Presenting strategy to executives

Executives operate under severe time constraints and evaluate dozens of competing priorities. Your strategy presentation needs to respect this reality. Lead with business impact, show clear resource requirements, and demonstrate you've thought through risks. Executives care less about your process and more about outcomes, feasibility, and trade-offs.^[1]

Structure your presentation around decision points. What do you need from them? Budget approval? Headcount? Strategic alignment? Make this explicit upfront. Then provide just enough context to make that decision confidently. Most executive presentations fail because they bury the ask under too much background.

Anticipate the hard questions before you present. How does this affect revenue? What happens if we don't do this? Why now instead of next quarter? What are we not doing if we pursue this? Come with data that supports your position, but be ready to acknowledge uncertainty where it exists.