My co-founder and I have shared the leadership of our sales and marketing department for a decade, and we want to put both of our names in the VP of Growth seat on our Accountability Chart. How do we handle this co-leadership structure without confusing our team or raising red flags for prospective buyers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Placing two names in a single leadership seat on your Accountability Chart is a recipe for operational chaos. In the EOS model, we have a strict rule: only one name can occupy a seat. When two people are accountable for the same function, nobody is accountable.

Buyers hate co-managed seats. It signals to them that your leadership team is incapable of making independent decisions, which increases key-person risk and slows down operational velocity.

You and your co-founder must split the VP of Growth seat. Start by listing all the roles currently nested under that combined function. You will find that sales and marketing are two distinct disciplines. Sales is about closing deals today, while marketing is about generating demand for tomorrow.

Design two separate seats on your Accountability Chart: a VP of Sales seat and a VP of Marketing seat. Next, run a GWC check on both of you. You might find that your co-founder GWCs sales, while you GWC marketing.

If you both want the same seat, you must have an honest conversation during your Same Page Meeting. One of you must take the seat, and the other must step into a different seat where they can add real value, or step out of the daily operations entirely.

This clean separation of duties shows prospective buyers that you have a professional, scalable management structure with clear lines of reporting and absolute accountability.