Why People Moves Are Signals
Strategy does not execute itself; someone has to be hired to carry it out, and that hire is usually public before the strategy is. That is the whole case for watching people. A senior appointment is costly, visible and hard to reverse, which is exactly what makes it informative, and it tends to arrive before the site, the financing or the product it makes possible. Faraday's read is that the signal lives in sequences rather than single moves: Digital Realty's December 2022 change of chief executive mattered partly because it announced the next appointment still to come. One hire is an anecdote. A dated chain of hires pointing the same way, later confirmed by what the company builds, is evidence worth acting on.
Knowledge check
Why is a senior executive appointment generally more informative than a press release promising growth in a new market?
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An appointment is a costly signal: the company commits money, reputation and a hard-to-reverse decision, and at listed companies it discloses the move in a regulated filing. A promise in a press release costs little to make. The expense and irreversibility of the hire are what give it weight, though it still indicates direction rather than proving a plan.