Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
Every CEO is managing uncertainty and complexity. Now imagine layering on exponential revenue growth—like percentage growth in the triple or quadruple digits. That’s what CEOs of companies on the Inc. 5000—Inc.’s annual list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in America—deal with every day. “I liken it to standing in the ‘ready position’ in sports,” says Anne Fulenwider, cofounder and co-CEO of Alloy Health. The company’s 4,503% three-year revenue growth rate earned it the No. 61 spot on the list. “You have to be knees bent, ready to move in any direction at any time,” she says.
Fulenwider is one of several Inc. 5000 founders I spoke with about the special leadership issues fast-growth CEOs face, from retaining their company cultures as their businesses scale to figuring out how to fill a big order that outpaces their production capabilities. Their experiences are inspiring and instructive. After all, many of these founders defied skeptics, launching their ideas without the resources enjoyed by their larger counterparts, yet producing gains that are the envy of the business world.
Together, Inc. 5000 honorees racked up $385 billion in 2025 revenue, employed nearly 1.5 million people, and posted a median three-year growth rate of 130%. The top 500 companies posted a median three-year growth rate of 1,338%.
Ready, Set, Grow
Donie Yamamoto, founder and CEO of Vital Pet Life, No. 3170, dealt with last year’s sweeping tariffs (struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February) and the disruptions they caused her international supply chain by “going back to the values of why we started a company and staying true to it,” she says. Yamamoto began the company, which sells natural health products for cats and dogs, in 2017 when she couldn’t find a clean product to help relieve her dog’s dry skin. She adds, “By just staying true to our mission, it got [us] through the challenges.”
Ali Ansari, CEO of Micro1, says he has learned to embrace the chaos of being a fast-growth company. Micro1, No. 37, works with experts around the world to train artificial intelligence models. Despite the fast pace, Ansari says he is working to build a culture that is “hardcore in the way that we work, but we’re also very kind to each other.” The company distributes a quarterly form titled “Are You Happy?” inviting employees to answer questions about compensation, staff interactions, and other issues. Ansari reads every response himself, then routes feedback to the people who can act on it.
Ultimately though, for Inc. 5000 companies, capitalizing on fast growth is their superpower. Matt McKinney, founder and CEO of the AI-powered logistics platform Loop, No. 10, tells Inc.: “If you can outcompete on speed, that’s a competitive advantage.”
Bringing speed to the nonprofit world
Fast Company has had the opportunity to work with the advertising agency McCann on a few projects, and Modern CEO recently caught up with McCann New York’s CEO, Amber Guild, who just announced that she would become the next CEO of Susan G. Komen, a leading breast cancer organization. Guild, who was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in 2020, says her diagnosis made the nonprofit’s mission deeply personal and also made her acutely aware of how many women don’t get the access and care that she did.
Like the Inc. 5000 CEOs I spoke with this week, Guild is thinking about speed as she steps into her new role on October 1. “My vision is to build a more modern, more connected Komen, one that uses everything technology and data now make possible to bring in more people, move faster, and have more impact,” she says.
Is your company a fast-growth organization? If so, how do you keep your teams moving quickly? Send your answers to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. We will publish the best insights in a future newsletter.
Read more: inspiration from the Inc. 5000
- Oprah loved their charcuterie boards. Now the brand generates $85 million in sales a year
- A nurse practitioner’s hair care company is on track for $269 million
- Inside Replit’s $1 billion vibe-coding empire
