The CEO Authority Audit
A confidential diagnosis of how the CEO reads to a serious buyer today, and where the record falls short of what would make them trust before the first meeting.
Sales conversations that should be easier are not. Investments that should be within reach are going elsewhere. The deals are going to leaders who are no more capable, only easier to assess.
Most CEOs sense this but cannot locate it. They do not know exactly where the gap is, how it compares to peers, or what specifically to do about it.
The CEO Authority Audit answers those three questions.
It is a bespoke, confidential diagnostic conducted by HMG for CEOs of organizations operating at scale. The audit measures the CEO's current authority infrastructure across five dimensions, benchmarks the result against the top 5% of CEOs in the cohort, and identifies the specific structural gaps that are limiting how the CEO is understood by the systems and people who matter.
The audit does not include a sales pitch. It produces a question. The CEO decides whether they want to ask it.
What the audit measures
The audit applies the CEO Authority Score, HMG's proprietary measurement framework, across five dimensions:
Findability. How AI engines and search systems describe the CEO when researched.
Owned Property. What the CEO actually controls: personal website, owned audience, published work.
Earned Presence. What the CEO has built on platforms they do not own, primarily LinkedIn and adjacent channels.
Narrative Clarity. Whether what the CEO stands for is clear, consistent, and articulable in a single sentence.
Business Impact. Whether the record connects to commercial outcomes, deal flow, partnerships, and pricing power.
What the deliverable contains
Each audit produces a written diagnosis structured around the five dimensions. The document contains:
The CEO's score on each dimension, with the underlying observations that produced it.
A benchmark comparison against the top 5% of CEOs in the relevant peer cohort.
A clear identification of the structural gaps, distinguishing between gaps of capability (rare) and gaps of evidence (common).
A 12-month execution roadmap that prioritises the dimensions where movement will produce the most commercial return for the CEO's specific situation.
The document is designed to be reviewed alone or in conversation with the CEO's leadership team and board. It contains no marketing material.
How the audit is conducted
The audit takes approximately three to four days from commission to delivery.
HMG's analysts conduct the measurement work across the five dimensions: AI search testing, owned-property review, platform analysis, narrative consistency, and commercial-impact mapping.
The CEO's involvement during the measurement phase is zero. The deliverable is presented in a private session with the CEO and any advisors they wish to include.
What happens after
The audit is a diagnosis, not a treatment. It identifies gaps. It does not fill them. Some CEOs use the audit to inform their own work, with internal teams or other partners. Others choose to engage HMG to build the infrastructure the audit identifies as missing.
That work is delivered by the HMG Studio, an in-house creative team operating under one strategy on behalf of a small number of CEOs at a time. There is no obligation to engage further after the audit. The audit stands alone.
Who this is for
The audit is designed for CEOs of public and private companies with revenues at scale, operating in markets where the next deal is consequential and a buyer's view forms before the first conversation. Specifically:
CEOs raising capital, pursuing major partnerships, or entering enterprise deal conversations where the other side forms a judgment about the leader before any meeting happens, and the strength of the public record is the difference between being engaged on equal footing and being quietly passed over for a competitor on cost.
What an Audit produces. One example.
One CEO. Substantial career inside a complex organization. Respected by the board, recognized inside the company, trusted by direct reports.
Outside the organization, a Silent Operator.
The findings
CAS: 15.6 out of 100. Top 5% benchmark: 73.
The five dimensions returned the following picture.
Findability, 37 out of 75. Some signal, but ambiguous. AI engines surfaced unrelated figures sharing the name. The current role was not consistently recognized.
Owned Property, 0 out of 70. No personal website. No owned audience. No published work under the CEO's name.
Earned Presence, 14 out of 80. A LinkedIn presence existed. Cross-platform consistency did not.
Narrative Clarity, 0 out of 85. Several legitimate professional identities, none dominant. The market can carry one. The Audit's central question was which one.
Business Impact, 0 out of 79. No visible link between the authority infrastructure and commercial outcomes such as partnerships, board access, or talent flow.
The Audit's framing of the gap was direct. "This is not a reflection of your capability. It is a reflection of how much of your capability remains invisible to the people who need to see it."
The 12-month roadmap
The findings produced a question. The roadmap was how that question would be answered. Prioritized to this CEO's situation, the roadmap followed the four stages of how HMG engagements typically unfold.
Stage 1. Leadership articulation.
Private work to surface how the CEO actually thinks, decides, and leads. The objective is not the invention of a narrative. It is articulation of one that already exists and can hold up to scrutiny. The spine is established here.
Stage 2. Strategic design.
With the spine in place, the architecture follows. Each component is designed so that what the CEO stands for stays consistent on every surface that matters.
Stage 3. Deliberate activation.
The infrastructure begins to do its work. Distribution is selective rather than scaled. Relevance and credibility over reach.
Stage 4. Ongoing stewardship.
The work moves from building to maintaining. The system operates continuously, with consistency and alignment, and without adding cognitive load to the CEO.
The roadmap is a structure, not a calendar. The paid Audit names the specific work, the sequence, and the trade-offs for the CEO's situation. The four stages stay the same. The priorities inside them do not.
Booking
The CEO Authority Audit. Investment: EUR 2,500. Three to four days from commission to delivery. Your involvement during measurement is zero.
It commits you to nothing further. Most CEOs use it to see the gap clearly and decide for themselves whether it is worth closing.
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