A Forthcoming Book
the
CEO’s
Chair.
What I learned as an 18-year-old kid knocking on the doors of top CEOs.
Conversations with leaders who have built companies and shaped the world - the decisions that defined them, and what excellence, Ihsan, actually looks like day to day.
Confirmed guests include the Chair of Deloitte Canada, the co-CEO of Klaviyo, the CEO of LaunchGood, and the CEO of Infinite Investment Systems - with more being confirmed.
The Book
The advice.
And the road to it.
I'm a business student from Toronto. It started with a podcast - sitting down with senior professionals across the world, asking the questions I actually wanted answers to. Those conversations changed how I saw my own path. But a book can reach so many more people, and leave something that lasts far longer than a feed.
So I started knocking on bigger doors - CEOs and C-suite leaders across the world - and asking if they'd sit down with me. Some said no. A surprising number said yes.
The CEO's Chair does two things at once.
The Advice
How these leaders actually think - how they decide, how they build teams, and the struggles that quietly shaped them.
The Road To It
The part most books leave out: how a student with no network and no introduction got into those rooms in the first place.
The Advice
How these leaders actually think - how they decide, how they build teams, and the struggles that quietly shaped them.
The Road To It
The part most books leave out: how a student with no network and no introduction got into those rooms in the first place.
Because the advice only matters if you believe you can reach the people giving it. I'm writing this for the students who don't come from target schools or elite networks. The whole point is access.
"When no one was watching,
what did you do?"
The Idea
Why I'm
writing this.
I could have kept the conversations to myself. A podcast episode goes out, gets heard, and disappears into the feed. I wanted something that would outlive that - something a student could hold, years from now, and still find useful.
In Arabic there's a word for the standard I'm trying to hold this to: Ihsan - doing your work with excellence as if God is watching, whether anyone else is or not. That's the lens every conversation gets refracted through. Not just what these leaders achieved, but what they did in the quiet parts nobody applauds.
And the second reason: I want students to see that the door opens. I had no network and no introduction. I sent the emails anyway. If this book does one thing, I want it to be that.
The Lineup
The people
already in the room.
A growing roster of leaders who've said yes. There are many more names in the funnel.
Early Readers
What preview readers
are saying.
A small group of early readers has read drafts of the book. These are their words.
Ammar has a way of telling these stories in his own voice while still speaking the corporate language. It made these lessons land for someone like me in a way a normal business book never has.
It reads like sitting in on conversations you'd otherwise never get invited to. I couldn't put it down.
I'm genuinely excited to buy a copy. You can already tell this is going to be a fantastic book.
I like how Ammar ties the business side to philosophy and deeper thinking - it works practically and it makes you think.
Toronto, 2026.
The Author
By Ammar Khan.
I study business at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto. Before starting university I began a podcast, cold-emailing consultants and asking for a coffee. Some replied, most didn't, and I kept sending them. I took a lot of lessons from those conversations, and I'm grateful to everyone who gave me their time.
Since then I've done hundreds of coffee chats, dozens of long-form interviews on the podcast, and built an EdTech startup along the way. Now I'm taking it a step further - knocking on the doors of the world's top CEOs and C-suite executives with a specific ask: sit down with me, so students like the one I used to be can learn from the people usually out of reach.
That's what this book is. Written for the kids without the network. Written by one.
Building at
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