Vistage Chair since 2023 · Washington, D.C. region
Leadership gets better when you don’t do it alone.
I’m Todd Girvin, a former founder and CEO. As a Vistage Chair, I coach chief executives one-to-one and bring them together each month with peers who tell them the truth.
My purpose
To serve, support, and help develop leaders who are actively forging a better future.
Your Chair
A room where a CEO can think out loud
Running an organization is lonely work. The people around you depend on your decisions, which makes it hard for them to challenge you, and hard for you to say “I’m not sure.”
My job as a Chair is to change that. Here is what it looks like:
- A monthly meeting with your peers. A small group of chief executives from businesses that don’t compete with each other. You bring the real decision in front of you, and they bring experience, hard questions, and no agenda of their own.
- Time with me, one-to-one. Between meetings, we work on what matters most to you as a leader and get your thinking ready for the group.
- Confidence that it stays in the room. Everything rests on trust. What members share with me and with each other is kept in confidence.
Vistage is the world’s largest CEO coaching and peer advisory organization for small and midsize business leaders. Joining a group starts with a conversation, to see whether the group and you are right for each other. You can read about its programs at vistage.com.
In members’ words
What it’s like in the room
I came to Vistage with a business that was doing well, not one that needed fixing, and it’s still been one of the most valuable things I’ve done as a CEO. Even in a healthy business, you have to make calls that feel lonely — letting someone go, admitting you’ve let something run too long, deciding a project or service line needs to change direction — and I stopped making those alone the day I joined. My group is a team of advisors: all CEOs, all in different industries, no two businesses alike, and willing to tell each other the hard things kindly and usefully. That was true from my very first meeting, and it’s only gotten more meaningful since. Todd stays on top of each of our businesses through regular one-on-ones, and he’ll jump in during a speaker session with a question relevant to mine before I know to ask it. If you’re a leader who’s always working on self-improvement and knows you don’t know everything, you get to do this alongside other CEOs instead of alone. It makes all of us better stewards of our businesses.
Julie, group member
Running a company can be isolating. The group gives me a place to put real decisions in front of experienced CEOs who have no stake in telling me what I want to hear. Most problems I bring, someone at the table has already navigated, and for the ones nobody has, I have a room of sharp business minds helping me work it out.
Ghazanfar, group member
Todd and the group have been instrumental in helping me navigate my first three years of business ownership. Their insights have sharpened our focus on the right priorities, and the group has provided a trusted forum to work through the challenges every small business faces, no matter the industry.
Dan, group member
My story
I learned this from the seat you’re in
I started my career as a technologist working alongside entrepreneurs, and grew from entry-level consultant into C-level roles in startups and small businesses.
In 2003, I co-founded Improving, a technology firm, and became its CEO. A few years in, I had to face a hard truth: I wasn’t the right person for that seat. I invited a trusted friend to step in, and we kept building. When he reached his own ceiling, he sought outside coaching, then brought what he learned back to our executive leadership team, and started a peer group between us executives that was wholly transformative. It felt like an on-the-job MBA.
Later I led our Houston branch as President through a full business cycle: fast growth, a hard downturn when the energy sector fell in 2009, and recovery. Through recruiting, layoffs, rebuilding, and handing over to my successor, I found weaknesses I needed to own and strengths I didn’t know I had.
Those years taught me that leadership isn’t a title but a practice.
After my family moved to the D.C. area, I began coaching executives. It is the work I would have wanted beside me when I was the one in the seat.
What to expect from me
Five principles I work by
Trust First
Nothing meaningful happens without trust. Every conversation and every relationship begins with building, and earning, it.
Intention over Reaction
Leaders who shape the future don’t wait for it to happen. They lead with purpose, even when the path is uncertain.
Different Perspectives
Seeing through other people’s experience expands your understanding, reveals blind spots, and opens doors you wouldn’t find alone.
Challenge with Care
Growth requires discomfort. I ask the hard questions, always from a place of real investment in your success.
Lasting Impact
This isn’t about quick wins. It’s about building something that endures in your leadership, your organization, and your legacy.
Why I do this
It’s personal
I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for modern medicine and the science that makes it possible. That has shaped how I think about responsibility, progress, and the part leaders play in shaping the future.
It is why I’m drawn to leaders who are building more than a successful organization. They are using new ideas to make things better for the people they serve, and I want to help them do it well.
Also
Founder and CEO, Futuremakers Leadership Forge
I still work in technology every day. Through my own company, Futuremakers Leadership Forge, I help leaders of purpose-driven organizations empower every employee to partner with AI.
Futuremakers is a separate business. Its services are not offered through Vistage and are not part of Vistage membership.
Start a conversation
Who do you think out loud with?
If you lead an organization in the Washington, D.C. region and that question is hard to answer, I’d welcome a conversation. No pitch and no pressure: we’ll talk about where you are and whether a group like mine would help.