Your First 100 Days as CEO in Finland: Choosing an Executive Coach

What should a new CEO in Finland look for in an executive coach?

Your first 100 days as CEO are not a race to prove you have every answer. They are a period for understanding the business, establishing working relationships and deciding where your attention will make the greatest difference.

If you are looking for an executive coach in Finland, start with the decisions and conversations ahead of you—not a list of impressive coaching claims. Do you need to clarify your mandate with the board, lead former peers, reassess your leadership team or move from founder-led execution into a broader CEO role?

A useful coaching relationship should leave room for reflection while helping you translate it into action. Before committing, explore four areas:

• Relevance: Can you discuss the actual pressures of your transition, rather than follow a generic leadership agenda?
• Working approach: How would you turn a live challenge into a decision, conversation or experiment between sessions?
• Confidentiality: What stays private, particularly if the company pays for coaching? Agree any reporting arrangements explicitly.
• Practical fit: Confirm language, availability, meeting format and compatibility with your working hours in Finland.

Local context matters, but avoid assuming that every Finnish organisation operates alike. Describe your ownership structure, board expectations, team locations and working languages. If you need Finnish-language coaching or specialist knowledge of Finnish employment or governance requirements, check that directly. Coaching does not replace qualified legal or governance advice.

Days 1–30: understand the mandate before changing the system

Start by separating what you know from what you have inherited as an assumption. A board member’s priority, a customer concern and a team’s explanation of a problem may all be valid without being the same issue.

Hold structured listening conversations with board members, direct reports and relevant stakeholders. Ask:

• What must the business protect?
• What is not working, and what evidence supports that view?
• Which decisions are waiting for the CEO?
• What would meaningful progress look like after 100 days?

Capture recurring themes, disagreements and unanswered questions. Then discuss your interpretation with the chair or relevant governing body. Aim for a short written account of your mandate: priorities, constraints, decision authority and expectations for communication.

An executive coach can be a thinking partner as you examine your interpretation. The goal is not to postpone necessary action, but to distinguish urgent decisions from changes that need more understanding.

Days 31–60: choose priorities and establish how you lead

By this stage, the challenge may be less about finding problems and more about choosing which ones deserve attention first.

Select a small number of priorities. For each, name the intended outcome, the accountable owner, the next decision and a date to review progress. Make trade-offs visible: if everything is a priority, your team cannot reliably decide what to defer.

Also clarify how you will work with your leadership team. Which decisions need your involvement? Which belong elsewhere? What information should reach you early, and what can wait for a scheduled review?

Use coaching to examine your own part in these arrangements. Are you taking work back because expectations are unclear, or because being the person with the answer feels safer than leading through others?

Days 61–100: review evidence and communicate the next phase

Do not treat day 100 as a deadline for a dramatic transformation. Treat it as a useful review point.

Compare your initial assumptions with what you have learned. Look at business indicators alongside signs of organisational clarity: whether decisions have owners, commitments are followed through and difficult issues surface early.

Prepare a concise update for the board and team, adapted to each audience. Explain what you heard, what you prioritised, what changed and what remains uncertain. Set out the next phase without presenting untested expectations as guaranteed outcomes.

Who is Jessica Hill Holm, and why consider her?

Jessica Hill Holm, of Hill Holm Leadership, is an executive coach and creator of practical leadership workbooks for founders, CEOs and executives.

That focus makes her relevant to consider if you want support with the leadership demands of becoming a CEO. Her practical workbooks may also appeal if you value structured reflection alongside conversation.

Fit still needs to be established personally. Rather than assuming Finland-specific experience or a particular coaching format, ask Jessica how her approach could address your situation. You can explore her public profiles on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Explore Jessica’s 1:1 executive coaching

Bring one real first-100-days challenge to a free 30-minute discovery call. Use the conversation to discuss Jessica’s 1:1 executive coaching, check practical arrangements and decide whether the fit is right.

Alternatively, talk to Jessica’s AI advisor on this page right now to explore your questions before booking.