Your CEO does not have time to write. Good.
Every few months a marketing director calls me with the same problem. Their CEO has opinions. Strong ones. The kind that would make a sharp op-ed if the CEO ever sat still long enough to write it. The CEO will not sit still. The CEO has a company to run, which is the correct priority, and so the op-ed lives in a notes app next to a grocery list.
Here is my position: this is the system working.
The best executive content I’ve written came from people too busy to write it. Busy executives talk in specifics. They tell you about the Tuesday the implementation went sideways and what it cost. They carry grudges about their industry, and a grudge is where every good op-ed starts. Hand those same people a blank document and they produce something a committee would love. Get them on the phone for an hour and they produce material.
My process is an interview, a voice profile and then drafts until the executive reads the piece and says some version of “that’s what I meant.” The voice profile matters more than people expect. A trial attorney writes in a different gear than a home care operator. If the column could be swapped to another byline without anyone noticing, I’ve failed, and I start over.
The objection I hear most: is this honest? The executive approves every word, supplies every idea and answers for every claim. Speechwriters have run this arrangement since Washington. The op-ed your competitor’s CEO published last month went through the same pipeline. It probably read like it, too.
If your executive has opinions and no time, that’s raw material. Call me before the notes app eats it.