LEADERSHIP DUE DILIGENCE
The most consequential decisions you make are people decisions.
A wrong hire at senior level doesn't just cost money. It costs time, momentum, and in high-growth environments, it can cost the plan itself. The further up the organisation the decision sits, the longer the damage compounds before it becomes visible.
Most hiring processes are designed to confirm a choice that has already been made. References are curated. Interviews are prepared for. The best candidates are also the best at being interviewed.
Leadership Due Diligence is designed for something different.
INDIVIDUAL
A rigorous, evidence-based assessment of how a senior leader actually operates. Not how they present, how they perform.
What it involves
Each assessment combines several layers that produce a detailed picture of how a leader will perform in a specific role, under real pressure, alongside a specific team.
The first is the Hogan Assessment Suite, one of the most rigorously validated psychometric tools available. Hogan measures how a leader shows up at their best, how they behave under pressure, and what drives their decisions at the level of core values and motivation. It produces data that interview alone cannot generate.
The second is an in-depth structured behavioural interview, designed to verify, challenge, and deepen what the psychometric data reveals. CN8 brings close to two decades of hiring and assessing senior leaders across both the investor and operator side of high-growth businesses, combined with advanced coaching skills and a trained capacity to identify the signals that standard interview technique does not surface.
Together, they produce a precise, evidence-based picture of how this person actually operates.
What you receive
A full written report covering the candidate's style and preferences, potential strengths, blindspots, underlying drivers and values, and fit across three dimensions: role, culture, and team. Written for decision-makers. Specific enough to inform the hire. Detailed enough to shape how you develop and deploy the leader if you proceed.
TEAM
Where the individual assessment builds a precise picture of one leader, the team assessment builds a picture of the collective.
Ahead of a significant transition, a new growth phase, or a decision about whether the current team can execute against the plan, this is the assessment that tells you not just who you have, but what they will do together when it matters.
What it involves
Each member of the leadership team completes the Hogan Assessment Suite and a structured behavioural interview. The individual profiles are then analysed collectively to build a picture of the team as a system.
What you receive
Individual profiles for each team member, plus a full team dynamics report covering collective strengths, pressure behaviour, shared drivers and values, potential blindspots and tensions, and an assessment of the team's capacity to execute against its stated objectives.
WHY THIS WORKS
The Hogan suite is one of the most widely used assessment tools at senior level. Its value lies entirely in how it gets interpreted.
CN8 brings a perspective that is genuinely rare at this level. The experience of having made these decisions as an investor, having lived with the consequences as an operator, and having spent years understanding what drives behaviour at the level of identity and neuroscience. That means the data doesn't get read in isolation. It gets read in the context of what this business needs, what this team requires, and what this moment demands.
The result is not a personality profile. It is a precise, evidence-based answer to the question every senior hiring decision comes down to: will this person deliver, in this environment, under this kind of pressure?
