Executive Memo
Confidential · For the CEO
05 · 30 / 60 / 90 agenda
Decision-ready
The outside read for CEOs, owners & investors
When margin, execution or control no longer match the story in the board pack.
I identify the real cause behind visible business symptoms (pricing and margin leakage, execution drag, unclear ownership, stalled decisions) and turn it into a board-ready decision agenda.
Built from CEO-office transformation work: a €7.4M EBIT swing, loss to profit, on falling revenue, with no capex and no slash-and-burn.
For owner-led and investor-backed companies across DACH and selected international markets. I diagnose on-site and deliver the analysis from Austria.
By selection, a first read on one real business situation, not free consulting.
The diagnostic reframe
What the room is discussing is rarely what is actually happening.
Five patterns we see again and again. On the left, the symptom the organisation agrees on. On the right, the cause that actually governs the result, and that the agreed symptom keeps hidden.
What it looks like
What it actually is
It looks like a sales problem.
It is a pricing-authority problem.
Everyone is busy.
No one owns the result.
The strategy is sound.
The structure rewards the wrong behaviour.
Costs are the issue, they say.
Complexity is the issue.
It reads like a people problem.
It is a decision-rights problem.
The cost
The cost is paid in quarters, not in invoices.
Solving the wrong problem is rarely free. It is paid quietly, in margin, in time, and in internal trust, long before it ever appears on a board report.
The expensive option is rarely the decision. It is the year spent avoiding it.
A wrong decision can usually be corrected next quarter. A decision deferred for a year often cannot, indecision compounds quietly, and at the extreme it is terminal.
The first move against a deferred decision is to name it precisely. That is what an Executive First Read does
The gap
Few companies fail at strategy. Many never had one, the rest fail in the gap beneath it.
Often what a company calls its strategy is a budget, a plan, or a list of activities, not a clear direction the organisation is genuinely aligned behind. And where the strategy is sound, what quietly governs the result is everything between that intention and the behaviour the structure actually rewards.
Where it hides, 01
Direction
No shared sense of where the company is going, so capable people pull hard in good faith, in different directions.
Where it hides, 02
Incentives
People optimise what they are measured and paid for, not what the strategy deck intends.
Where it hides, 03
Decision rights
When authority is unclear, decisions drift upward, slow down, or quietly never get made.
Where it hides, 04
Operating cadence
Meetings multiply while decisions stall. Motion gets mistaken for momentum.
The work
The work begins with diagnosis, not a solution.
Most advice arrives as an answer. This begins as a question: what is actually causing the result you can see? The product is not consulting capacity, it is rare diagnostic judgment under uncertainty.
Judgment under uncertainty
By the time a situation reaches the CEO, the obvious explanations have usually already been tried. What remains is ambiguous, political and entangled, precisely where pattern recognition matters more than process.
- The first explanation is treated as incomplete until it is tested.
- Symptoms are mapped to systems, not to departments or personalities.
- The output is a decision the leader can own, not a deck to admire.
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01
Read first
A senior first read of the real situation, before any recommendation is offered.
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02
Name the real problem
Separate symptom from cause and locate the system failure that explains them both.
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03
Set the decision agenda
Convert the diagnosis into named decisions, clear owners and a 30/60/90-day rhythm.
Selected experience
Judgment, stated carefully.
Selected experience from a prior CEO-office transformation role, not a Getzinger & Partners client engagement. It is shared only to illustrate the kind of diagnosis the work produces, not as a result attributable to this practice.
A “sales problem” was a pricing-authority problem.
Declining win-rates were reframed as a question of who held authority over price and discount, not as a pipeline shortfall. The decision moved to where it belonged.
“Everyone is busy” was an ownership problem.
Constant activity masked an absence of result-ownership. Naming who actually owned each outcome did more than any push for additional effort.
A “people problem” was a decision-rights problem.
Slow execution traced to unclear authority rather than to capability. Clarifying decision rights unblocked work that more meetings never could.
The core product
The Executive Memo.
A 6-10 page executive diagnosis you can take into a board meeting and act on. Not a report on the company you already know, a precise account of the problem beneath it.
Engagement ladder
One relationship, entered one step at a time.
Each step is discrete and decision-led. None commits you to the next, the work deepens only if, and when, you choose.
First ReadMemoDecision SessionExecution ArchitectureReality Board
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Executive First Read
45 minutes · by selectionA first read on one real situation: do the visible symptoms point to a deeper structural gap, and would a paid memo create value?
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Executive Memo
Core paid product · 6-10 ppThe paid diagnosis: symptom versus cause, the likely system failure, margin and control leakage, the avoided decisions, and a 30/60/90-day decision agenda.
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CEO Decision Session
Half or full day · on-siteLive, high-stakes decision work with the CEO, owner or board on exactly what the memo surfaces.
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Remote Execution Architecture
Remote · from AustriaGovernance, KPI logic, the ownership map and operating cadence, the architecture that makes decisions actually hold.
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Decision Board
Recurring · CEO sparringA standing cadence of CEO sparring and decision intelligence as the situation, and the market, keeps moving.
International delivery
Diagnosis travels to you. Execution architecture is delivered remotely.
The diagnostic work happens where the decisions are made. The architecture that makes those decisions hold is built and sustained remotely from Austria.
Primary markets
Saudi Arabia
UAE
Qatar
Wider GCC
Hong Kong
Singapore
India
Southeast Asia
On-site, abroad
The diagnostic work
- Executive First Read
- Leadership interviews
- Diagnostic sessions
- Board & investor briefings
- Executive Memo readout
- CEO Decision Sessions
Remote, from Austria
Execution & ongoing support
- Execution architecture
- Governance design
- KPI logic & operating cadence
- Ownership map
- CEO sparring
- Recurring Decision Board
No local operational management. The practice diagnoses on the ground and architects execution remotely, it does not run your operation in-market or sit in a local line role.
The principal
Sascha Getzinger
Principal · Getzinger & Partners
Getzinger & Partners is led personally by Sascha Getzinger. The work is principal-led by design, the judgment you assess in an Executive First Read is the judgment that writes your memo.
His background sits across the CEO office, advisory and engineering. That combination matters less as a résumé than as a way of seeing: symptoms read as systems, and a decision is valued over a deck.
INSEAD Global Executive MBA
CEO-office transformation experience
Prior EY advisory experience
Engineering foundation
Diagnostic pattern recognition
Cross-domain synthesis
A bias for the decision over the deck.
In plain terms
Four definitions, stated plainly.
- The outside read
- Executive diagnostic advisory that separates the visible symptom from the real system failure for CEOs, owners and investors, and turns the diagnosis into a clear decision agenda.
- Strategy-reality gap
- The distance between the strategy a company believes it is executing and the behaviour its structure, incentives and decision rights actually produce.
- Executive First Read
- A selected 45-minute diagnostic briefing on one real situation, a first read on whether the symptoms point to a deeper gap, and whether a paid Executive Memo would create value.
- Executive Memo
- A 6-10 page executive diagnostic memo: symptom versus cause, the likely system failure, margin and control leakage, the avoided decisions, and a 30/60/90-day decision agenda.
Questions, answered
The questions a serious buyer asks first.
Direct answers, because the cost of ambiguity is exactly what this work is meant to remove.
Is this just consulting?
No. Consulting tends to sell capacity and deliverables. This practice sells diagnostic judgment: it identifies the real problem behind the symptoms and defines the decision it requires. You leave with a sharper decision, not a workstream.
Is the Executive First Read free consulting?
No. The Executive First Read is a selected 45-minute diagnostic briefing on one real situation, a first read on whether your visible symptoms point to a deeper structural gap, and whether a paid Executive Memo would create value. It is access to senior judgment, not a discovery or sales call.
Will this turn into a long, open-ended project?
No. The work is deliberately bounded. It begins with a fixed-scope diagnosis, the Executive Memo, and only deepens into a Decision Session, Remote Execution Architecture or Decision Board if you choose. Each step is discrete and decision-led.
What do I actually receive?
A board-readable, 6-10 page Executive Memo that separates symptom from cause, names the likely system failure, maps margin, execution and control leakage, surfaces the decisions being avoided, and sets a 30/60/90-day decision agenda you can act on.
Can this work internationally?
Yes. Diagnostic work, interviews, sessions, board and investor briefings, the memo readout and CEO Decision Sessions, is delivered on-site across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore, Qatar, the wider GCC, India and Southeast Asia.
Will you operate locally in my market?
No. The practice does not take on local operational management. Diagnosis travels to you; execution architecture, governance, KPI logic, cadence and ongoing CEO sparring are delivered remotely from Austria.
Why should I trust your judgment?
Because the work is testable before you commit. The Executive First Read shows you the quality of the diagnosis on your own situation. Judgment is grounded in a CEO-office transformation role, prior EY advisory experience, an engineering background and an INSEAD Global Executive MBA, applied to pattern recognition across domains.
What happens after the memo?
The memo stands on its own, many situations need nothing more than the clarity to decide. If you choose to go further, the relationship can deepen into a CEO Decision Session, Remote Execution Architecture, or a recurring Decision Board.
Start here
Start with an Executive First Read.
Bring one real situation. The first step tests whether the visible symptoms point to a deeper structural gap, and whether an Executive Memo would create value. By selection, not free consulting.
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You send one real situation, in confidence.
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A first read on whether it is a structural gap worth a memo.
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If it is real, an Executive Memo proposal. If not, you will be told plainly.
The first step
Book your Executive First Read
Choose a time that suits you. You’ll be asked for one real situation, three sentences are enough to prepare.
- Format
- 45-minute video call
- Access
- By selection
- You bring
- One real situation
- Held
- In confidence
Reviewed personally and held in confidence. By selection, a first read, not free consulting. Prefer email? Write to sascha@getzinger-partners.com.