Cracking the C-Suite

What do I need to do reach the C-Suite?

This is a question we are asked all the time, from ambitious young professionals to corporate executives hovering a few levels below the top team.

Happily, we now have a good answer.

My friend and Spencer Stuart colleague Cassandra Frangos has a new book that is required reading for all current and aspiring executives striving to reach the top tier in an organization. In Crack the C-Suite Code, Cassandra uncovers the hidden dynamics of reaching the C-suite and provides a blueprint that you can follow in your own career path.

Understanding the various routes to the top led Cassandra to begin her research on this topic, beginning with her own background as the former head of Global Executive Talent at Cisco. Similar to the research I’ve conducted for The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers and The Career Playbook, Cassandra has interviewed dozens of C-suite executives and surveyed hundreds of corporate executives from a variety of global organizations in a broad range of industries.

In the book, Cassandra identifies four key paths that executives can follow to chart their course to the top:

1. Tenured Executive, who typically follows a traditional path within an organization (often moving from one division and functional role laterally to another and across geographies before and during a climb towards the top), and is characterized by internal appointments
2. Free Agent, who also typically follows a traditional path across divisions and functions, but who has moved at the right pace from one organization to another (by the right pace I mean, not staying too long at one organization to be considered "a lifer" or moving too frequently to be written off as a "job hopper"); the Free Agent cracks the C-Suite most often by being recruited from the outside.
3. Leapfrog Learner, is the person who others take a bet on by making them skip-level promotes into the C-Suite. These are individuals characterized by strong followership within an organization and a demonstrated ability to learn new things by being insanely curious. They can have either a traditional or non-traditional career path and can be promoted internally or recruited externally.
4. Founder, who of course, do it themselves by founding and building their own organization and have the leadership, drive, and energy to attract a team, investment capital, develop, launch, and commercialize products, and earn the confidence of their boards and teams to stay in the C-Suite even at a typically young age. The successful founders who sustain their position in the C-Suite also tend to display similar curiosity and learning agility as the Leapfrog Learners but have additional tenacity and ambition as well.

In the book, Cassandra discusses the experiences, mindset and personal brand attributes that can accelerate success across each of these models as well as the hybrid variants of each.

If you are seeking to reach the C-suite, Crack the C-Suite Code may be just the next reading for you. You can order your copy now at Amazon https://a.co/eurrh8V