case study
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HBR.ORG
Case Study
The Experts
Bruce Chizen (bruce@ chizenventures.com) is a venture partner at Voyage
Capital in Seattle and a senior adviser at Permira Advisers, which is headquartered in
London. He was previously the CEO of Adobe.
ILLUSTRATION: MONICA HELLSTRÖM
Debra Benton (debra@ debrabenton.com) is an executive coach, the founder of Benton Management
Resources in Livermore,
Colorado, and the author of
CEO Material: How to Be a
Leader in Any Organization
(McGraw-Hill, 2009).
HBR’s fictional cases present dilemmas that real leaders face and offer solutions from experts.
Eileen Roche (eroche@hbr.org) is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review.
Overpromoted and Over
His Head
Dan Sestak has had an impressive career at packaged-foods giant NutriSelect. But with his latest promotion, has he bitten off more than he can chew? by Eileen Roche
D
an Sestak scanned the article on page two of the business section again, his headache intensifying. “Three months after NutriSelect CEO
Michael Botolph died of a heart attack, the skills of his successor are being questioned,” it read. “Insiders report that new
CEO Daniel Sestak, aged 43, lacks the experience and the vision to effectively take the helm.” The story went on to reveal worrisome details about the company’s financial situation, which was shakier than it had appeared.
Clearly, someone at NutriSelect had chosen to leak inside information to the media rather than deal with Dan directly, and he hated that. It was the coward’s way, and it would only hurt the company in the long run. But the worst part was that he couldn’t deny there was some truth to the report. He had taken on much more than he had bargained for, and at this moment he wasn’t entirely confident that he was up to the challenge. That was a new and unsettling feeling for him.
Dan had sailed through an Ivy League education and graduated at the top of his class in
HBR.ORG
Case Study
The Experts
Bruce Chizen (bruce@ chizenventures.com) is a venture partner at Voyage
Capital in Seattle and a senior adviser at Permira Advisers, which is headquartered in
London. He was previously the CEO of Adobe.
ILLUSTRATION: MONICA HELLSTRÖM
Debra Benton (debra@ debrabenton.com) is an executive coach, the founder of Benton Management
Resources in Livermore,
Colorado, and the author of
CEO Material: How to Be a
Leader in Any Organization
(McGraw-Hill, 2009).
HBR’s fictional cases present dilemmas that real leaders face and offer solutions from experts.
Eileen Roche (eroche@hbr.org) is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review.
Overpromoted and Over
His Head
Dan Sestak has had an impressive career at packaged-foods giant NutriSelect. But with his latest promotion, has he bitten off more than he can chew? by Eileen Roche
D
an Sestak scanned the article on page two of the business section again, his headache intensifying. “Three months after NutriSelect CEO
Michael Botolph died of a heart attack, the skills of his successor are being questioned,” it read. “Insiders report that new
CEO Daniel Sestak, aged 43, lacks the experience and the vision to effectively take the helm.” The story went on to reveal worrisome details about the company’s financial situation, which was shakier than it had appeared.
Clearly, someone at NutriSelect had chosen to leak inside information to the media rather than deal with Dan directly, and he hated that. It was the coward’s way, and it would only hurt the company in the long run. But the worst part was that he couldn’t deny there was some truth to the report. He had taken on much more than he had bargained for, and at this moment he wasn’t entirely confident that he was up to the challenge. That was a new and unsettling feeling for him.
Dan had sailed through an Ivy League education and graduated at the top of his class in