Executive Resume Example: a Full Worked Sample with Commentary

Title under the name carries the positioning

Most candidates lead with their current job title. This resume leads with a positioning line: "GM Operations · Financial Services." That single line tells a reader Catherine's seniority, function, and sector before they read another word. Compare to "General Manager Operations, [Specific Company Name]" — which tells the reader the same thing in twice the space and tied to a specific employer.

Contact details are minimal. Sydney is enough — no street address. One email, one phone number, one LinkedIn URL. No social media handles, no photo, no graphic elements. Executive resumes are read by search consultants and chairs; visual minimalism reads as confidence.

Three sentences that make the argument

This section is the resume's most important paragraph. Three sentences carrying three pieces of work.

Sentence 1 names the executive's centre of gravity — the experience, the sector, and the current role — in a way that immediately establishes seniority and frame. Note what it doesn't do: it doesn't claim "results-driven" or "strategic visionary" or any of the adjective stack that executive resumes routinely lead with.

Sentence 2 names the executive's pattern — the recurring contribution Catherine makes wherever she goes. Translating regulatory and risk obligations into operational disciplines is a specific thing, not a generic claim. A reader can immediately picture what Catherine does that other GM Operations candidates might not.

Sentence 3 names the type of role Catherine is suited to. Not the title; the conditions. "Sectors where operational complexity, compliance density, and customer outcome accountability intersect" is far more useful to a search consultant than "seeking COO opportunities in financial services." It signals what Catherine cares about, where she performs, and what she'd reject.

Three sentences. No filler. The positioning statement is doing the work the rest of the resume will support.

Six selected capabilities, each with a descriptor

This is the most distinctive section in an executive resume and the one most candidates get wrong. Six is the right number for executive level — three is too few to demonstrate breadth, eight or more reads as a job description. But the six should not appear as a bullet list of labels. Each capability needs a descriptor of two or three sentences that says, in this specific candidate's hands, what that capability actually looks like.

The capabilities themselves are selected, not asserted. They are chosen from a broader pool of things Catherine could legitimately claim, calibrated to the COO roles she's being positioned for — not to the responsibilities she currently holds. A different role target would select a different six. This is the executive resume positioning method: the capabilities are an editorial choice the writer makes on behalf of the candidate, not a list of everything the candidate can do.

Each descriptor does specific work. It references real evidence (the four-state restructure, the ASIC EU, the customer outcomes framework) but it doesn't repeat the achievements word-for-word from the roles below. Instead, the descriptor names the shape of the capability — what kind of regulatory engagement, what kind of operating model transformation — so the reader has a frame for the role-level achievements that follow.

Generic capability words you won't see here: "leadership," "strategic," "results-driven," "stakeholder management." These read as filler at the executive level. The specific capabilities, with descriptor paragraphs that show texture, replace them.

Position context, then duties, then achievements — separated

Each role on this resume is structured into three distinct parts, and the separation matters. Most candidates' resumes muddle them together into one block, which weakens both dimensions.

Position context comes first — a short paragraph naming the reporting line, the scope of the role, the team size, and the budget. The context establishes the frame within which everything below should be read. A "$7.2M cost-out" achievement reads differently against a $42M budget than it would against a $500M budget. The reader needs the context to calibrate.

Key duties come second — a short paragraph describing what the role required of Catherine. This is the accountability layer: what the position holder is responsible for, regardless of who fills it. Duties describe the role; they are written in present tense for current roles and past tense for past roles, and they should be specific enough that the reader understands the operating environment. Without a duties section, the reader has to reverse-engineer the role's accountabilities from the achievements, which is a poor use of their time.

Key achievements come third — a bullet list of what Catherine actually did with the role, in terms of consequence rather than activity. "Closed all 14 commitments under the ASIC enforceable undertaking" describes consequence; "managed the operational remediation program" would only describe activity. The achievements are what distinguish Catherine from other executives who held similar accountabilities.

The separation lets a skim reader pick up the role's scope from the duties paragraph and Catherine's specific contribution from the achievements. The two together give the reader a clear picture of both the position and the person.

Older roles compress. The current role gets a full duties paragraph and five achievements; the role from 2014–2017 keeps the duties/achievements structure but with only two achievements. The eight years before that compress into one paragraph with no separation at all. This is correct — the reader's interest in roles older than seven or eight years is to confirm a coherent career trajectory, not to assess achievements at depth.

Selected, not exhaustive

This section lists what's relevant for the target role — the AICD course, the NED appointment, the Audit and Risk Committee membership — not everything the executive has ever been involved with. Charity committee work that doesn't speak to board readiness or governance experience belongs in a "personal interests" line at the bottom, if anywhere.

For executives targeting board or board-adjacent roles, this section often grows. For executives targeting operational executive roles, it stays tight. The principle is the same: every line included should support the positioning.

At the bottom, not the top

Education sits at the bottom of executive resumes. For graduates and early-career candidates education is the most current and relevant credential; for executives, it's a fact that supports the experience above it. Listing the MBA under the positioning statement would suggest the candidate is leaning on the credential rather than the track record.

GAICD and FINSIA membership are included because they're relevant to the executive's positioning around governance and financial services. Memberships that don't speak to the target role get cut.