Vet an executive in twelve minutes.
Pre-hire and pre-board public-record due diligence on any executive. SEC proxy statements, named-executive-officer disclosures, prior-employer departure timing patterns, board-interlock mapping, and public-reputation flags. Twelve sections, every claim cited.
What gets verified
Every Executive Vetting Report draws from these public sources. SEC filings carry the heaviest weight: proxy statements (DEF 14A) for compensation and named-executive-officer disclosure, 10-K and 10-Q passages naming the executive, Form 4 insider trades, and 8-K material-event filings within the executive's tenure window.
| Source | What it tells us |
|---|---|
| SEC EDGAR | Authoritative compensation history (proxy DEF 14A), named-executive-officer disclosures, 10-K and 10-Q passages naming the executive, Form 4 insider trades, 8-K material events within tenure. |
| LinkedIn (public profile) | Career arc, role progression, departure-to-departure timing, public commitments. |
| Crunchbase | Private-company tenure, founder vs. hired-CEO context, prior-employer funding context. |
| News archives + business press | Press coverage of appointments, departures, restatements, and public controversies. Outlet credibility assessed per source class. |
| Corporate biographies | Issuer-published bios (proxy and 10-K back pages) cross-referenced with LinkedIn for date consistency. |
| Conference talks and podcasts | Long-form public commitments. Useful for thesis verification and tone-of-voice signal. |
| X / Twitter (public) | Public-statement record, especially on governance and macro events. |
What the report contains
The full Executive Vetting Report is twelve sections, paginated, 3,000-6,500 words depending on tenure length and SEC-filing density. Each section ends with its source citations.
- Executive Summary. 200-500 word synthesis. Top-line for a board chair or search-firm partner with 90 seconds.
- Career Arc. Every role with dates from issuer-published bios cross-referenced with LinkedIn. Departure timing flagged when ambiguous.
- Compensation History (where public). Proxy-disclosed total compensation over time. Marked clearly as proxy-disclosed, not adjudicated as fair.
- Departure Patterns. Each prior-employer departure contextualized: announced transition, sudden, coincident with a material 8-K filed within 30 days. Pattern detection across multiple departures.
- Material Events During Tenure. Restatements, internal investigations announced via 8-K, governance changes. Each event sourced from the filing of record.
- Board Service and Interlocks. Every public board with cross-reference to potential conflicts (overlapping competitors, prior co-board membership, vendor-relationship overlaps).
- Insider Trading Pattern. Form 4 trade pattern. Sales clustering, 10b5-1 plan adoption record, sales preceding material events.
- Comparable Executives. Five pattern-matched executives at peer companies. Outcomes shown so the reader can pattern-match.
- Public Reputation and Red Flags. Severity-ranked findings or honest "no flags found" when the public record is clean.
- Network and References. Likely warm-reference candidates with cited evidence (prior co-CEO board, prior team members now at peer companies, public co-attendance signals).
- Governance Profile. Public-statement record on governance, ESG, shareholder votes, employee-base communications during transitions.
- References and Source Citations. Every URL cited across the prior eleven sections, deduplicated and grouped by source class.
Sample report on file
The canonical sample is Brian Chesky (Airbnb co-founder and CEO), used as a public-record-only synthesis demonstration. The report covers his founder-to-public-CEO arc, IPO transition, and post-IPO governance pattern.
How we identify the right executive
Two CEOs with the same name happens more than you would expect, especially across midcap and private companies. Three independent gates handle it.
Gate 1 — Candidate picker
Name resolution surfaces every plausible candidate with their current company, role, and photo. You confirm the right person before any synthesis runs.
Gate 2 — Disambiguation drawer
For ambiguous candidate sets, the disambiguation drawer adds explicit disambiguators: current employer ticker, headquarters, prior employer, board seat.
Gate 3 — Confirm before charge
Even on a single high-confidence match, the candidate card surfaces for explicit confirmation before charging credits. Wrong-person reports refund automatically.
SEC EDGAR cross-reference
For any executive whose name surfaces in an EDGAR filing, we cross-reference the filer CIK and named-executive-officer disclosure to lock identity at the federal-record level.
When to use an Executive Vetting Report
- Pre-hire CEO search. Board is finalizing a CEO appointment. The full report covers compensation history, departure patterns, board interlocks, and prior material-event timing. Saves a search-firm partner six to twelve hours of manual EDGAR work.
- Independent director vetting. A growth-stage company is filling an independent board seat. The report surfaces prior board-service patterns, governance voting record, and cross-board conflicts.
- M&A target executive review. A strategic acquirer is evaluating the target's CEO and CFO. The report covers tenure stability signals, prior-employer departure patterns, and post-acquisition retention risk patterns from comparable executives.
- Activist-investor target prep. An activist fund is preparing a campaign. The report on the incumbent CEO surfaces tenure-length context, comp-vs-performance pattern, and public-statement record on governance.
- Reputation-event response. The board is responding to a public controversy. The report surfaces the public-statement timeline, prior similar-event handling, and comparable-executive precedent for response patterns.
Pricing
Executive Snapshot
One-page executive summary. Pre-meeting brief tier.
100 credits
- Executive summary, 300-500 words
- Career arc with departure-pattern flags
- Top-line compensation summary
- Top risk flags (severity-ranked)
- Returns in roughly 90 seconds
Executive Vetting Report Recommended
Full pre-hire / pre-board due diligence. Twelve sections.
500 credits
- All twelve sections, 3,000-6,500 words
- Compensation history with proxy citations
- Material-events-during-tenure timeline
- Board interlocks and conflict mapping
- Insider trading pattern (Form 4 read)
- Comparable-executive cohort
- References section: every cited URL
- Returns in 8-12 minutes
Higher pricing reflects SEC-filing depth. Reading proxy statements, 10-K passages, Form 4 trades, and 8-K events across an executive's career multiplies synthesis cost vs. founder or investor reports.
Methodology
The full methodology behind the Executive Vetting Report is published. It covers the four-class source taxonomy (with SEC-EDGAR-Primary as the dominant authoritative class), the UK PHIA Probability Yardstick used for confidence statements, the disambiguation hard-gate, defamation guardrails, and the explicit limits of public-record compensation inference.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Executive Vetting Report cover that LinkedIn does not?
SEC proxy statements with adjudicated compensation history, named-executive-officer disclosures across the executive's full career, prior-employer departure timing patterns (was each departure clean?), 10-K and 10-Q passages naming the executive, board service overlaps and potential conflicts, and a synthesized public-reputation pattern that LinkedIn cannot show.
Is this a substitute for a background check?
No. The Executive Vetting Report is a public-record research synthesis. It supplements but does not replace formal background checks, reference calls, or regulatory filings of record. FCRA-compliant background-check providers cover what we explicitly do not. Use the cited URLs to verify any decision-relevant claim with the source.
Why is the Executive tier priced higher?
Executive vetting is SEC-filing-heavy. Reading proxy statements, 10-K and 10-Q passages, Form 4 insider trades, and 8-K material-event filings across an executive's career multiplies the synthesis cost vs. founder or investor reports. Higher pricing reflects deeper synthesis.
Do you flag departures from prior employers?
Yes. Each prior-employer departure is contextualized: was the departure announced as a planned transition, sudden, or coincident with a material event (8-K filed within 30 days of departure, restatement, governance change)? Pattern detection across multiple departures surfaces clean-exit vs. controversial-exit profiles.
What about board interlocks?
Yes. The board-service section maps every public board the executive sits on, with cross-reference to potential conflicts (overlapping competitors, vendor-relationship overlaps, prior co-board membership patterns).
Can I run this on private-company executives?
Partially. Sections drawing from SEC filings degrade gracefully when the executive is at a private company. The career-arc, news, and reputation sections remain fully populated. The report explicitly tags "no SEC filings on record" rather than padding with guesses.
Do executives see who ran a report on them?
No. Reports are private to the buyer unless explicitly marked shareable. Executives are not notified that a report was run.
Related
Founder Vetting Reports → Investor Vetting Reports → Use case: Hiring a Board Member → Use case: VC Due Diligence →