Talent
Lead a Swiss business beyond its founder
Step into the CEO seat of an established Swiss business. Lead its next chapter, backed by a permanent owner and a community of fellow leaders.
A truly unique opportunity
Running a profitable Swiss SME as its CEO has rarely been a path available to outside operators. Family succession favors heirs. Private equity favors short-dated plays. Most acquisitions come with an exit clock above the new CEO's head.
The Future CEO Program is different. You lead an established Swiss business into its next chapter, with real equity, real autonomy, and a permanent owner behind you who will not resell the company. For the right operator, it is the seat of a career.
Who you are
You have already run something. Maybe you founded and exited a business. Maybe you led a division with full P&L accountability. Maybe you were the number two at a family SME, an operator inside a consultancy, or returning to Switzerland after an international run.
What sets you apart is less on your CV and more in how you work. You bring generalist instincts to complex problems. You think like an owner, not an employee. You listen before you change things. You can earn the trust of a founder handing over a life's work, and the team who will follow you. You are patient enough for a long-term horizon, and honest enough to know when you are not.
The Future CEO Program
Formation
Work alongside the Saha team on live sourcing, diligence, and thesis-building in the sectors you would consider running. The phase is flexible and unpaid, and ends when you are matched with a specific acquisition.
Transition
You are paired with a target business and its outgoing founder. Compensation begins. You shadow the founder, learn the company, and take responsibility in stages across a structured handover.
General Manager
You run the company as CEO, with meaningful equity in the business and full autonomy to lead. The role is stewardship as much as operation: growing the company forward while preserving what made it worth keeping.
Stewardship
Years in, the role deepens. The company compounds, the relationships mature, the operational craft sharpens. You join a growing bench of Saha General Managers: peers who learn from one another, mentor incoming operators, and help shape how we find and support the next generation.
What the program offers
The program is built to align your upside with the business you run. Compensation begins when you match at transition, and you receive meaningful equity in the specific company you lead. Because Saha holds permanently, you can build for the long term rather than manage toward an exit.
You are not doing this alone. Saha supports you with back-office infrastructure so you can focus on the business. And as the portfolio grows, you join a network of Future CEO alumni and sitting GMs across other Saha businesses, operators working on similar problems under the same owner, with the same long horizon. Experience travels between seats.
What we ask in return
A real multi-year commitment. You do not enter the program to run a business for three years and move on. Permanence works both ways. You will live the Swiss business context, take full accountability for outcomes, and stay long enough to see the effects of your decisions compound. In return, you get something rare in this market: time.
The process
Apply
A short note on what you have run, why Saha, and the kind of business you would want to lead.
Conversations
One or two sessions with the Saha founding team. Mutual qualification on fit, horizon, and operating thesis.
Thesis and commitment
You develop a short thesis on where you would want to operate. We review it together, check references, and decide mutually whether to enter the program.
Offer extended
Once we converge on a specific company together, we extend a formal offer and the program becomes real. Compensation, equity and the path to the seat are set in writing. From there, the transition begins.
Join the first cohort
We are forming our first Future CEO Program cohort now. If the seat sounds like yours, tell us.