The Breakout CEO is a CEO podcast for scaling CEOs and founders, hosted by Jeff Holman. In each episode, a growth-stage CEO shares the real decisions behind scaling a business, from hiring and leadership to pivots and revenue growth. These founder interviews focus on companies in the $5M to $50M range and the business growth strategies that moved them from startup to scale-up. Every conversation centers on an inflection point: the moment a company outgrew its old way of working and the CEO had to choose a new one. Guests explain what they decided and what they would do differently. Recent topics include panic hiring, AI adoption, hidden revenue leaks, and building trust before building demand. Jeff Holman is the founder of Intellectual Strategies, where he works as outside general counsel to scaling CEOs and founders on strategy, governance, and risk during rapid growth. He brings that operator-level view to each interview. Be a guest: We feature a limited number of CEOs and founders with first-hand breakout stories. Apply at https://go.intellectualstrategies.com/ Media and event partnerships: For press access, on-site recording, or event collaboration, contact us through intellectualstrategies.com/podcast.
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Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
48%
Guest openness
Accepting guests
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Signup to Generate a PitchThe Breakout CEO is a CEO podcast for scaling CEOs and founders, hosted by Jeff Holman. In each episode, a growth-stage CEO shares the real decisions behind scaling a business, from hiring and leadership to pivots and revenue growth.
Recent episodes include "106 - Hand Off Technology and Your Growth Stalls" (29 October 2026, 53 minutes), "105 - The $2M Never Came. The CEO Fired Everyone" (22 October 2026, 55 minutes), and "104 - The Real Reason Scaling CEOs Keep Panic Hiring" (16 October 2026, 46 minutes).
The Breakout CEO publishes roughly weekly, with episodes averaging 47 minutes.
Booking probability for The Breakout CEO is 48%, and the host is rated Open on guests. The Breakout CEO requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. The Breakout CEO's contact route on record: verified email.
The strongest fits for The Breakout CEO are Business & Management Consulting. The Breakout CEO has a business audience.
The Breakout CEO is a business podcast.
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Episode #106
What do you do as a CEO when the supplier behind most of your inventory disappears overnight? Rupesh Sanghavi, founder of Ergode, faced exactly that when half.com shut down and took 80 to 90 percent of his inventory...
Episode #105
What should a CEO do when the team and the offices are built for a $2M investment that never arrives? Asaf Darash faced that decision after spending about a year funding Regpack with his own money and loans while an...
Most CEOs get hiring wrong in one of two ways: they wait too long to bring someone on, or they panic and fill the seat with the wrong person the moment the pressure hits. Darren Tompkins, founder of Vader-Rey Companies...
Episode #103
Most businesses chase new clients while leaving real revenue sitting untouched inside the ones they already have. In this episode, business coach and consultant Stacey Hylen — who mentored under Chet Holmes and later...
Most brand and portfolio decisions inside scaling companies get made from the inside out — shaped by org charts, legal deadlines, and internal politics rather than what customers actually experience. Behavioral-science...
Most CEOs already agree AI belongs somewhere in their business — the harder problem is knowing where to start, and getting a team comfortable enough to actually use it. Bryant Oberg, founder of Human Co-Pilot, argues...
Episode #100
Many CEOs can tell you what happened: the market shifted, pricing changed, the quarter improved. What gets lost is what actually broke, how they recognized it, and what they were thinking when they made the decision...
When a services company and a product company try to grow under the same roof, one of them eventually has to lose. In this episode, Jared Shepard explains the decision that forced him to spin Hypori out of his 20 year...
Most CEOs never admit what they are bad at, and it costs them the exact hires and decisions that could help their business scale. Larry Gould built one of the world's largest language companies, The Big Word, and years...
Most scaling CEOs assume a revenue problem is a sales and marketing problem, and it costs them the real diagnosis. In this episode, Kati Peterman, founder of the fractional executive firm YourFRX, breaks down why so...
Most CEOs assume they're judged on execution — results, competence, getting things done. Executive communication coach Mike Acker argues that's only half the equation. Presence, he explains, doesn't just support...
In 2015, a currency shock pushed the Canadian dollar from parity to $1.46 against the US dollar in eighteen months — a 46% jump in costs for Solpak, the packaging distribution company David Salerno had spent years...
When one of OneMeta's first major enterprise contracts went quiet — right after signing, right after the prepaid revenue was recorded — nothing happened for six months. Saul Leal, CEO of OneMeta, walks through why the...
Most founders spend years perfecting a dashboard. George Hartley — who built and sold SmartrMail (acquired by Relay Commerce in 2022) and co-founded Bluethumb, Australia's largest online art marketplace — is betting his...
Most scaling companies don't fail because they stop trying — they fail because they keep doing more of what already isn't working. In this episode, Jeff Holman talks with Diane Moura, Founder & CEO of ZenChange...
Most founders don't have a hiring problem — they have a decision problem. Operations advisor Lia Garvin has spent years inside teams at Microsoft, Apple, and Google, and now works directly with founders running...
As companies grow, the CEO's role must evolve. Yet many founders stay trapped in the day-to-day, becoming the very bottleneck that limits their company's growth. In this Advisor Insights episode, Jeff Holman sits down...
Every scaling e-commerce business eventually collides with the same silent problem: customers who don't get what they ordered, when they were promised it. Jevon Le Roux, CEO and co-founder of Keeyu, lived that problem...
What happens when someone reaches the top of the financial world—only to realize success isn't enough? In this episode of The Breakout CEO Podcast , Jeff Holman sits down with Scot Cohen , CEO of WRAP , to explore the...
What separates companies that become market leaders from those that remain just another product? In this episode of The Breakout CEO Podcast , Jeff Holman sits down with Romney Williams , entrepreneur, inventor, and CEO...
Recent guests on The Breakout CEO. Study who booked and why before you pitch.
founder, Empire Operating System
author, keynote speaker, executive communication coach, ADVANCE, Coaching and Consulting
team operations expert, TEDx speaker, bestselling author of The New Manager Playbook, workplace strategist and organizational effectiveness consultant
entrepreneur and med tech leader, GoodKnight Consulting
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