Starting as CEO in Denmark: Coaching Support for Your First 100 Days

What to look for in an executive coach as a new CEO in Denmark

Your first 100 days as CEO are not a test of how quickly you can change everything. They are an opportunity to understand the business, establish your mandate and build confidence in how you lead. An executive coach should help you do that without becoming another person whose approval you need.

If you are looking for an executive coach in Denmark, start with your actual leadership challenge rather than a generic coaching package. Are you succeeding a founder, stepping up from a functional role or taking over during a transformation? Each situation creates different pressures.

Look for support that combines thoughtful challenge with practical application. A useful discovery conversation should help you assess:

• Relevance: Can the coach engage with the realities of leading a company, not just personal productivity?
• Clear boundaries: How do they distinguish coaching questions from advisory suggestions?
• Confidentiality: If your company funds the work, what, if anything, is shared with the board or other stakeholders?
• Working arrangements: Confirm language, availability, meeting format and whether location matters to you.
• A way to review progress: Agree what you want to change in your leadership and how you will notice improvement.

For a Denmark-based role, discuss how your coach would help you navigate participation, challenge and decision authority. Do not assume that every Danish workplace operates in the same way. Your organisation’s ownership, international footprint and existing culture matter more than national stereotypes.

Days 1–30: Understand your mandate before making promises

Start by clarifying what the board expects. Ask your chair: “What must be different by the end of my first year?” Then separate immediate requirements from longer-term ambitions.

Create a short mandate note covering your priorities, decision authority, constraints and unresolved questions. Discuss it with the chair rather than treating your interpretation as settled.

Alongside this, listen systematically to your leadership team, employees and customers. Use consistent questions:

• What should we protect?
• Where are we avoiding a difficult decision?
• What gets stuck, and why?
• What do you need from the CEO that you are not getting today?

Treat answers as evidence to investigate, not instructions to follow. Coaching can provide a space to examine your reactions: are you rushing to prove yourself, favouring familiar problems or mistaking confidence for accuracy?

If there is an urgent cash, safety or operational issue, act on it. Listening is not a reason to postpone necessary decisions.

Days 31–60: Choose priorities and make ownership explicit

Turn what you have learned into a small set of priorities. For each one, identify the intended outcome, accountable leader, next decision and review date. Say what will not be prioritised yet.

This is also the point to clarify how your leadership team makes decisions. Consultation and accountability can coexist, but people need to know when they are contributing, recommending or deciding.

Bring a live decision into coaching rather than discussing leadership only in the abstract. For example: “Two executives disagree about a product investment. What evidence do I need, who owns the recommendation, and when must I decide?”

A practical output is a clear decision process—not simply feeling more confident after the session.

Days 61–100: Review what is working and adjust

By this stage, review both business priorities and your own leadership habits. Which decisions still depend unnecessarily on you? Where have you created clarity? Which commitments need renegotiating?

Ask your leadership team for specific feedback: “What should I continue, change or stop doing to help you lead effectively?” Avoid asking only whether people feel supported; ask for examples.

Review your original mandate with the chair. Explain what you have learned, what has changed and where you need alignment. Your first 100 days should leave a clearer direction and working rhythm, not a promise that the transition is complete.

Who Jessica Hill Holm is—and where she may fit

Jessica Hill Holm, of Hill Holm Leadership, is an Executive Coach & Advisor whose work includes building and transforming innovation-driven companies alongside CEOs and founders, with a focus on People & Culture.

That focus makes her worth considering if your CEO transition involves both business change and the people implications of leadership. You can explore her professional positioning on LinkedIn.

Fit should still be tested in conversation. Discuss your mandate, the decisions you face and the balance of coaching and advice you want. Confirm practical arrangements for working together from Denmark rather than assuming local availability or a particular delivery format.

Explore Jessica’s 1:1 executive coaching

Bring one current leadership challenge and one outcome you want from your first 100 days. That gives you a concrete starting point for assessing whether Jessica’s 1:1 executive coaching is right for you.

Book a free 30-minute discovery call, or talk to Jessica’s AI advisor on this page right now to explore your starting questions.