Selling to the C-suite: what the CEO, CFO and CIO answer for, from their own filings

This guide is for account executives, founders and sales leaders whose deals need a chief executive, chief financial officer or chief information officer to say yes. It shows where to find what each executive is accountable for, using public-company filings and the SEC rules behind them, how to get the meeting, what to bring, and a worked example. Private companies don't file these documents, but their executives answer for the same things, so the method still applies.

What each executive answers for, and where to read it

The rest of this guide takes the three most common buyers in turn.

The CEO: read the proxy statement

A public company's annual proxy statement includes a Compensation Discussion and Analysis. SEC Regulation S-K Item 402(b) requires it to explain "what the compensation program is designed to reward" and, where material, "what specific items of corporate performance are taken into account." That's the board telling you, in writing, what the CEO is paid to achieve.

Item 402(v), added in September 2022, requires a pay versus performance section. It must include a "Tabular List" of "at least three, and up to seven" financial performance measures that, in the company's assessment, most closely link executive pay to performance, plus one Company-Selected Measure singled out as the most important. Smaller reporting companies may skip the list and the Company-Selected Measure, and emerging growth companies are exempt from the section altogether.

A real example: Stryker, the medical technology company, says in its proxy statement filed on 23 March 2026 that no 2025 bonus could be earned unless adjusted consolidated operating income reached about $5.21 billion, and ties the rest to sales on a constant-currency basis, adjusted operating income and adjusted earnings per share. A seller with nothing to say about sales growth, operating income or earnings per share isn't speaking to what Stryker's executives are measured on.

With a CEO, connect your offer to one of those measures in a sentence, with an estimate and a way to check it. Leave the product detail to the people below them.

The CFO: how to sell to a CFO

Two rules shape how a public-company CFO hears a pitch:

• They sign for the numbers. Exchange Act Rule 13a-14 requires each principal executive and principal financial officer to sign a certification filed with every 10-K and 10-Q, and nobody can sign it for them under a power of attorney.
• They report on controls. Regulation S-K Item 308 requires management's annual assessment of internal control over financial reporting, and management can't call controls effective if there's a material weakness.

So a CFO weighs risk to accuracy, cash and predictability before upside. Build your case in their terms:

Ask how they'll account for the purchase rather than telling them; capitalizing or expensing a cost is the CFO's call. Even at a private company, the CFO usually owns the budget calendar, so learn when next year's budget is set and get your case in before then.

The CIO and CISO: expect the security review

Regulation S-K Item 106, adopted in 2023, requires a public company's annual report to describe its processes for managing material cybersecurity risks, including "whether the registrant has processes to oversee and identify such risks from cybersecurity threats associated with its use of any third-party service provider," and how the board oversees those risks. Form 8-K Item 1.05 requires disclosure of a material cybersecurity incident, generally within four business days of the company deciding it's material.

Your product is a third-party service provider. Every vendor with access to the company's systems or data adds to the risk the CIO and CISO report on, so expect a security questionnaire before any contract. Have these ready before the first technical meeting:

• An independent assurance report, typically a SOC 2 examination, which covers security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality or privacy
• What data you'd hold, where it's stored and who can access it
• How you'd connect to their systems, and the effort their team would need to put in
• Which existing tools or contracts you'd replace, since consolidation is usually welcome

How to get the meeting

1. Find a sponsor. A director or VP who owns the problem can tell you whether the executive cares, and can carry your one page into their next one-to-one.
2. Earn the right with a point of view. One specific observation about their business that the executive hasn't heard from their own team.
3. Ask for 20 minutes and one decision. "Is this worth a pilot?" is a decision. "Learn about our platform" isn't.
4. Use a peer. If you have a CEO, CFO or CTO, ask them to send the note. Executives answer executives.
5. Time it. Budget season and the weeks after an earnings call, when priorities have just been stated in public, are the best moments.

Researching each executive's priorities across a list of accounts takes hours. Bebop researches each account and writes a playbook with who to talk to, what's happening at the company and the angle to open with, which you can check against the filings yourself.

For: [name, title] | From: [your name] via [sponsor's name]
Date: [date]

WHAT WE NOTICED
[One sentence on their stated priority, with the source: e.g. "Your proxy statement ties 2025 bonuses to adjusted operating income."]

THE OPPORTUNITY
[One sentence on the problem, in their numbers: e.g. "Complaint handling costs about $2.7M a year in staff time."]

WHAT WE'D CHANGE AND HOW YOU'D KNOW
[The result, the measure and the time frame: e.g. "Cut handling time by 30%, measured on 90 days of tickets."]

COST AND PAYBACK
[All-in first-year cost; payback in months; the downside case]

RISK AND WHAT IT NEEDS FROM YOU
[Security review, data, integration, people's time]

THE DECISION WE'RE ASKING FOR
[e.g. "Approve a 90-day pilot in one division, starting [date]."]

Worked example: a SaaS seller and a medical device maker

Illustrative example. The companies, people and numbers are invented to show the method.

Northlake (northlake.example) sells complaint-handling software. Its target, Corvane Medical (corvane.example), is a public maker of infusion pumps. The AE spends an hour on Corvane's filings and finds:

The VP of quality becomes the sponsor. Together they estimate the cost the CFO cares about: 12,000 complaints a year × 3.5 hours × $65 an hour = $2.73M in staff time. If the software cuts handling time by 30%, that saves about $819K a year. The price is $300K a year plus $150K to implement, so the net saving is $519K a year, the implementation pays back in about 3.5 months ($150K ÷ $43K a month) and the first year nets $369K. At half the expected improvement (15%), the saving is about $410K, still above the subscription.

The CFO sees one page: the margin link, the arithmetic, the downside case and a request for a 90-day pilot in one plant. The CISO gets the SOC 2 report and a data-flow diagram the same week, before anyone asks.

Common mistakes

• Pitching features. Executives delegate evaluation. Your job is to show why it's worth evaluating.
• An ROI you can't defend. One inflated assumption and the CFO discounts the whole case.
• Going around your sponsor. You might get the meeting once, and lose the deal and the sponsor.
• Asking for an hour. Ask for 20 minutes with a decision at the end.
• Treating the C-suite as one buyer. The CEO, CFO and CIO want different things from the same deal.

Self-check before an executive meeting

• You can name the measures their pay depends on, or for a private company, the priorities they've stated publicly.
• Your opening line uses one of those measures, not your product name.
• Your numbers use their figures where possible, and you've written a downside case.
• Security documents are ready before they're requested.
• You know the single decision you're asking for, and what happens next if they say yes.

Next step: map who else signs off on the deal with the economic buyer guide.