Getting a new job or a big promotion is like building a house: You need to get the foundation right for both. With a job, the quick-drying cement is how well you do in your first hundred days, since they establish the foundation for long-term momentum and great performance.

Tom Neff and Jim Citrin are two of the world’s leading experts on leadership and career success. As key figures at Spencer Stuart (hailed by the Wall Street Journal as the number one brand name in executive search), they must understand the criteria for success when they recruit top executives for new leadership positions.

Through compelling, first-hand stories you will hear from people such as Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, on how his career has been a series of successive first hundred days. Larry Summers, president of Harvard University, talks candidly about what he could have done differently in his early days to avoid dissipating goodwill among the diverse constituencies important for his future success. Gary Kusin of Kinko’s shares the specifics of the hundred-day action plan he crafted for himself before he started his new job. Paul Pressler of Gap Inc. shows how he developed a general strategic agenda that established fundamental principles and goals, waiting to prepare a more detailed strategic plan until later in his tenure.