How Fast-Growing Companies Can Make Better Decisions

Harvard Business School's Tatiana Sandino argues that scale-up founders face a structural decision-making breaking point where both over-centralization and over-decentralization fail — the answer is "structured empowerment," a third path that combines standardized best-practice options with local accountability for results. For SEA mid-market CEOs, this reframes the classic control-vs-agility dilemma into a concrete governance design challenge. Boards should pressure-test whether the CEO has operationalized this third path or is oscillating between the two failing poles.