, “Why do you need this?” or “This doesn’t look good enough to ship.” Their directness is a sign that they trust you enough to speak in shorthand—and they likely speak even more directly with senior folks on the team.
Obviously, there are many different kinds of CEOs. But most move faster than average and tend to be impatient creatures. If you’ve worked with this type of CEO before, you know the kind of speed I’m talking about. It takes a bit of an adjustment period to calibrate to their speed and to keep up. Being mentally prepared to move fast is half the battle.
2. Encourage them to interrupt you.
Early in my career, I would prepare 3-5 minute presentations and was surprised when the executive I was presenting to got the point in 30 seconds. Now, on the other side, I often wish I could interrupt folks presenting to me because I “got the joke” a while ago, but feel like a jerk interrupting them.
I originally wrote this as “give execs permission to interrupt you,” but decided to go a step further. You should actually encourage them to interrupt you because:
They already want to—nay, they are itching to.
If they hold back, they’ll be distracted for everything else you’re saying.
It makes the best use of limited time to skip parts you both already know.
Your goal is to get a shared understanding—not to deliver your full monologue. Let’s say you prepared a 15-slide Keynote deck. By slide three, they say, “Agreed. What do you need from me to move forward?” Don’t insist on going through the rest of the deck. (Yes, even if the graph on the last slide is a banger.)
Be glad that you were more prepared than you needed to be. You achieved your purpose: you got their buy-in. Take the win and keep it moving. More on this topic here.
3. Get right to the meat.
Getting to the point doesn’t mean talking fast with a sense of panic. It means doing a bit of preparation, so you’re not processing out loud in a real-time stream-of-conscious.
When you say your punchline upfront, you will instantly seem more competent and organized. So keep the backstory short, and skip the lengthy play-by-play of how you got to where you are (unless you’re asked about it).
Before: “Well this happened, then this other thing, and here’s the process of what I did for that, oh yeah this thing but that’s not important, this important thing that’s completely buried, and then this other thing.”
After: “Here’s a few sentences about the situation. Here’s the important thing I wanted to discuss.”
The idea of BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) originated in the military to ensure communication was as direct as possible. Here’s an example of a Slack message. Notice how my recommendation is upfront, then the context is below.
Getting right to the meat doesn’t mean jumping in without framing what you’re about to talk about and why. It means giving an appropriate level of context (as a very general rule of thumb, aim for a few minutes, but probably not 20 minutes without a break). If you don’t give any context, your CEO will be confused, frustrated, and will need to ask a bunch of questions to even understand what you’re talking about. That’s equally time consuming and unproductive as giving too much context. See item #6 on reminding where you left off. I’m writing another newsletter purely on how to give the right amount of context, so stay tuned.
4. Have supporting documents ready.
Have any supporting docs, spreadsheets, Notion pages, etc ready in case your CEO has questions about where you got your numbers. You might not need it, but it’s better to have it at your fingertips than to fumble around saying, “Wait, I know where that doc is, hold on…hold on… [silence] Oh, it’s here. Wait, no, never mind. I’ll get back to you on that.”
Ask yourself:
What supporting docs might I need?
What do I reference that they might want to know more about?
Open those tabs on your browser in advance, so you can easily screen share or look up a data point if needed.
5. Bring an agenda.
Ideally, share an agenda or a few notes of what you want to discuss in advance. If you really want to stand out, share a pre-read document before the meeting. This takes obvious preparation, and it’s harder to hide poor ideas in writing, so it doubly shows that you have your act together.
Even if you don’t have a written agenda, you should bring notes for yourself on your discussion points. Do you ever look at a note you made to yourself and think, wtf does this mean? You’d forgotten the context. This has happened to me many times, and it’s super annoying. You don’t have time to decipher what your notes mean when you’re in a fast-paced or high-stakes meeting.
Confusing: “Budget meeting”
Better: “Budget meeting - Get approval for doubling FB spend from $1k/day to $2k/day because X reason.”
Adding an extra line of context in my notes has saved me so much mental load. With a slightly more detailed note, you give yourself the ability to easily context-switch and stay fluid.
6. Remind them where you left off.
Your CEO is in back-to-back meetings all day, which means they are context-switching constantly. They just got off a call that ran long. They’re here now. What do you do?
To kick-off, share 1-2 sentences on why you’re meeting and remind them where you last left off. This is helpful because, I kid you not, sometimes you’ll start a meeting and your CEO will say, “Wait, why are we even doing this?”
This can be slightly terrifying to hear if you just spent the past two weeks on a project because your CEO agreed it was a good idea the last time you spoke.
Bad: [Jumps straight into the topic]
Good: “The last time we spoke about this two weeks ago, you said we should do X because Y. I agreed that made sense, so we did that, and today I want to share what we came up with, get your feedback, and share our plans for what’s next.”
7. Take full advantage while you have their attention.
You might have access to your CEO once a month or less. Get items approved in a batch because you’ll be able to run for longer without them becoming a bottleneck.
Have the immediate next step ready. Better yet—have the next few steps ready to get their approval while you have their attention. In general, it’s useful to think a few steps ahead anyway for your own benefit.
Ask yourself:
When I’m done with this, then what? Then what after that? After that?
In a similar thread, you might want to have a few backup topics in case you finish your main topics early. If it was hard to get on the executive’s calendar, use the time they’ve already blocked off for you.
For example, I’ve had team members say, “Since we have 10 minutes left and we’re already here, I’d like to share my screen and run X by you to get your initial thoughts. Is that cool?” And my answer is almost always “Sure, let’s do it.”
8. Show a draft or mock-up.
This one is important. I’ll proactively tell folks I work with to bring drafts or mock-ups because meetings are so much more productive with them. It’s much easier for most people to give feedback when they have something in front of them, even if it’s a “shitty first draft” (per Anne Lamott). The goal is to capture the general spirit of what you’re trying to do and spark a response from your recipient.
You can spend 5-7 minutes describing your idea using words alone. Or you could show a draft and get feedback within 30 seconds. There’s a lot of tacit information in images, visuals, sketches, and examples, so use this to your advantage.
Whether you get a hard “no” or an excited “yes” doesn’t matter. The goal is to offer something concrete to push back on because it leads to clarity faster.
9. Be specific about where you’re blocked.
If your CEO is on your critical path, they want to unblock you as soon as possible. They might ask, “What do you need from me?” or “Are you waiting on anything from me?” Proactively mention if/where they are the bottleneck and what you need to move forward.
Good: “You’re on the critical path for X because we’re waiting for you to give feedback.”
This is decent, but it still puts the responsibility on your CEO to figure out what to do.
Better: “You’re on the critical path for X because we’re waiting on you for feedback. I recommend we move forward without your edits because you’ve approved most of this copy before. Does this sound good?
In the “better” option above, you’re asserting what to do and making your recommendation easy to approve. Your CEO can simply say, “Yes, sounds good.”
Be clear upfront about why you're sharing in the first place, so they can get mentally oriented for what you're about to say. As an exec, I'm going to react differently if the information is an FYI, or if you need my approval, or if you need my input on how you're thinking about a problem.
10. Know your numbers.
In my first job out of college, I did a corporate rotational training program at Gap Inc in San Francisco. One of the first lessons: Anything you put on a slide, you should be prepared to explain and defend. This lesson was seared into my brain. This applies to numbers in reports, sales forecasts, strategy proposals, or hindsight docs.
If you’re even slightly doubtful of what a number means, figure it out before you cite it. Even if you’re not presenting this information, it’s good for you to be accurate and precise about what’s actually captured in a number. For example:
Less accurate: 65% of leads were driven by TikTok
More accurate: 65% of leads in X program were driven by TikTok in Q4 2023
Those two are not the same thing. In fact, the first is misleading and implies TikTok is a bigger lead driver than it actually is. This might seem obvious, but I’ve seen similar errors in logic and communication more often than you’d expect. Don’t play fast and loose when citing numbers.
Now, let’s say you’re mentioning this number because you want to convince your team to invest more in TikTok. When you reference this data point, depending on how much your CEO is plugged into your work on this project, you should be prepared to get some obvious follow-up questions: Are these the kind of leads we want? If this was our biggest channel, what was the next biggest channel? What was your methodology for calculating the 65%?
You might be thinking, “Oh god, they could ask me anything. How can I possibly prepare to go in any direction.” Good news: You don’t need to have answers to every question.
But you should have a high-level understanding of how your channel is performing and why. If there are obvious questions, you’ll want to answer those for yourself regardless to sharpen your customer/market insights and recommendations.
11. Fewer status updates. More next steps or discussions.
When you’re proud of what you’ve been working on, it’s natural to want to share status updates. But status updates are backward-looking. What's happened has already happened, and you can’t change the past. Most CEOs care more about what’s next because you can still impact the future to your advantage. You might get questions like:
“Why does this matter? What’s coming up?”
“What do you need my input on?”
“Where are you blocked?”
“What are the areas of risk or opportunity? What are we doing about it?”
When your CEO asks questions like this, it’s not because they want to badger you or they’re skeptical. It’s because they want to validate your thinking and understand how to support you going forward.
Now, sometimes the point of a meeting is to update your CEO on a project. In that case, by all means, share updates—but do so with clarity and intention. I learned this lesson early on: At my first job, I would rattle off recaps and progress updates that were too detailed for no reason. I got asked “so what?” enough times by leaders that I realized, “A laundry list of what I did and how I got there is not useful. I can share updates, but I should be discerning about it.”
The past is only relevant because it helps us make better decisions about the future. You have an opportunity to show that you’re focused on what’s next and what’s still within your control, so spend 20% on the past and focus 80% on what’s ahead.
12. Aim for the right decision, not necessarily your exact recommendation.
Given how much I talk about the importance of framing your ideas in this newsletter, it may come as a surprise to hear me say: Getting buy-in isn’t always the goal.
This took me a long time to learn: The point isn’t to get buy-in for your ideas at any cost—the point is to get to the right decision. Sometimes, the right decision is a “no.”
That's why you shouldn't feel resentful if you spent time drafting a proposal, but your team didn't move forward with it. Strategies, big projects, and initiatives should be vetted before they're simply rolled out. This was a breakthrough for me, and it’s a reminder I share with direct reports if they’re disappointed that their proposal wasn't adopted.
If your idea led to productive discussions, you still added value.
If your idea helped your team realize gaps that need to be filled, you added value.
If your idea gave your team something to push back on, you still added value.
Now, obviously, you want to get better at being right. In the meantime, not everything you suggest will be implemented. Actually, most things you suggest over the course of your career won’t be implemented. You should still advocate for what you think is best for the company. When you do this, it shows integrity and maturity, which is something all CEOs and senior leaders will appreciate.
Many people assume meetings with CEOs will be a formal presentation, delivered from beginning to end with no interruptions. This might be the case for some meetings, but most will be more interactive and flexible.
A better mental model is to imagine a conversational presentation where you'd expect and want dialogue. So yes, have your ducks in a row and your talking points ready. But don’t be shocked if your CEO wants to zoom into a certain part midway through.
When you prepare for this dynamic, it allows you to address questions in the moment and stay focused enough to make all your key points. Give these principles a try, and I’d love to hear how it goes.
I’d love to get your help growing our community of thoughtful, rigorous operators. If you found this valuable, consider subscribing or taking a moment to refer a friend.
Thanks for being here,
Wes Kao
PS See you next Wednesday at 8am ET.
PPS Loving this and want to binge-read? You might like these other essays about managing up:
12 great points Wes, and point number 2. is my favourite - "2. Encourage them [the CEO] to interrupt you."
When it comes to workplace listening, there is a common fallacy that interrupting is rude or unproductive.
Communication is a simultaneous equation between the speaker and the listener.
Roles change multiple times during the discussion, its critical to understand what is a great conversation for all participants before the meeting starts.
A simple question - What would make this a great conversation? will act as the communication compass for the discussion and keep everyone on track.
Process first, then content.
Three tips about skillfully, professionally and effectively interrupting in the workplace.
1/ Pre-empt questions and interruptions before the conversation commences. Ask how you would like to take questions and explain your intention if or when you interrupt.
2/ Ask yourself, is this interruption about me, my thoughts or perspective, or is it about progressing the purpose of the conversation? The second option increases the effectiveness of the dialogue, especially in group meetings.
3/ Don't interrupt mid-sentence, mid-thought or mid-breath. Wait for the speaker to complete their thought. This will avoid making you the quiz show contestant who presses the buzzer too soon and embarrasses themselves.
[The Easiest way to avoid this is to note your question by writing or typing it out before you interrupt.]
* NB - In some cultures, interruption is a signal of a strong relationship
What are your top tips for interrupting skilfully, professionally and effectively in the workplace?
Thanks for sharing these great tips, Wes! My team has a meeting with our CEO this week. After reading this (and sharing it with my director) I have a new perspective around straight forward comments and interruptions.