To review a CEO decision, write the call in one sentence, attach the staff memo with every objection your executives raised and the exhibits behind the numbers, then ask which claims the backup does not support, which dissent the memo dropped, and what result would make you reverse the call. Do it before you announce the change inside the company.
This page covers calls a chief executive can make without a board vote and will have to defend at the next meeting: a renewal price increase, a business unit consolidation, a paused product line, or a deal you walk away from. If the board must approve the ask, start with war-game a decision before the board meeting. If you are still comparing options with no recommendation, use review a decision between options. Executive guides sorted by artifact live under Pingpong for executives.
Why a call inside your own authority needs its own review
A decision inside your delegated authority skips the room where directors object to a pre-read. The memo comes from people who report to you, their objections arrive softened, and the first outside reader is often a director looking at the quarter after the change landed. That director will ask why you made the call, and the answer has to rest on what the exhibits showed at the time.
So the request carries the staff dissent in quotes, a reversal test with a number, a date, and an owner, and the short update you plan to give directors, which the review checks against the exhibits.
A worked example
This example is illustrative and does not describe a customer. The chief executive of a 420-person subscription software company plans to raise renewal prices 9 percent across about 1,400 accounts starting next quarter. The delegation policy puts pricing with the chief executive, so no vote is needed. The finance model projects $3.6 million in added annual recurring revenue at 3 percent incremental churn. In the staff thread, the head of sales warned about stalled expansion deals and the head of customer success asked to exempt small accounts. The final memo drops both points.
The chief executive puts the memo, the pricing model, a churn export from the last increase, the contract terms summary, and the full staff thread into one request. The request names three readers: the chief financial officer who owns the forecast, the investor director who will see net revenue retention at the next meeting, and a cost-conscious customer on a mid-size plan.
A useful pass turns up concrete problems. The churn export shows accounts under $20,000 a year left at twice the base rate after the last increase, while the model applies one flat churn figure to every tier. The contract summary shows 18 percent of revenue sits in multi-year agreements capped at 5 percent uplift, so the $3.6 million projection overstates the first-year gain by roughly $290,000. The sales objection holds up: 40 open expansion quotes use current list prices, and the memo never says whether they will be honored.
The chief executive changes the call before announcing it: 9 percent for accounts above $20,000 a year and 4 percent below, capped contracts held to their caps, open quotes honored through quarter end, and a reversal trigger if gross churn in the small tier passes 6 percent in the first 90 days, owned by the head of customer success. The draft board update now cites the tiered model and names the trigger.
A request you can copy
Below are a decision I plan to make within my own authority, the staff memo recommending it, the objections my executives raised in their own words, and the exhibits the numbers come from. Read the package as each of these people: [two to four readers, including a director who will see the result later]. List every claim the exhibits do not support, quoting the page or line. List every staff objection the memo dropped or answered weakly, and say whether the exhibits support it. Then propose a reversal trigger with a number, a date, and an owner, and check my draft board update against the exhibits. Don't rewrite the memo.
Paste the staff thread unedited. A summary of the dissent written by the person who overruled it tends to lose the strongest point.
How Pingpong runs the review
The web review app sends your request through several models in order. Each later model receives the original request and every earlier answer, with instructions to assess the work so far. One pass might list unsupported claims; a later pass might check the churn math against the exhibits. A confident mistake can carry forward, so check every flagged figure against the source file. For the steps inside the app, see running your first review.
What a model can't review
A model does not know which executive has already told their team the decision is final, how a director reacted on a private call, or what your delegation policy says beyond the text you paste. Legal, tax, accounting, and personnel questions belong with the people responsible for those answers.
If the decision needs a vote, see review a board pack before the meeting or anticipate board questions. When a director follows up after the change lands, see review a reply to a board question. More guides live under work decisions before you commit.