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Your first 90 days as an executive set the tone for your reputation, relationships, and results. During this period, the board, C-suite, and peers are silently asking themselves, Did we make the right choice? Harvard Business School research on the first 90 hours shows that the earliest actions you take (or fail to take) quickly shape the narrative others tell about your leadership. McKinsey calls leadership transitions one of the most important, and under-supported, events in businessyet nearly half are viewed as disappointments or outright failures within two years. And the pressure is mounting: Korn Ferry finds the average C-suite tenure (excluding that of the CEO) has declined to just 3.5 to 4.7 years, leaving leaders with little margin for error. From day one, youre expected to prove you belong and deliver impact. When Tyler became chief growth officer at a global adtech company, he walked into a high-stakes environment. He faced slowing client renewals, new privacy regulations, and friction between product, sales, and data science teams. The pressure to deliver was immediate. McKinsey research shows that nearly 70% of CEOs replace members of their top team within two years, a reminder that leaders are often judged quickly on their ability to deliver. Tyler knew the clock was ticking. Through our work advising dozens of companies facing similar situations, weve seen what works. Kathryn Landis, as an executive coach and keynote speaker, and Jenny Fernandez, as an executive advisor and learning & development expert, have supported senior leaders with their onboarding process using five key strategies to maximize their first 90 days. 1. Prepare Before You Start The strongest executives dont wait for day one; they use the pre-start period as a strategic runway. Companies that support this transition are nine times more likely to achieve their performance goals. Tyler spent his pre-start phase building a foundation. He met with regional sales leads, the head of product, and key clients to understand strengths and friction points. He reviewed campaign performance dashboards with the data science team and came armed with pointed questions about churn, market share, and competitive positioning. By the time he stepped into the role, he wasnt starting cold. He had already mapped key relationships, identified three high-impact priorities, and knew exactly how he wanted to introduce himself to the organization. Pro tip: Smart prep before day one can save you months later. Prioritize conversations that give you both insight and allies. 2. Set the Strategic Tone With Your First Moves Your first public moments as an executive leader arent introductionstheyre signals. Unlike other leadership levels, your opening moves are amplified across multiple audiences at once: The board scrutinizes your strategic judgment, employees look for clarity and confidence, and analysts and clients assess whether you can inspire trust in the companys direction. These moments set the narrative for your tenure. At his first town hall, Tyler didnt sidestep the hard realities. He addressed the impact of new privacy regulations on revenue head-on, signaling transparency and urgency. He also previewed his first 90 days using a 30-60-90 framework: the first month for accelerated learning and relationship building, the second for delivering early wins and building alignment, and the third for locking in systems and scaling results. Framing his approach this way showed discipline in pacing and sequencing while making his priorities visible to both employees and the board. Pro tip: Own the room early. Acknowledge the tough truths, share your priorities, and invite people into the solution. 3. Decode Power Dynamics and Close Capabilities Gaps At the C-suite level, its not enough to read the org chart; you need to know where influence and execution risk truly reside. Unlike mid-level leaders who can focus narrowly on their own teams, executives must see across silos, uncover hidden influencers, and quickly spot the gaps that could stall strategy. In his first month, Tyler identified a mid-level account strategist whose quiet influence made her the go-to fixer for client reporting issues and brought her into planning discussions. He also uncovered a critical capability gap: Sales lacked confidence in pitching AI-based targeting tools. Within weeks, he launched targeted training sessions to close it. At the enterprise level, he partnered with the COO to address misalignment between product and sales, formalizing decision rights to accelerate release timelines. Pro Tip: Dont just look at titles. Find the people who can move mountains and align them with your agenda. 4. Turn Early Wins into Enterprise Momentum Early wins at this level arent about checking a box. They are proof you can turn strategy into results at scale. This allows you to earn the political capital needed for bolder moves. Tyler understood this dynamic. He wanted to show visible progress on the most frustrating roadblock to both the board and the front line: the broken client renewal process. Partnering with a cross-functional task force, he streamlined approvals, standardized templates, and introduced a dashboard to track processes. Within 90 days, he cut renewal turnaround time by 15%. The win was easy to measure, easy to explain, and directly tied to revenue. Checklist: Identifying wins that matter Stakeholder priority: Will the CEO, board, or frontline leaders see it as a top concern? Business derailer: Is it blocking growth, execution, or customer outcomes? Strategic impact: Will it deliver visible financial results or straegic results and energize teams? Enterprise scale: Does it cut across multiple teams/functions and create repeatable value? Measurable visibility: Can progress be tracked, communicated, and celebrated easily? Pro tip: Target wins that are visible, scalable, and strategically relevant. If it checks at least one box, its worth pursuing. 5. Establish Your Operating Rhythm Your operating rhythm is a visible signal of how you lead. It sets the tempo for the entire enterprise and cascades into decision-making, collaboration, and accountability. The way you structure updates, resolve issues, and enforce consistency becomes the culture. Tyler was intentional about how decisions, updates, and problem-solving would happen. He replaced sprawling weekly status meetings with 15-minute daily stand-ups for his leadership team. In addition, he launched a quarterly anonymous pulse survey to spot issues early, introduced a live dashboard to track campaign performance, and clarified cross-functional ownership with a responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (RACI) chart. Most importantly, Tyler modeled consistency, showing up to every Monday sync on time, prepared, and focused. That reliability sent a clear message that discipline wasnt a preference; it was a leadership expectation. Pro tip: Your rhythm is your reputation. Protect it and make it contagious. Tylers success wasnt about a single bold move. It was about stacking deliberate actions that built trust, delivered results, and established a culture of focus and follow-through. In todays volatile C-suite environment, where tenure is shrinking and expectations are immediate, your first 90 days are more than an onboarding period. They are your launchpad. Lead with intention from day one, and you wont just survive those first three months; you will define the trajectory of your tenure.
Category:
E-Commerce
Florida plans to become the first state in the country to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including for schoolchildren, state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, announced on Wednesday. The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida lawall of them. All of them. Every last one of them, Ladapo said during a news conference alongside Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. The state’s surgeon general added that Florida has maybe half a dozen shots mandated currently. The mandates, which have been in effect for decades, have been a bedrock of the United States’ public health policy aimed at curbing the spread of disease nationwide, The Associated Press noted. Both physician and public health groups have promoted the safety and efficacy of vaccines, especially among schoolchildren. People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions, Ladapo, a vaccine critic, said. The rollback could lead to fewer children getting immunized against diseases like polio and measles. The Trump administration’s changing policies on vaccines under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have brought on more debate about whether parents should opt out of the shots as the school year begins. In Florida, the number of kindergartners with nonmedical vaccine exemptions rose this year, as it has nationwide, coinciding with the worst measles outbreak in 30 years. News that Florida would be ending its vaccine policy drew a strong reaction in some corners of social media, with some people saying they would not be visiting Florida as a result. “After 35 years of many trips to Florida, this is the last straw,” Figgy wrote in the comments section of The New York Times. “We’re selling off our property rather than be subjected to all the disease-infected residents that have elected these political hacks that don’t give a fig about their own people, let alone the tourism industry that supports their state.” In related news, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now questioning whether it’s safe to get multiple respiratory vaccines at oncefor example, the flu, coronavirus, and other RSV shotssignaling a possible reversal of long-standing federal guidance, The Washington Post reported. Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top vaccine official, said the agency is now unsure about the safety of that practice.
Category:
E-Commerce
Employees at tech giant Oracle are facing down a fresh round of layoffs this month, the latest bad news out of an industry thats either booming or brutal, depending on whom you ask. The company has yet to publicly confirm the new cuts to its workforce, but state data shows that Oracle is reducing its Seattle-area workforce by 101 employees. The layoffs were filed with Washington state on September 2 and will go into effect by November 3. While state filings only reflect Seattle area jobs lost for now, Oracle employees in other states shared news of their jobs being cut on LinkedIn. In some instances, newly laid-off employees worked for the company for 20 years, so the round of reductions may not solely have impacted more recent hires. Oracle workers based in Kansas, Massachusetts, and Texas were among those who said their positions were eliminated as part of a workforce reduction. On anonymous message boards, some Oracle employees reported seeing the companys general Slack channel drop by around 3,500 members in the last 24 hours, but no official numbers have yet confirmed the scope of the latest round of layoffs. Some states make layoff data public through a kind of law known as a mini-WARN Act, which stands for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification. The laws are designed to provide workers with advance notice of mass layoffs and often collect that information into state databases. California also operates a WARN database, but it did not include new Oracle layoffs at the time of writing. Fast Company reached out to Oracle to confirm the layoffs but has not received a response from the company. Multiple rounds of layoffs Oracle also cut jobs last month. In mid-August, the company notified the state that it planned to eliminate 289 positions in the Bay Area across its offices in Pleasanton, Redwood City, and Santa Clara. In the same flurry of layoffs, Oracle planned to reduce its workforce by 161 positions in the Seattle area, where the company employs around 4,000 workers. The company has been conspicuously reducing its office footprint in Seattle over the last year. Oracles employees are facing uncertainty as their employer trims its massive workforce, but the company itself is having a banner year. The enterprise hardware and software provider notched its best week since 2001 over the summer, with shares peaking at a record high above $250 last month. In its June earnings call, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison marveled at spiking demand for the companys products. Even as it pours billions into cloud and AI infrastructure, Oracle is apparently still scrambling to keep pace with its happy customers. The demand is astronomical, Ellison said. But we have to do this methodically. The reason demand continues to outstrip supply is that we can only build these data centers, build these computers, so fast.
Category:
E-Commerce
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