Eureka Case 30 min

The First Memo

You are Ainhoa, 50, newly appointed CEO of Construcciones Vizcaya, a Basque construction-services group (€340M revenue, 1,800 employees). You are 30 days in. The board has asked you for a two-page memo identifying the three or four things you will personally focus on as CEO — the things that, if you do not do them yourself, will not get done.

The situation

You inherited a diagnosis. Your predecessor and the transition team handed over a 40-page document identifying 12 candidate priorities — every one of which is real, every one of which someone in the firm would tell you is urgent. The temptation is to list all 12 and promise progress on each. That is the failure pattern.

The 2-page memo will become your year-1 implicit contract with the board. The board members will hold it against you in 12 months — gently if you delivered, firmly if you didn't. The deeper test is intellectual: can you distinguish what only-the-CEO-can-do from what's-important-but-delegate from what-shouldn't-be-done-at-all? Most new CEOs miss this distinction by trying to be visible on too many fronts.

Your job in this case: review the 12 candidate priorities, select 3 or 4 (no more) that genuinely require CEO ownership, and commit to a memo shape. The memo is short. The decision behind it is not.

The decision

What is the memo's overall shape?

  • A · Three big bets
  • B · Stabilize first
  • C · Mixed: two bets + two foundations

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