Brian Kuhn

For 30 years, I've been saying I'd write the book. I've now started. I also started a Substack newsletter to build it in public. Every week, one piece. Operator stories from inside the rooms. Frameworks I use with PE-backed CEOs. Chapter previews. Things I've changed my mind about. I'm writing it because most of what I learned across 9 PE-backed CEO and operating seats, 50+ acquisitions, and 30 years scaling tech companies, I learned by getting it wrong first. I want you to learn from my scars so you don't have to earn your own. If you're a CEO scaling faster than your operating model can support, a PE operating partner trying to move a portfolio company forward, or an operator who wants to learn from rooms you haven't been in yet, this is for you. The inaugural post explains the why. Link in the comments below. Two asks. Subscribe if it lands. And if you know an operator who'd benefit, please share this post or forward the newsletter. Heroes don't scale. Systems do. #leadership #execution #PE

Scheduling around a bully isn't a solution. It's a slow bleed with a calendar. A leader I respect called me this morning. His company did exactly that - different days in the office, problem "managed." Except his team still dreads the overlap. Still burns energy bracing for the next incident. Still can't fully exhale. He asked me what to do. I didn't give him a playbook. I asked him a different question: What is this costing you in performance, retention, and team trust ... and have you made that case to the people who can act? Most leaders frame a bully as a people problem. That's the wrong frame. It's a business problem with a people symptom. Shift how you're thinking about it - from HR complaint to value destruction - and you change who needs to be in the room, what evidence matters, and what a solution looks like. I'm sending him my book. Chapter 15 has the story. What reframe has helped you navigate a situation where the obvious move wasn't available? #AdaptiveLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #PsychologicalSafety

BIG news! I’m stepping into a global leadership role in my work with the United Nations as Chair of the EQUALS Leadership & Digital Skills Initiative. Fifteen years ago this month, I was laid off during the financial crisis. I had no network, no clear direction, and honestly no idea how I was going to rebuild. If you had told that version of me that one day I’d be helping lead global conversations around leadership, digital skills, and access alongside the United Nations, I never would have believed you. And yet here we are. People often ask me how I got here. The answer is surprisingly unglamorous: Minimum Viable Steps. Ask. Show up. Learn. Rest. Repeat. Not giant leaps. Not overnight success. Just relentless forward motion, especially on the days when it would have been easier to quit. That mindset changed my life. And now I get to help bring that same spirit of access, growth, and possibility to a global stage. The wild part? I genuinely believe my best work is still ahead. And somehow, I have TWO even bigger announcements coming next week. If you’ve been following my journey, thank you. And if you’re new here, welcome. We’re just getting started.

I’ve taught thousands of people about resilience, reinvention, momentum, and navigating disruption. What I haven’t shared publicly is just how much I’ve personally been surviving behind the scenes this last year. This year has brought me to my knees. Not metaphorically. Literally. I’ve been leading through one of the hardest professional seasons of my career while simultaneously navigating some of the hardest personal moments of my life. At work, my teams and I were tasked with delivering what executives themselves described as “beyond impossible.” Triple the output in 90 days. Constant change. Rug pulls. Pressure from every direction. The kind of sustained stress that rewires your nervous system. And somehow… we’re still delivering. I even managed to keep morale high and my teams moving forward through all of it. At home, I’ve been navigating family health crises, grief, fear, and heartbreak while trying to hold everyone together. This last week especially brought me to my knees. And yet somehow, in the middle of all of this, I still kept showing up. Still leading. Still speaking. Still pouring into people. Still walking onto stages and giving rooms every ounce of my heart and energy. Not because it’s easy. Because it’s who I am. People hear me speak about Minimum Viable Steps and momentum and think it’s a clever framework. What they don’t realize is sometimes those steps are the only thing keeping me moving too. Right now, I am surviving one Minimum Viable Step at a time. Get out of bed. Answer the call. Lead the meeting. Take the flight. Walk onto the stage. Make it to tomorrow. That’s what this season has looked like for me. Especially when the outside world sees the highlights: The standing ovations. The executive audiences. The international invitations. The Davos invite. What they don’t see is how much of this movement I’ve personally funded with my own savings, energy, health, and heart because I believed in this work that deeply. And what’s been especially painful is realizing that despite decades of experience and transformational impact on audiences, I’m still often being asked to speak “for exposure” or for fees that don’t reflect the value of the work. Meanwhile I know, without question, this is what I was built to do. I can feel a room shift. I can help people believe again. I can help leaders and teams navigate uncertainty and pressure because I’m living it in real time too. So this post is me being honest about the messy middle. Not polished. Not tied up in a bow. Just real. I’m betting on myself right now in one of the hardest seasons of my life. If you know organizations, conferences, or companies looking for a keynote speaker or fractional advisory partner focused on leadership, disruption, AI transformation, momentum, and performance under pressure, I would deeply appreciate an introduction. And today’s act of self-care and Minimum Viable Step? Finally getting my hair done after one hell of a week.

OceanSound Partners is pleased to announce the final closing of Fund III and affiliates with $3.4 billion in total capital.    Fund III continues OceanSound’s focus on national security and mission critical technology investments and increases OceanSound’s AUM to more than $8 billion.   The Fund closed at its hard cap, substantially exceeding its $2.0 billion target, 18 months after the final closing of its predecessor Fund II. We are deeply grateful for the support of our Limited Partners whose trust and confidence in OceanSound were instrumental to the success of the fundraise.   Read the full press release here: https://lnkd.in/eVhesBb9

Nine months in, I sent my manuscript to the editors — then I rejected it myself.  I was taught how to create persuasive business presentations. Taught how to sell. Yet I hadn't applied any of those lessons to my first book. So I started over. Not from scratch — but close. I rewrote every chapter. Cut some entirely. Added new ones. Some were written through tears. Some made me smile. Some still bring the emotions right back to the surface. 18 months later, my book is being assembled — printed and bound this week. My dream: that someone finds a mentor in these pages. That you learn from my struggles so you can spend your energy on new lessons of your own. What have you set out to do that was harder than you expected — and what kept you going? #AdaptiveLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment

What if they think I'm unqualified? What if I speak up — and it costs me? I've asked myself both. I remember staring at a team performance report, metrics in the red, thinking: Who are you to think you know how to turn this around? The shift wasn't a pep talk. It was a reckoning with evidence. I'd started companies from scratch. Stepped into roles I wasn't "ready" for — and figured it out. My ability to adapt isn't luck. It's a pattern. So I stopped arguing with my inner critic and started building the case against it. Then I brought my team in. "I can" became "We can" — and that's where the real momentum started. What do you tell yourself in those moments of doubt? #AdaptiveLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment

We all want it to be perfect. The flawless strategy. The polished rollout. The fully formed plan. But transformation doesn’t start with perfection. It starts with action. “Just make it exist first. You can make it good later.” That's an iteration. The leaders I work with who successfully drive AI adoption don’t wait for clarity to be complete. They: ↳ Pilot before they polish ↳ Test before they scale ↳ Move before they feel ready Perfection delays momentum. Iteration builds it. If you’re leading change right now, don’t aim for flawlessness. Aim forward. Start. Refine. Improve. The organizations that win aren’t the most perfect. They’re the most willing to begin. ♻️ Repost to remind a leader: progress beats perfection.