Originally Posted by Kimmykim

I disagree with that statement, and I'm sure there are plenty of books that would disagree as well. I used to be in the furniture business and at one point the CEO of the largest furniture manufacturer on the planet was fired, after basically bankrupting the company. Definitely a celebrity CEO within the business.

His next job was as the CEO of the largest mattress manufacturer in the world. At the time we all laughed and the phrase, "your next job will be inversely proportional to how badly you fucked up you last one"...

But three years later this CEO had doubled the revenues, nearly tripled the net profit of the mattress company, and was certainly having the last laugh.

Hiring a CEO for a large company requires a knowledge of much, much more than just how your particular company runs. CEO's should be knowledgeable about many things like banking, leverage, mergers and acquisitions, dressing up a company for a sale, etc.

They don't necessarily even need to know that much about your business per se, as they do about how business itself works.