As an owner, I know this is a good company with kind, and capable people who are victims. The teams are carrying a huge burden, and living in fear, but the real issue is leadership. The company has become top heavy with expensive SVPs, slow to act, disconnected from customers and value, and incapable of executing with clarity or urgency or even working together. And whenever we hire a new person to lead, strategy shifts and we start all over, or worse they come up with the exact same plan that the old team did, but that leadership were too blind or paralyzed to execute on. For the last 5-6 years, there has been almost no meaningful customer context at the executive level, and even now there is a visible disconnect between leadership’s new direction and what CDW actually does in the market to create value.
Proof? The Overall messaging is weak. The company struggles to articulate or sell new solutions with confidence. Marketing has become performative instead of effective. Internal politics, favoritism, and executive empire-building are rewarded while execution suffers. Consultants swarm the business looking for problems to solve while accountability disappears, and we are slowed down. Teams compete internally instead of aligning externally against the market. Fundamental operational discipline, blocking and tackling has largely vanished. Stock is a perfect reflection of reality. We were given the shot.
An equally concerning problem is that too many leaders are learning the business while running it. A top strategy executive from a bloated fire alarm company with stock performance almost as bad as CDW’s. A CMO from a car dealership with no meaningful B2B expertise. A former C level executive from a second rate department store. A sales leader from an HR leadership role. A Bain person running partners and acquisition integration, now c suite strategy. And it goes on, throughout the organization. Customers can feel it. Employees can feel it. The market can feel it. Partners scratch their heads and wonder when it’s going to implode. You people literally have no respect in our market. We apologize for you on every call. Now, we are losing credibility by even working here. Destination workplace? .
At some point, there have to be consequences and structural change at the top instead of another round of resets and reorganizations.
Here is what should happen, thinking like an owner:
• Name a new CEO immediately, even on an interim basis. Anyone would be better than a stock in freefall with no plan. Alternatively, appoint a President with full operational authority from a competitor, or internally, who knows how we create value, is respected and has run these businesses. The organization needs visible leadership and accountability now, not eventually.
• Any executive who cannot hold a credible customer conversation about the company’s core business and solutions should be visibly removed in a layoff. We are better off knowing you were fired, in order to regain respect for you leaders and ourselves. This is not an academic exercise. If leaders do not understand customers relative to our CDW value, they should not be leading any customer-touching organizations.
• Standardize technical and AI enablement across the company using actual vendor ecosystems, proven customer conversations and market platforms just like our peers, not internally manufactured abstractions disconnected from reality created by the burglar alarm team. Everyone should know the stacks, the tools, and the customer use cases. Everyone should be able to prove it.
• Align sales compensation to strategic outcomes, not just individual revenue extraction. The current model rewards personal economics over company transformation.
• Stop socializing executive compensation across broad leadership layers. Compensation should be tied directly to measurable departmental outcomes and execution quality. If I am doing well, don’t penalize me for a weak link i cannot control. Or I will leave, like many other effective leaders have.
• Expand equity participation broadly across employees instead of concentrating upside only at the top. The people doing the work should share in the value creation. They will be loyal and work harder, and be able to actually hold each other accountable as owners. And we will do better as a whole.
• Reduce consultant dependence dramatically, or to zero. If the business cannot operate without armies of external advisors, leadership has already failed.
• Re-establish operational fundamentals: accountability, execution speed, customer intimacy, and cross-functional alignment. Reduce red tape at all costs. AI isn’t enough. Mentality has to shift.
Finally, leadership credibility and employee loyalty requires you make shared sacrifice right now, and it should also be very public. If performance, growth, execution, and customer confidence are all materially off-track, CEO and EVP compensation should reflect that reality. That’s CEO, CFO, COO, CHRO, CCO, CSSO. Accountability cannot only exist for the people lower in the organization. No pay until we are fixed. If you don't like it, please leave or don't expect any respect. Step up and lead.