RISE

for Founders & CEOs

Become a uniquely effective Founder-CEO.

Build a company that stands apart.

RISE Quarterly Summit

Founders and CEOs come together quarterly to share the inside story of taking their companies forward and to work on the real challenges of running a business.• See a wide range of business models in action
• Hear real operating detail and hard-earned insight
• Understand what is working (and not) right now, in your business and others
• ID the priorities that will most advance your business
• Learn how other founder-CEOs shape their role to have impact
• Focus on solving what unlocks the most value

Company X: How I Built It

At each RISE day, a later-stage or exited founder-CEO shares how they built and led their company, in full.• What really happened behind the results
• The decisions, trade-offs and pivotal moments that shaped the company
• How culture, strategy, team and luck actually played out
• What they got right and wrong as founder-ceo
• What became visible only in hindsight
• What matters most at your stage, and what doesn'tFollowed by candid Q&A to get to what is most useful to you right now in your business.

RISE Triads

Between RISE days, you meet with two other founders or CEOs to keep progress real and deliberate.• Maintain a clear, honest appraisal of your current position
• Hold each other to account for the priorities set
• Challenge and pressure-test decisions and plans
• Adjust quickly as reality intervenes. Nothing goes exactly to plan
• Capture what works and embed it into how you operate
• Be held to a high standard by founders and CEOsAs you make progress on the hardest problems, you learn what actually works in your business, shaping a company that is hard to ignore and difficult to copy.

You: At your Best

Coaching is part of the RISE rhythm. One-to-one work helps you think clearly, move on the decisions that matter, and keep growing in the founder-CEO role.• Cut through the isolation of the top role and confront your own limits
• Hear the candid feedback rarely voiced by your own team
• Work on the relationships that matter most, including tension and conflict
• Improve the mental, emotional, behavioural and attitudinal habits that drive your performance
• Anticipate what the business will need from you next
• Actively shape your role to unlock the most valueRaise the standard you hold yourself to as a founder-CEO

RISE is led by Ben Wales and shaped by the founders and CEOs who take part.A former rocket scientist turned founder and CEO, Ben has 19 years’ experience building and leading companies in Stockholm and London, including two exits.Today, he works with founders, CEOs and their ‘teams at the top’ to enable them, and their companies, to become best-in-class: distinct, successful, hard to ignore and difficult to copy.This work is grounded in Ben’s own experience as an MD, where he came to see that the biggest driver of success is not strategy or culture (both essential), but the team at the top, and how the founder or CEO works in combination with it. Surprised by what his own team was capable of in two critical moments, when they lifted the company to its best-ever performance, he set out to understand how that level of performance could be achieved consistently.He brings a highly practical, forward-looking approach. He sees clearly what a company could become, makes that future tangible, and helps leaders move towards it quickly and deliberately.Ben has degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and an MSc in Coaching and Behaviour Change from Henley Business School. He founded Leader&Team in 2018 and developed RISE along with FORGE, a quarterly discipline for executive teams to build best-in-class performance over time.