Setting the tone: Boris Huard’s playbook for your first 100 days

In the five years since the Sherpa Programme began, we’ve seen dozens of bright, ambitious individuals step into their first executive roles. In fact, 70% of Sherpas graduate into executive-level positions in the portfolio companies where they were placed. When they do, they aren’t just taking on a new title. With the opportunity comes greater visibility, expectation, and scrutiny. 

At Tenzing, we’re proud to support Sherpas in taking that next step. As part of their two-year development journey, Sherpas get the chance to learn from incredibly successful PE-backed leaders. Boris Huard, CEO of CitNOW, is one of them. 

Boris’s insights are a perfect complement to the conversation we had with Stew Holness about high performance in PE. If Stew articulated what to look for when identifying best-in-class leadership teams to back, Boris shows us how leaders can get there. These are his thoughts on setting the tone in your first 100 days. 

1. Land Well

“You arrive with a myth and a label. With that comes both excitement and suspicion.”

When you step into a CEO or CXO role, especially in a private equity-backed business, you don’t arrive neutral. The title carries weight. People read into every interaction with you. 

That’s why Boris encourages new execs to prepare as much for perception as for delivery. You’ll be judged before you have time to deliver results. Your choices in the first few weeks, what you ask, how you listen, who you back, are critical. It’s also why Boris emphasises the importance of identifying quick wins – something you can deliver or impact, and clearly point to, in your first 30 days. 

Your actions will be amplified throughout the organisation, so you want to be sure the right message is reverberating. 

2. Establish Your Tone

“Tone is set through your operating rhythm. It’s not about a playbook. It’s your experience, your style.”

Every choice you make, especially related to how you manage your team, impacts your leadership tone. Done consistently, these choices sustain the tone you’re setting. Done inconsistently and you’ll quickly cause confusion. People will be unclear on how to engage with you. 

Think about the meetings you chair. How do you open a meeting? Do your meetings start and end on time? How do you manage interruptions? Who comes prepared; how do you respond when they don’t? What about the cadence of those meetings? A Tuesday leadership meeting signals something different than Monday at 8am. A breakfast briefing sends a different message than a scripted all-hands. The way you punctuate a year matters too. Do you share financial performance widely and regularly? Do you have company-wide H1 and H2 strategy forums, or one strategy day? These anchor points, and the energy you create between them, shapes the culture and creates the cadence of getting things done. 

If you’re clear in your operating rhythm, you’ll be well positioned to drive the kind of clarity and pace PE demands. 

3. Run (and synthesise) Your Listening Tour

“You must have the biggest vision of the business – or you should be changed.”

Listening is vital in the first 100 days, but it’s not passive. Boris urges leaders to use the listening tour to construct a working view of the business that connects both the first mile and the last mile: your biggest picture view and the execution detail.

That view must then be played back to the team quickly. Not in vague terms, but with clarity and conviction. When you show people you understand the business today and, in the future, and you are already testing hypotheses, you shift from being “the new person” to a leader with a plan. Following that, it’s imperative to be brutal on execution. 

4. Engage the 1% / 10% / 100%

“Through the 10%, you run the entire business.”

One of Boris’s most practical frameworks is how he thinks about communication. His 1% / 10% / 100% model is simple but powerful:

• 1% – C-suite, your direct team, the strategic steering  
• 10% – The managers who shape culture and output, they have the biggest impact on operational execution 
• 100% – The whole company, where culture is created 

Each group needs different formats, frequencies, and levels of transparency. Your cadence should consider each of these audiences. When and how are you engaging them? The key is to ensure that what’s said at every level reinforces priorities, not fragments them. If you say nothing at one of these levels, unless it’s done intentionally, you break the chain of consistency and leave room for interpretation. For Boris, the 10% is crucial to driving action; you will fail without them. 

5. Raise (and Hold) the Standard

“No small player on a big patch.”

High performance isn’t just about speed, it’s about standards. Boris is clear: underqualified people in mission-critical roles undermine confidence across the business. Leaders must resource their top priorities with their strongest talent and be explicit about consequences when standards aren’t met.

Boris is clear this isn’t about fear; it’s about fairness. People rise when they see that excellence matters. It’s demotivating to see substandard delivery tolerated. 

Boris’s reflection on a leader’s role in unlocking performance centres on belief and desire. As he puts it “No one is ever better than when they want to do it. The leader’s job is teasing that out.”

Closing Thoughts: Confidence, Clarity, Curiosity

“Trust your gut. And when you don’t know – ask.”

Although many of us would have gladly taken a day-by-day formula for success from Boris, he left us with something more powerful, a live experience of what strong leadership feels like. It’s intentional. It’s structured. But it’s also human.

For Sherpas and others stepping into their first executive role, Boris’ insights are a reminder: success in your first 100 days won’t come from someone else’s playbook. It’s about landing deliberately, setting your tone, and leading with confidence, clarity, and curiosity.

Boris has over two decades of experience in the international technology sector. His first ten years were dedicated to consulting and integration businesses, followed by a decade in software, data, and analytics. He is currently the CEO of CitNOW Group. In July 2022, Tenzing successfully exited CitNOW Group to Livingbridge, achieving a return of 9.6x.