Athena Chiefs provides proven executive management and “adult supervision” to small companies that want to grow into something great.  If you need an excellent Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Sales Officer or Chief Technical Officer on a part-time or permanent basis, Athena Chiefs offers the choice of many talented, proven and fun individuals. 

If you know you need a permanent hire but worry about making a critically wrong choice, take advantage of the Athena model of “try before you buy” and see if there is good chemistry on both sides.  Think about it – we date before we get married in real life, why not in the business world?  Too often the most fatal mistake of a start-up is hiring the wrong person that disrupts the good chemistry of the founding group, and Athena allows small companies to mitigate this risk with an interim retained period up-front.  By the way, the Chiefs like this risk mitigation plan as well!  The problem of everyone having “happy ears” in the interview process is solved, and only proven people that are a “fit” are retained on the executive management team.

Athena was founded by Tom Ryan, who is an experienced CEO and executive of several companies, and with a track record of successful delivery wherever he’s been.  Tom spent the early years (about 13 in all) of his career at Accenture and Cambridge Technology Partners helping grow the local Seattle offices.  Since then he has been a Vice-President of Services for a Software company, Vice-President of Sales and Operations for a wireless company, and CEO of a software company.  Tom is well networked in the pacific northwest and also has access to other excellent service providers to startups, including best-of-breed providers of CFO services, line sales and marketing strategy services. 

Tom has been able to attract a good group of delivery-oriented executives with track records of success.  We're good at figuring out the promises to make and putting together the infrastructure so the promises stay kept.