Sleeping Giant Capital: CEO-in-Residence Program
The Position
Search on Salary. Committed acquisition capital and a full-time seat to search from, then run the business you buy.
Cycle: Its own paid Acquire Program comes first, with cohorts its program page starts in January, April, June and September and its older FAQ in February, and a ten-week deep dive priced at $5,000; the September 2026 cohort is marked sold out. After it the firm says you may apply to the residency at any time, and past CEOs-in-residence waited between two months and a year.
The firm publishes an application route and no dates against it.
The program page has no apply link and no form; its only forward step is the Acquire Program, which every CEO-in-Residence must begin in and which now has an application page of its own. The older address for the program forwards to this page since the September 2026 read; the pay figure lives on the FAQ.
At a Glance
- Location
- Kalamazoo, Michigan, on a stated place-based focus in west Michigan.
- Pay
- Salaried
- Compensation
- A competitive salary built into the investment package, which its own FAQ sizes as six figure compensation, plus equity the firm describes only as meaningful.
- What You Do
- A full-time search the firm puts at eighteen to twenty-four months, then leading the acquired company as its CEO.
- What You Must Bring
- More than ten years of professional experience, including senior operating responsibility.
- Recruits On
- It weighs operating experience: time running something, rather than a degree.
- Who Can Apply
- Readiness to leave a current role for a full-time search, and a record of leading teams or operations or owning a profit and loss.
The Company
Sleeping Giant Capital is reviewed in full in the directory, with its model, pricing, and the searcher case for and against it. It also backs searches, so the same page carries its fit as a backer and how to approach it. Read the Sleeping Giant Capital review.
Interview Prep
These programs do not publish their interview scripts, so this is the shape a search on salary program hires on, what it is really weighing, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- A written application and resume screen, weighing operating exposure as much as deal exposure.
- A case or deal exercise: a target to assess, or a plan for one of the firm's portfolio companies.
- A panel with the partners who would back and govern you.
- Reference and background checks before an offer.
What It Is Assessing
- Whether you can operate, not only analyze: the firm is hiring a CEO, not an associate.
- Deal judgment: telling a good acquisition from a merely plausible one.
- Fit with the firm's stated playbook and the cadence its portfolio runs at.
How to Prepare
- Know the firm's thesis and portfolio cold before the first call. Investors
- Bring a real deal you would pursue, underwritten end to end. Underwrite a Deal
- Have an answer to why you would operate on salary rather than own outright. Path Economics
- Make the operator case on one page, not a resume. Buyer Profile Builder
More on the Board
A salaried seat is a form of capital: the employed lane on Investors weighs these programs beside the funds, and the Path Economics Comparer prices it against searching on your own money.