You’ve been offered a Chief Executive role with a new organization. Congratulations! Of course, now you need to know what questions to ask to determine if you really want the job…

The CEO's Due Diligence Handbook helps you compile your list of questions for your hiring organization, and gives some perspective on what their answers should look like.

When I received my first job offer to assume the top role at a non-profit, I knew I needed to conduct my own due diligence on the company I was about to join. I searched around online and in books and found a few questions to ask. Unfortunately, nothing gave me a comprehensive view of how to evaluate the gig. Ultimately, after speaking to some colleagues, I was able to cobble together a due diligence request that was about 80% effective, but which still left me exposed to some nasty surprises during my first six months in the job.

This book is your tool to compile a due diligence request fast, and to analyze the responses effectively.

DM “Dave” Paule has been around. Over the merry course of his career, he has been an aerospace engineer, software developer, marketer, sommelier, corporate controller, photographer, novelist, cartoonist, deejay, bartender, educator and standup comic. He is seldom classified as focused.

He spent twenty-five years in the aviation industry, most of it at Delta Air Lines. Delta gave him a wealth of opportunities to work with and lead organizations all around the world. In 2011, when he retired from Delta, he was challenged by his partner. “You’ve proven you can do airlines. You’ve proven you can do corporate. What else ya got?” Thus began his encore career in the world of non-profit.

Following Delta, he spent four years working in the music industry as promoter, marketer and fundraiser, first for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and then for the Atlanta Opera. He then went on to lead GreenLaw, an environmental law firm that focused on clean air, clean energy, clean water defense and responsible land use. He became the CEO of a Georgia-wide healthcare NGO in 2017, which he led until 2020.

Simultaneous with all these roles, he has most valued his work as an educator. For most of his career, he has taught managerial sciences at the undergraduate level, first at Mercer University’s Stetson School of Business and Economics, and then at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business. He has a passion for teaching leadership, because he has seen firsthand the damage poor leadership can do to an organization.

Dave managed to secure a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a Master of Business Administration from Georgia State University despite the serious misgivings of each institution’s faculty. In his spare time, he writes. He is the author of two novels, The Monarch of Key West and Highlands-A-Go-Go: Finding Virginia Highland; two plays, The Sisters and (with James Townsend) Voodoo for Dummies: A Musical; and the narrowly acclaimed novella Amidst the Brownstones. He lives in Atlanta.