Welcome to The Heartbeat 💚

Nuanced insights that help leaders navigate pressure and complexity — distilled from working with 50,000+ leaders. Written and illustrated by Claire Lew, Founder & CEO of Canopy.

👋 Howdy! Claire here, Founder & CEO at Canopy. Thanks so much for stopping by.

I’m an entrepreneur, coach, advisor, writer, and speaker. Over the past decade, I’ve coached first-time CEOs at scaling startups, advised leaders at Apple and Uber, and trained more than 50,000 managers from companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Wikipedia. My first client was 37signals (creators of Basecamp), and since then, I’ve been a force-multiplier for CEOs navigating growth, pressure, and change. (A little bit more about my story is here, if you’d like.)

While I've been writing on leadership for over 10 years on our own company blog, I’ve found something special here on Substack. The community feels more thoughtful. More creative. More like home. (And as a painter, that means something to me!)

Every week or so in The Heartbeat, I share insights I’m gathering first-hand from my work directly with CEOs & their teams: How encourage your team to move quickly, adapt, and innovate in a changing market especially with AI, how to change direction + priorities at as a leader while minimizing the cost of that change, and how to handle the outright pressure from your team, your customers, your board… and yes, from yourself 😅.

Of course though, if there’s something you’d like for me to write about, please give me a shout (📩 I’m at claire@canopy.is) — I deeply value hearing from leaders outside the organizations I’m directly working with about their observations, challenges, and experiences.

Beyond the newsletter…

Alongside writing here, I partner directly with first-time CEOs & their teams in the following ways:

• CEO Coaching & Strategic Advising - 1:1 partnership with the CEO (especially in first 0 - 18 months) to clarify vision and strategy, make better decisions, and unlock leadership capacity.

• Executive Team Performance - Coaching and advising so your leadership team moves in the same direction, solves problems proactively, and scales decision-making and behaviors to match company growth.

• Leadership Development - Programs, workshops, and tools that equip team members to adapt quickly, increase ownership, and perform well through constant change.

If you’ve recently stepped into the CEO role, are navigating extreme company growth, and/or wanting your team to move with greater urgency in a changing market — I’d love to hear from you.

📩 claire@canopy.is | 📍 canopy.is