October 2026 Featuring: Five Questions Every CEO Should Be Asking in the Boardroom
Welcome to the October 2026 issue of CEO Monthly. We are pleased to bring a selection of news, features, and success stories to our readers around the world. No matter how long you have been a CEO, you will be aware that leadership is not an easy task. With so many variables impacting both people and business management, CEOs everywhere find themselves looking for guidance from other experiences and seasoned individuals. After all, every human is different and requires a tailored approach to leadership and being led. In this issue you will find articles that not only inform but inspire, especially as learning never stops and life never ceases to surprise us. We must all remain adaptable, flexible, and open to new ways while still staying true to our own core values. This is exactly what CEO Monthly wants to deliver as we seek to applaud longstanding excellence and innovative developments for a better future in business. We wish you a prosperous and successful month ahead and look forward to welcoming you back for another issue in November. Sofi Parry, Senior Editor Website: www.ceo-review.com AI Global Media, Ltd. (AI) takes reasonable measures to ensure the quality of the information on this web site. However, AI will not assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, correctness or completeness of any information that is available through this web site. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. The information available through the website and our partner publications is for your general information and use and is not intended to address any particular finance or investment requirements. In particular, the information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by us or any of our partner publications and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making or refraining from making any investment or financial decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. Any arrangement made between you and any third party named in the site is at your sole risk and responsibility.
4. News - Performance Drone Works Appoints Shawn Hall as Chief Revenue Officer - Yardstik Adds Arctic Wolf CEO Nick Schneider to Board of Directors 6. Five Questions Every CEO Should Be Asking in the Boardroom 8. The CEO Leading the Clean Energy Revolution 9. Carlos Perilli: Putting Brands into Action 10. Could Your Business Survive 21 Days Without You? Take the 21-Day Away Test Contents
NEWS Performance Drone Works Appoints Shawn Hall as Chief Revenue Officer
The appointment follows Yardstik’s $30M Series B and strengthens its focus on workforce security beyond hiring Yardstik, the Human Trust Platform for employers, announced that Nick Schneider, President and CEO of Arctic Wolf, has joined its board of directors. The appointment follows Yardstik’s $30 million Series B, led by Harbert Growth Partners, to expand fraud prevention, continuous monitoring, and credential tracking throughout the worker lifecycle. Schneider has spent more than 20 years building technology companies. Since becoming Arctic Wolf’s President and CEO in 2021, he has driven international expansion and grown it into one of the largest privately held cybersecurity companies. Before Arctic Wolf, he led North American sales at Code42 and held senior sales roles at Compellent Technologies through its IPO and acquisition by Dell. Yardstik and Arctic Wolf address the same problem: keeping bad actors out of company systems and workforces. In June 2025, the Department of Justice dismantled laptop farms enabling North Korean operatives to pose as remote IT workers using stolen American identities. They had secured jobs at more than 100 U.S. companies, including Fortune 500 firms. Some workers stole employer data and attempted extortion. Arctic Wolf monitors networks for threats. Yardstik monitors the person behind the login, checking identity, credential validity, and whether today’s worker is the person who passed the background check. Ponemon’s 2026 research puts average insider risk costs at $19.5 million per organization. Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report links roughly three in ten breaches to an insider. A one-time background check cannot track how workforce risk changes. “Nick has spent his career proving that real security is never a one-time check, it’s a continuous journey,” said Andrew Johnson, CEO of Yardstik. “You don’t scan a network once and call it safe. Every attack surface gets watched continuously except one...the workforce. A candidate clears a background check at the point of hire and nobody bothers to check again. That’s the gap we built Yardstik to close, and Nick understood the importance immediately.” “Companies have invested heavily in securing their networks, but people accessing those systems are still an underprotected part of the security equation,” said Nick Schneider, President and CEO of Arctic Wolf. “Yardstik is bringing a modern approach to workforce risk by giving businesses greater visibility into who is accessing their organization and how that risk can change over time. I’m excited to help the company establish lifecycle workforce protection as a core part of the enterprise security stack as it enters its next stage of growth.” Schneider brings experience turning a security platform into a channel-driven growth engine, a path Yardstik is pursuing through its ATS, HR, and marketplace integration partners. Yardstik Adds Arctic Wolf CEO Nick Schneider to Board of Directors Former Naval Aviator and aerospace executive brings more than 25 years of operational, commercial and corporate growth experience to PDW Performance Drone Works (PDW), a leading U.S. developer and manufacturer of advanced unmanned aircraft systems, announced the appointment of Shawn Hall as Chief Revenue Officer. As Chief Revenue Officer, Shawn will lead PDW’s global revenue strategy, including business development, customer engagement and strategic partnerships across the U.S. and allied nations. He will focus on expanding adoption of PDW systems, strengthening relationships with operators and acquisition leaders and aligning the company’s growth strategy with evolving mission requirements. Shawn is a former Naval Aviator and brings more than 25 years of experience across aerospace and defense, combining frontline operational leadership with a track record of scaling companies and leading complex strategic initiatives. “Shawn has spent his career at the intersection of airpower, technology and growth. He knows what operators need and what it takes to move capability from an idea to real-world adoption,” said James Slider, CEO of PDW. “Our goal is to give operators direct access to decisive airpower when and where they need it. Shawn will lead the growth strategy that turns that vision into fielded capability at scale.” Before joining PDW, Shawn served as an executive at BETA Technologies, where he led growth efforts across the defense and commercial aircraft markets. He also led mergers and acquisitions and played a key role in the company’s $7.4 billion initial public offering. Shawn also previously served as an executive at BBA Aviation plc, and as a partner at McKinsey & Company, where he led the firm’s Aviation Service Line. “PDW is building systems around what operators actually need: adaptable capability, deployed quickly and produced at scale,” said Shawn. “I’m excited to join a team that understands the urgency of the mission and is committed to giving the United States and its allies a decisive advantage at the tactical edge.” Before entering the corporate sector, Shawn spent 11 years in the U.S. Navy. He flew F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets, deployed twice to Iraq, including during the opening airstrikes in 2003, served as a tactics instructor pilot after graduating from TOPGUN and led various frontline operational and maintenance organizations. Shawn earned a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy, an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Feature By Julia Payne, founder of Fractional CMO Services Founders are a unique asset to early-stage business, personally designing products, winning customers, and overseeing decisions to keep operations moving. That’s what gets the company to its first million – or even ten. As growth continues, however, the same level of personal investment can quickly become a constraint. There are simply too many customers, people, and choices to be handled for them all to rely on the instincts and capacity of one person. Working harder won’t break through that ceiling – but relinquishing control will. To move forward, CEOs must build a board capable of collectively challenging assumptions, contributing specialist insights, and designing deliberate strategy. Building a best-in-class board Most leadership teams become so consumed with maintaining the founder’s initial momentum that they fail to realise they’ve stopped building for the future, however. Growth never left the table, but discussions about individual priorities – more leads, bigger marketing budgets, and additional staff take over, without anybody asking if decisions made collectively support the coherent system needed to reach the next level. This perhaps explains why 70% of CEOs lack strong confidence in their company’s ability to increase revenue over the next 12 months, according to PwC’s 2026 Global Survey. They haven’t stalled – with 42% even beginning to compete in new sectors since 2021, but leaders remain uncertain about where movement is taking them. They don’t need to do more to achieve sustainable growth, necessarily. They need direction, which only comes from boards asking the right questions: 1. What are we actually trying to build? “Growing the business” is not a strategy in itself. Once demand has been proven, leaders must decide what kind of growth they want – from which customers, in which markets. Otherwise, future direction will ultimately be determined by whichever opportunity comes first or crisis screams loudest. Repeatedly changing course to accommodate at random can also make the brand harder for customers to trust and understand. That’s why exclusion is vital. Boards need to ask what the company must stop doing, as well as what it should start. They must determine which opportunities no longer fit and where resources will create the greatest long-term value. This includes deciding what the CEO should continue to own and where their involvement may be preventing others from taking responsibility. Sometimes, stepping back is the clearest route forward. 2. Where will the next stage of growth come from? A growth target without an agreed route to market is not a strategy. It’s a number the rest of the business has been left to reverse-engineer. Before setting increasingly ambitious revenue goals, then, boards must identify the mechanism that will deliver them. This might be attracting more of the right customers, increasing retention, expanding existing accounts, improving conversion, launching a new offer, or entering a new market, for instance. Each route requires different capabilities and investment. That’s why statements such as “we need more leads” can be so dangerous. They offer a solution before the problem has been diagnosed, potentially sending more opportunities into a system already leaking value. Boards must create strategic action plans to make priority pathways of growth viable instead. 3. What do we know about our customers? And what are we merely assuming? Customers naturally feature in boardroom conversations for this reason. Yet, this doesn’t mean their voices are represented accurately. Sales teams know why prospects buy, while customer success sees where expectations and delivery diverge. Meanwhile, marketing identifies broader changes in demand, buyer behaviour, and market perception. Unless these insights are combined, decisions about products, pricing, investment, and expansion will be based on an incomplete picture. That’s why marketing must be treated as a boardroom priority, rather than a communications effort brought in once strategy has been decided. Forrester found that 96% of B2B marketing leaders viewed marketing as a strategic partner or primary growth driver, yet 47% believed colleagues still regarded it as a support or promotional function. This needs to change. Giving marketing a seat at the table helps leaders determine what the business as a whole is learning about the market, and Five Questions Every CEO Should Be Asking in the Boardroom which decisions must therefore change. 4. Are we using AI to build advantage? Or accelerating the wrong work? No boardroom agenda feels complete nowadays without AI. Rather than asking “Where can we use it?”, however, leaders must begin with the commercial problem they are trying to address. AI can only work with what it’s given. So, automating content only saves time if positioning is already strong. Likewise, faster prospecting only drives revenue if the business is already targeting the right customers, and has confirmed it has the clarity, data, skills, and human judgement needed to use tools properly. Before making any kind of investment, boards must get the foundations right. Technology should only be introduced when leaders can explain how it’s expected to create meaningful commercial or customer value. 5. Are we creating capacity for the future? Or consuming all of it? Finally, one of the clearest warning signs of short-term thinking is not limited ambition but limited capacity. If the same operational problems return each month, meetings are dominated by retrospective reporting, and strategic priorities are repeatedly postponed, the business still depends on senior leaders to compensate for weak systems. The same applies when revenue expectations rise without corresponding investment in infrastructure or people. CEOs don’t need to dedicate a fixed proportion of every
meeting to long-term strategy. They do, however, need to stop the future from becoming permanently displaced by the present. This means giving strategic priorities clear owners, sufficient resources, and regular space on the agenda. This shapes culture, too. If leaders repeatedly prioritise reactive troubleshooting, the wider team soon learns that immediate delivery matters more than longterm improvement. When strategic priorities are clear and adequately protected, teams gain the confidence and capacity required to build growth. The future’s being decided either way No CEO can predict what’s coming with complete accuracy – nor should they have to. Their responsibility is to build a business capable of responding when customers, technology, and markets change. That means addressing complex strategic questions before stagnation becomes visible, connecting decisions across departments, and building a leadership team capable of acting without relying on one person. Sustainable growth depends on whether today’s choices leave the business ready for what comes next. Time will pass regardless.
CEO MONTHLY / OCTOBER 2026 8 oasting a 94% lower carbon footprint than traditional fossil fuel, Power Wood’s advanced black pellets possess the majority of coal’s positive properties, with comparable heating value, water resistance, durability, and mechanical strength. What’s more, the pellets contain a significantly lower ash content and produce no harmful particulates when burned, presenting Power Wood’s biofuel pellets to the industrial sector as an accessible source of clean energy. This innovative source of clean energy has been achieved by using only nature’s waste: diseased, wildfire-damaged, and beetleravaged deadwood is the raw material used to create Power Wood’s advanced black pellets. This facet prevents decomposition methane and carbon dioxide gasses from entering the atmosphere and also results in living trees being left to stand and play their part in creating the world’s second largest carbon sink. At the helm of this mission is Founder and CEO David Peters, a seasoned entrepreneur who has worked in the field of renewable energy since 2009. David boasts a proven track record of founding, launching, and scaling ventures in sustainable energy, having founded We-Energy in 2011, Agrofarm London in 2012, Power Wood Canada Corp in 2016, Green Liquidity in 2022, and Power Wood Holdings Ltd in 2026. “My road through enterprise has largely been entrepreneurial and it has taken me into diverse areas of business, from the leisure sector to construction and finance, but for almost the last two decades I have been wholly focused on renewable energy,” he shared. “I’ve no plans to move into any other sector now and I will finish my career by growing Power Wood into the global source of sustainable bioenergy that it surely can be.” At the helm of Power Wood, David steers clear of indulging in excessive planning and administration, instead placing great importance on assembling a high-level team of best-in-business personnel and cultivating a company ethos of productivity and efficiency. He is responsible for overseeing a broad range of business activities managed by directors and senior executives, whilst also securing important partnerships for continued growth. Power Wood is spread around the world, some operations existing on the fringes of The CEO Leading the Clean Energy Revolution Together, Power Wood Holdings and Power Wood Canada Corp are on a mission to manufacture superior, energy-dense, durable, waterproof black pellet biofuel as a direct drop-in replacement for coal. Achieved via steam explosion, this provides immediate, cost-effective pathways that lead to the decarbonisation of power stations and industrial factories. In turn, they enable nations to meet their climate targets. We spoke with Founder and CEO David Peters to learn more about this mission, following his recent recognition in the Most Influential CEO Awards 2026. vast Canadian wildernesses and others in corporate offices across Tokyo and London. Despite their geographical distance, every member of each team is united by a shared sense of doing something very valuable for people and the planet, from supporting marginalised Indigenous communities and revitalising Canada’s ailing forestry industry to reducing wildfire risk and putting an end to the use of coal. Of course, there have also been obstacles along the way for the team, with the most significant being the education of people around the vast opportunity that lies in millions of hectares of wildfire-damaged wood. Power Wood operates on a circle economy: taking waste caused by manmade climate change and turning it into part of the solution for climate change. “Such an incredible solution to our energy needs and climate security is staring us in the face, if only people would open their eyes and see it,” David told us. “But getting people to see and realise how simply we can solve a significant part of our environmental problem, while creating industry and employment, has been the biggest challenge we have faced.” Named the Leading Advanced Bioenergy Company 2026, Power Wood is now focused on strategic, thoughtful growth. This will be achieved with two new pellet production facilities in Northern Alberta, which will together be capable of producing 700,000 tonnes of advanced black pellets per year. What’s more, these new facilities will further drive Power Wood’s mission in supporting the Indigenous population and rural communities currently navigating difficult circumstances within the region. As David is recognised as the Most Influential CEO 2026 in the field of Clean Energy Innovation, the entrepreneur shared of his own future, “At my age, I am enjoying my most exciting business project of my life, to date, and my only ambition is to see it through to its full potential. It is a wonderful business, and I work with fantastic people, so what more could I want? In terms of success, this is exactly what it looks like to me.” B Contact: David Peters Company: Power Wood Holdings LTD (Canada) Web Address: www. powerwoodcanadacorp.com
CEO MONTHLY / OCTOBER 2026 9 Carlos Perilli: Putting Brands into Action Carlos Perilli is the CEO of FG Medios SA, one of Argentina’s leading media agencies. Having taken the agency to new heights since joining five and a half years ago, Carlos’s achievements have earned him the title of “Most Influential CEO of 2026: Media and Advertising Leadership – Argentina” in this report. Concurrently, FG Medios has been recognized as the “Leading Media Agency of 2026 – Argentina”. Below, we take a closer look at both the agency and the CEO behind this recognition. With the goal of putting brands into action and connecting them with the right audiences through smart strategies, FG Medios SA boasts over 30 years of experience, a 95% client retention rate, and more than 700 active clients. Carlos Perilli has led the operation since 2021, working toward his personal mission of transforming FG Medios and positioning it as an innovative, client-centric media agency. To achieve this, he applies the business strategies and leadership skills honed over a career spanning more than 25 years in the sector. Carlos began his professional journey in the credit and collections department of Diario Clarín – a media empire with over 70 years of experience covering everything from print media to digital news in Argentina. There, he quickly grasped the inner workings of the media industry, gaining fundamental knowledge that would prove invaluable later in his career. After deciding to pursue an MBA at Argentina’s Torcuato Di Tella University – from which he graduated in 2011 – Carlos held various highlevel positions at the logistics firm Soluciones de Logística Global. After three years with the company, Carlos felt the pull of the media sector once again; following an absence of over a decade, he made a triumphant return as CEO of FG Medios. Fully aware of the agency’s legacy, he joined the team determined to leverage his expertise in marketing, management control, and business strategy development to help both the agency and its staff achieve their goals. He has also reinforced FG Medios’ three fundamental pillars: trust, attentiveness, and loyalty. Today, under Carlos’s operational leadership, FG Medios guides clients toward success by combining smart work with the best tools to optimize every project. His approach encompasses research, planning, negotiation, buying, implementation, and results analysis; this six-stage method yields successful campaigns that take clients to the next level. These campaigns can take various forms, ranging from traditional media – such as television, radio, and digital channels – to brand presence in newspapers, cinemas, and outdoor advertising. In recent years, FG Medios’ comprehensive approach to building trust through experience has enabled it to collaborate with toptier brands. The success of these projects is driven by the agency’s experts: a team of passionate professionals with multidisciplinary talent. Carlos is honored to lead such a diverse and exceptional group – a team with boundless knowledge whose dedication and enthusiasm are positioning the agency for future success. FG Medios partners with leading national and international media companies, such as Meta, Google, Telefe, and Artear. Furthermore, the agency takes particular pride in having been appointed an official payment partner for Meta, Google, and TikTok, enabling it to operate via a direct billing account. In essence, this means FG Medios can help companies invest in social media without the associated taxes. You can find more information about this partnership by visiting the agency’s website. Another significant achievement for the agency was winning the 2026 Martín Fierro Award in the Branded Content category. Ultimately, with Carlos Perilli at the helm, it is clear that FG Medios is in a prime position to continue growing and evolving, while maintaining its commitment to delivering the best to its clients across a wide range of media channels. For this reason, Carlos is the well-deserved recipient of the title “Most Influential CEO of 2026: Media and Advertising Leadership – Argentina”, and we are pleased to celebrate the agency’s track record through its well-earned recognition as “Leading Media Agency of 2026 – Argentina”. Contact: Carlos Perilli Company: FG Medios Web Address: https://fgmedios.com/
CEO MONTHLY / OCTOBER 2026 11 Jul23542 Business strategist challenges UK founders to take the ‘21-Day Away Test’ to find out whether they are helping or holding back their business October is when many business owners properly get back to work after the summer. Before you get buried in emails, meetings and plans for the rest of the year, it’s worth thinking about what happened to your business while you were away. If you took a holiday in August, were you actually able to switch off? Or were you still checking emails, approving decisions, answering WhatsApps and dealing with problems from the sun lounger? Business Strategist and Performance Coach Will Polston believes this is a useful way to see how reliant a business has become on the person who started it. He encourages founders to try what he calls the ‘21-Day Away Test’. In simple terms, could you step away from your business for three weeks without everything grinding to a halt? Will said: “The point isn’t to make yourself unnecessary, it’s to see where the business still relies too heavily on you. If you go away and every part of the business needs your attention, you’ve found the areas you need to work on.” For anyone returning from a summer holiday, Will recommends looking back at what happened while you were away before slipping straight back into the same routine. Below are his SEVEN steps to being able to step away from the business for 21-days. 1. Write down every reason you were contacted Think about every call, email or message that interrupted your break. What were people asking you for? Which decisions were they unable to make while you were out of office? Did clients need to speak to you ASAP? Was someone missing information that only you had? Don’t just put it down to being the boss. Its super important to write it all down and look for patterns. If several interruptions came from the same part of the business, that is probably where you need to start working with the team more. 2. Ask whether it really needed you There will always be occasions when something genuinely needs the business owner’s attention, and that isn’t the problem. What matters is how often ordinary decisions come back to you simply because that is how the business has always been run. For every interruption, ask: did this actually need me, or could somebody else have dealt with it if they had the right information and authority to do so? If capable people are constantly waiting for your permission, the problem might not be the team…It might be the way you have set up the business. 3. Get important information out of your head Business owners know far more than they realise such as which client likes to be called rather than emailed, why a particular supplier is used, how prices are agreed, what to do when something goes wrong and which problems aren’t really problems at all. If nobody else knows those things, taking time away is always going to be difficult and could cause a bigger problem later down the line if you aren’t able to respond. Look at the questions you were asked during your holiday and start documenting the answers. You don’t need to spend weeks creating huge manuals or process maps, just start with the information people actually needed when you weren’t there. 4. Stop delegating jobs and start giving people responsibility Giving someone a task doesn’t necessarily take it off your plate if they still need you to approve every decision. To remain involved in the work even though somebody else is technically doing it, is a total waste of time. Be clear about who is responsible for each area of the business, which decisions they can make themselves and when something genuinely needs to come back to you. Could Your Business Survive 21 Days Without You? Take the 21-Day Away Test People can’t take ownership if you never give them the space and reassurance to do it. 5. Don’t jump straight to three weeks If the thought of disappearing for 21 days fills you with dread, start smaller. Try taking yourself out of the business for one or two days without checking in and see what happens. Then try three or four days and eventually a week. Each time, make a note of what went wrong, what people managed perfectly well without you being there and what nearly became a problem. Then fix those things before testing it again. 6. Don’t interfere when people do things differently I see this all the time and it can be one of the hardest parts for founders. Someone might deal with a client differently from you, run a meeting differently or solve a problem in a way you wouldn’t have chosen. That doesn’t automatically make their way wrong. If you take responsibility back every time someone approaches something differently, your team will eventually stop making decisions without you, and worse their value in their work will drop. Judge the outcome rather than whether somebody followed your exact method, if it all came out fine, pass over the reins. 7. Decide when you’re going to test it again Don’t wait until your next summer holiday to find out whether anything has improved. Choose another period when you will step away and use the time between now and then to deal with the problems you’ve uncovered. The aim of the 21-Day Away Test isn’t really about taking a three-week holiday, but whether you have built a business that gives you the choice to do so. Lots of people start businesses because they want more freedom. Then years later, they realise they’ve created something that needs them every hour of the day. If the business can’t cope without you, being needed might actually be getting in the way of company growth. So, before September gets busy, look back at your summer. If your holiday was interrupted by work, don’t just accept that it comes with being a business owner. Look at why it happened, fix what you can and see whether next time you can stay away for a little longer.
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