The GM you choose will make or break the holding company

After six years of running a holding company, one lesson stands out above almost everything else: who the GM is matters enormously. Bad GMs simply cannot take the business where it should go. Exceptional GMs fly. Finding that person — someone who has been at the firm for years, knows every client, and genuinely cares about the business — and then making them the GM with a real piece of the upside is a critical part of making the whole thing work. The structure and the AI layer are important, but the human leading each business is what ultimately determines whether it succeeds.