Forging Tomorrow’s CEOs: Building a Leadership Pipeline

The venture builder firm has a proven track record of incubating tech start-ups and transforming them into independent businesses. But as these ventures grew, a new challenge emerged: a shortage of top leaders ready to step into the CEO role. The incubator excelled at launching companies and needed to ensure a strong pool of leaders who can run them.

Acumen helped to develop a CEO Incubator program tailored specifically for future CEOs. We: 

• Identified six critical CEO skills, specific to start-ups
• Assessed high-potential leaders through a rigorous process to pinpoint their strengths and areas for growth 
• Matching each leader with a coach or mentor—both local and international—to accelerate their development and close competency gaps 
• Ran bespoke programs to upskill capabilities in specific competencies.

Coaching was widely praised for its practical value and relevance, with post-coaching evaluations showing measurable improvement in key competencies, as rated by both supervisors and the leaders themselves. By investing in a structured competency model and targeted coaching, 917Ventures is now equipped to grow its own future CEOs—ensuring that every new venture has the leadership it needs to succeed.