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A confidential therapy resource for CEO transitions.
A clinical channel for the outgoing and incoming CEO during a departure, transition, or succession. Built for boards and CHROs who need a resource that protects the executive and respects the governance line. Matched clinicians. Defined confidentiality. No board visibility into the clinical work.
A confidential clinical resource for the most exposed transition a company makes.
This page is for Lead Independent Directors, board chairs, governance and nominating committee members, and CHROs scoping a confidential therapy resource for outgoing and incoming CEOs during a transition or succession. If that is you, the rest of this page is the briefing document.
CEREVITY operates as a clinical network with direct relationships between the network, the clinicians, and the contracting company or board. There is no third-party broker layer. CEOs are matched, not first-served. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure. Care is private-pay, out-of-network, and structurally outside the company benefits stack by design, which matters in a context where governance and confidentiality are both at stake.
Our clinicians are independent licensed professionals. Many have worked with chief executives and understand both the isolation of the seat and the particular intensity of leaving it or entering it. CEREVITY exists in part because CEO transition is one of the highest-stakes human events a company manages, and boards rarely have a confidential, governance-appropriate clinical resource built for it.
CEO transition is a clinical event the board is responsible for managing well, with no standard resource designed for it.
The reason a CEO transition can go badly on the human side is not a failure of the board. It is that the transition concentrates loss, exposure, and identity strain on one or two people, and the company's standard benefits were never built for that population or that moment.
Outgoing CEOs face identity loss, the public nature of a departure, and the grief of separating from a role that has defined them, sometimes for decades. Incoming CEOs face the documented isolation of the seat, the weight of stepping into a high-visibility role, and the first-100-days pressure that determines tenure. Both are clinical profiles, and both sit at the center of the board's governance responsibility.
A board cannot send a CEO to the company EAP without confidentiality and governance concerns, and an informal recommendation to find a therapist is not a resource a board can responsibly rely on for a transition of this consequence. The board needs a confidential channel that is defined in advance, governance-appropriate, and built for this specific population.
What changes when the channel is built for transition: clinicians experienced with chief executives, session formats long enough for real work, a confidential structure that gives the board no visibility into the clinical content, and a governance posture defined in writing before anyone is referred.
What CEREVITY clinicians treat in CEOs entering and leaving the seat.
The clinical scope is built for the realities of CEO transition, the period the board is most responsible for and least equipped to support clinically.
Identity loss on departure
An outgoing CEO has often fused self with the role over many years. Separating the person from the seat is a clinical project, most acute in the months around the transition and frequently invisible from the outside.
The isolation of the seat
The incoming CEO inherits a documented loneliness: no peers inside the company, limited candor from the team, and a board relationship that is not a confidant. That isolation is a treatable clinical risk, not a fixed condition of the job.
First-100-days pressure
The opening months in the seat set the tenure and concentrate enormous pressure. A confidential clinical channel during this window supports the very transition the board worked to engineer.
Involuntary or contested exit
A forced or contested departure carries grief, anger, and reputational fear that no transition plan resolves. Handled badly on the human side, it can spill into legal and public risk for the company.
High-functioning anxiety
Performance maintained at significant personal cost, in a role where the cost is structurally hidden. Common in both the outgoing and incoming executive during the overlap period.
Succession and overlap dynamics
Outgoing and incoming CEOs in overlap is a delicate human arrangement. The clinical strain on both is real and rarely acknowledged, and it can shape how cleanly the handoff actually goes.
Depression masked by composure
A CEO under transition strain often presents as composed and in control. Mood disorders can hide behind that composure, and a board is not positioned to assess them, while a clinical partner is.
Family and personal upheaval
Relocation, wealth events, public scrutiny, and the disruption of a major transition land on the executive's family. This is therapeutic territory and a frequent, unspoken factor in how a transition unfolds.
Three session formats, each chosen for the work.
Most resources offer one session length. CEREVITY offers three, because the clinical work an executive in transition needs varies. The choice is made between the clinician and the CEO, not by what a payor will reimburse.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care in this format.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour. Focused work on a specific transition or decision.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution within a single session.
Because CEREVITY operates outside the insurance reimbursement model, session length is set by the clinical work, not by what a payor will reimburse. That is the structural reason all three formats can exist on the same network, and why an executive in a compressed transition can be matched to the format the moment requires.
Ready to scope a governance briefing?
Briefings are scoped to your board and company. We respond personally within 48 business hours with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the transition resource you are evaluating, including how confidentiality and governance are defined.
Request a briefing →How a CEO is matched.
Matched, not first-served. Here is the process that produces the match for an outgoing or incoming CEO.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. The form is operated by CEREVITY, not by a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. This is the step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician is matched to the CEO based on the review. The CEO receives the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
The CEO schedules directly through CEREVITY infrastructure. No phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues with the matched clinician on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed cap.
Capability comparison for CEO Transitions.
A vendor evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a CEO-tier-tier offering for CEOs. Both models have a place. They are designed for different populations.
| // Dimension | Typical EAP | Exec-tier platform | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between board and contractor roster | Single-vendor platform, W-2 or contracted pool | Independent clinical network with direct relationships |
| Clinician assignment | First contractor to reply with availability | Algorithmic matching on intake-form inputs | Clinical review by network leadership |
| Intake & scheduling | Phone handoff to clinician's line | App-based intake and scheduling | Network-operated intake, direct online scheduling |
| Session formats | Standard 50-min; capped session counts | Standard 45 to 50-min sessions | 50-min, 90-min, and 3-hr formats, no cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable concerns | Workforce-wide, executive tier as upsell | Built around CEO Transitions presenting issues |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy | Generalist therapy with some specialty | CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, matched at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density | National telehealth, roster variance | All 50 states via telehealth |
| Payment model | Board-sponsored, in-network | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private-pay, out-of-network, partnership agreement |
| Board visibility | Aggregate, broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement | Administrative reporting only |
| Right fit for | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing with executive add-on | CEO Transitions, end-to-end |
What the board sees, and what it does not.
For a CEO-tier-tier channel to function, the participating CEO has to trust that engaging with it does not create visibility into their care. CEREVITY is built around that requirement.
- Confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals.
- Aggregate utilization at the partnership level, where contractually appropriate.
- Invoicing and eligibility reconciliation.
- Nothing tied to a specific named CEO's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named CEO has scheduled, attended, or engaged.
- What clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned.
- Session notes, treatment plans, or diagnostic information.
- Any attendance detail at the individual level.
Clinicians are independent licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. Protected health information is held within the clinical infrastructure, and the agreements governing it are defined in writing before the partnership goes live.
Clinical records, session content, and individual engagement data sit inside the clinical platform. The administrative layer the partner interacts with is structurally separate from the clinical layer.
Eligibility lists are maintained on the partner side and confirmed at the point of intake. Administering eligibility does not require the partner to receive clinical information back.
A Business Associate Agreement is executed where the partnership structure requires it. The partnership agreement defines administrative reporting scope in writing before going live.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a CEO-tier-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first CEO in care.
A 60-minute kickoff with your team and CEREVITY's partnership lead. We confirm the partnership shape, the eligibility model, the administrative reporting scope, and the internal owner. The BAA, where applicable, is executed in this window.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list. CEREVITY confirms it against the network side and establishes the verification path that runs at the point of intake. Only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, CEO-tier-appropriate comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. Your team adapts it to your voice.
Eligible individuals begin intake on their own cadence. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days. By day 30, the partnership is operational and a quarterly review cadence is in place.
The business case for the board and the CHRO.
Three axes a Lead Independent Director, governance committee, or CHRO can defend as part of transition risk management. The specifics vary by company; the structural argument does not.
Transition durability and tenure.
A failed CEO transition is among the most expensive events a company can suffer: lost strategy, market reaction, and the cost of starting succession over. Supporting the incoming CEO clinically through the first-100-days pressure point protects the transition the board invested in engineering.
Risk management and clean exits.
An outgoing CEO whose departure is handled with care on the human side, not only the legal side, is less likely to become a source of reputational, legal, or public risk. A confidential clinical resource is part of managing an exit cleanly, which is squarely within the board's responsibility.
Governance signal and director duty.
Boards are increasingly held to a higher standard on executive well-being and succession quality. Having a defined, confidential, governance-appropriate clinical resource for CEO transition is a defensible answer to the question of whether the board managed the transition responsibly.
Questions CEOs and their teams ask first.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are independently licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. The handling of any protected health information, and the specific agreements that govern it including any Business Associate Agreement, are defined in writing in the partnership agreement before the resource goes live, scoped to the company's and board's structure.
No. The clinical work is confidential between the clinician and the CEO. The board and company receive only what is contractually appropriate, typically administrative confirmation that contracted services were available, and never whether a specific executive engaged, what is being addressed, or any session content. This confidentiality is the precondition for a CEO to use the resource at all, and it is defined before the resource goes live.
The resource is structured so the board can make a confidential clinical channel available to outgoing and incoming CEOs without creating a reporting relationship, a conflict, or a record the board should not hold. The governance structure, including who contracts, who is eligible, and what reporting exists, is defined in writing in the briefing before anything goes live.
The board makes the resource available; the decision to use it is the CEO's, confidentially. The board does not direct, monitor, or learn about the clinical engagement. That separation is what keeps the resource both useful to the executive and appropriate for the board to offer.
No. CEREVITY is private-pay and out-of-network by design. The structure is intentional: it is the only way to deliver the clinical scope, session formats, and confidentiality posture a CEO transition requires.
Whether the company, the board, or a transition arrangement contracts for the resource, and the cost, are defined in the briefing. Pricing depends on the structure and the scope of eligibility. The briefing call is where we identify the right structure, and the cost falls out of that.
First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of intake, depending on modality requirements and scheduling parameters, which matters when a transition timeline is compressed.
Through a governance briefing. Use the form below or email [PARTNERSHIPS EMAIL] directly. Briefings are scoped to your board and company; we respond personally within 48 business hours.
Tell us about your transition. We respond within 48 business hours.
Briefings are scoped to your board and company. Share a few details below and we will respond personally with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the transition resource you are evaluating, including the governance and confidentiality structure.
The structural argument on this page is based on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on EAP panels, combined with widely-published industry estimates of EAP utilization and CEO Transitions-specific data where cited. Specific contractual scopes, including the administrative reporting boundary and the BAA structure, are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before any partnership goes live.
