The hardest decisions you'll ever have to make shouldn't have to be made alone.
You've built something significant. At this level, the decisions get heavier and the margin for error gets smaller.
Michele Breslin
Vistage Chair | New York City
The Work
At Macy's I led one of the largest private brand businesses in retail, navigating competing priorities, difficult decisions, and the kind of complexity that comes with leading at scale. Later, as Chief Merchandising Officer at Echo Design Group, I worked to build clarity, process, and collaboration across a complex organization.
The experience gave me a very clear sense of what leaders actually need. It's rarely what's on the agenda. Priorities pulling in one direction, personalities in another, pressure from every side. Still finding the balance between trusting what you know and staying open to what you don't. Even the most capable leaders need people around them who will challenge them as much as they support them.
The Moment
A few years ago I was invited to sit in on a Vistage meeting to see what it was all about. I watched a CEO break down. Not from weakness but from recognition. The group had helped him see something he'd been avoiding for a long time, something deeply personal with enormous financial consequences. Instead of judgment, what he got was honesty, warmth, and the courage to finally face it. The group gave him what he needed. I left that meeting knowing exactly what I was going to do next.
The Decision
I became a Vistage Chair because I've been in that seat. I understand what you're navigating, not in theory, but firsthand. The hardest conversations are rarely just about the business. What I bring to every group is directness, rigor, and a deep belief that what matters most isn't the Chair. It's the people in that room, who will challenge you, support you, and change what you believe is possible.
What happens in the group
Uncertainty walks in.
Confidence walks out.
There is a moment that happens in every group, for every member, at least once, usually more. You bring something you haven't been able to say out loud yet, something you knew you needed to do but couldn't quite move forward with. When you finally say it, something shifts.
My groups
Three Groups.
One Standard of Leadership.
CEO Group
For CEOs running $10M+ companies. You bring the hard decisions, the doubts, and the moments that stay unspoken everywhere else. The group brings the experience, the honesty, and the accountability to help you move forward. What you bring stays in the group. What you leave with changes how you lead.
Advancing Leaders
You're good at what you do. Now you're being asked to do something different, to inspire people, build teams, and lead through others rather than just alongside them. This group is where that shift happens.
Emerging Leaders
You've been identified as someone worth investing in. Now the work begins. This group gives high potential leaders the foundation they need: the mindset, the skills, and the habits that separate good leaders from great ones.
The commitment
Not every leader is ready for this. The ones who thrive here are open to being challenged and willing to hear what others won’t tell them.
If that sounds like you, let’s talk.
What Vistage provides
The complete experience
Your Peer Group
Once a month, you meet with a group of peers who understand what it means to lead. The conversation goes where it needs to go, honest, direct, and completely confidential. More often than not, you leave with something you didn’t expect. Not just a decision, but clarity on what actually needs to change.
One to One Coaching
Every month, you have me. Not to tell you what to do, but to ask the questions that help you figure it out. I’ll support you completely, push you harder than you might expect, and be in your corner every step of the way.
Expert Speaker Sessions
Most sessions include an outside expert bringing something you didn’t know you needed. The topics range widely, from tactical and strategic to deeply personal, even health and wellness. You leave thinking differently than when you walked in.
The Vistage Network
Beyond your group sits something larger: a global community of leaders, research, and insights that most people underestimate until they need it. When you have a question that goes beyond the room, the network usually has the answer.
Hear from the group
“Michele reached out to me during the pandemic and opened the door to something I didn't expect, a community built on real questions, real dilemmas, and real support. Michele brings together an impressive group, and she herself is an immensely supportive, no nonsense guide whose sole intention is to ensure her members thrive.”
Karen Shackman
CEO, Shackman Group
Let's have a conversation
Tell me a little about where you are and what you’re looking for.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Vistage is a peer advisory organization for CEOs, one of the oldest and largest in the world, with members in over 40 countries. As a Vistage Chair in New York City, I build and lead one of those groups. What that means in practice is a small, carefully chosen group of leaders who meet monthly to think through their hardest challenges together. I facilitate the full day monthly group meeting and coach each member one on one.
The baseline is practical. You're leading a company with revenue of $10M or more, a leadership team in place, and at least 15 employees. But honestly, the numbers matter less than the mindset. The CEOs who get the most from this group are the ones who are genuinely open to being challenged, who don't need to be the smartest person in the group, and who see learning as an advantage rather than an admission. If you're growing, curious, and willing to be honest about what you don't know, this group was built for you.
A coach works with you one on one, and that's part of what I do. But the group adds something no individual coach can replicate. Leaders from different industries, with no stake in your decisions, who will ask you questions you haven't thought to ask yourself. I'm genuinely invested in every member's success, not just in the group, but well beyond it.
Once a month we spend a full day together. Members bring what's pressing, whether that's a decision they're wrestling with, a challenge they haven't been able to crack, or something they haven't yet said out loud. The group engages honestly and directly, with no preset agenda beyond what members bring to the room. By the end of the day most people leave with something they didn't expect, not just a next step but a clearer understanding of what they were actually dealing with.
Complete confidentiality is the first thing we establish and the last thing anyone questions. What's said in the room stays there, period. Members are from non competing industries, so there's no conflict of interest. But the real reason it works isn't structure. It's that everyone in that group has something at stake too.
Schedule a conversation. We'll talk, and we'll both know pretty quickly if it makes sense.