Claude for Executives: How a Partner, Principal or CEO Should Start
Dr. Leigh Coney
Founder, WorkWise Solutions
November 4, 2026
5 min read
TLDR: Claude for executives starts with reading and preparing: a partner, principal or CEO hands it the 200-page board pack, the prep for the next meeting and the first draft of a reply, then reads what comes back. Twenty minutes a day for two weeks, on your own work, teaches more than a course. Use a seat on the firm's business plan, keep one project per deal, company or board, and never send Claude's work to an LP, lender or board unread. WorkWise Solutions runs a 90-minute Executive Briefing for leadership teams of up to 50 people, for $7,500.
I run the Executive Briefing for leadership teams through WorkWise Solutions: 90 minutes, live online, for up to 50 people, $7,500. It leaves a decision memo and 90-day starter recommendations. The fee credits in full toward any program booked within 90 days.
Table of Contents
1. The Short Answer
An executive's first use of Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, is reading and preparing: the 200-page board pack, the prep for tomorrow's meeting, the first draft of a reply. Claude does each in minutes, and you read the result before you rely on it.
Building things can wait. Twenty minutes a day for two weeks, on your own work, will teach you more than a course.
Work on the firm's business plan, in one project per deal, company or board, and keep every decision yours.
2. Four Jobs to Hand Over in Week One
Take these in order. Each one ends with you reading what Claude wrote.
Give Claude the board pack. Ask what changed since last quarter, what is missing and which pages to read first. Then read those pages.
Ask for the questions the other side is likely to raise, and the page where each answer sits.
Paste the thread, say what you want to happen, and edit the draft into your own voice before it goes.
Once a request works every time, schedule it to run daily, weekly or on weekdays, such as a Monday summary of last week's portfolio updates.
Job 4 uses scheduled tasks, which run a request on a timetable. Anthropic's Help Center says they work on all paid plans, in Cowork, the mode of Claude's desktop app that carries out multi-step tasks. They run "hourly, daily, weekly, on weekdays, or manually" and keep running while your computer is asleep, with one exception: "If a scheduled task requires local files or apps, it will only run locally."
The order matters. You learn what Claude gets wrong on work you can check in five minutes.
3. What to Set Up First
- A seat on the firm's business plan. On Claude Team and Enterprise, Anthropic's business plans, your inputs are not used to train its models by default (Privacy Center). Free, Pro and Max are consumer plans, where chats can train models unless you opt out. Team costs $25 a seat a month, or $20 billed annually (Anthropic pricing).
- One project per deal, company or board. A project is a workspace in Claude that keeps one matter's documents and instructions together, so you stop re-uploading the pack and re-explaining the deal.
- The Office add-ins, only if the firm runs on Office. Anthropic's add-ins, which put Claude inside Excel, Word and PowerPoint, are generally available on every paid plan. Claude for Outlook is "currently in beta", an early test version. Add-in activity "is not included in Enterprise audit logs", the records a compliance team reviews, so ask your compliance lead before using them on client or deal work.
Anthropic's Microsoft 365 page says: "Nothing goes out or gets saved until you say so." Read before you say so.
Skills, saved instructions Claude reuses for one task, can wait until a job works by hand.
4. What Not to Hand Over
- Decisions. Ask Claude for the case for and against. The call stays yours.
- Anything that reaches an LP, a lender or a board unread. Read every word that leaves under your name.
- Numbers you have not checked. Anthropic does not recommend Claude for Excel for audit-critical calculations without verification. If a figure matters, someone ties it to the source.
Claude makes a fast first reader. You stay the last one.
5. How Executives Learn It
Anthropic's Claude Academy offers "Free courses, tutorials, and use cases from Anthropic's education team." Its FAQ adds: "You don't need a paid plan, and you don't need a work account." Sign in with a free Claude account, and each course you finish earns a badge you can download as a PDF or add to LinkedIn. None is aimed at executives specifically, but three suit a busy one:
- Claude 101: 13 lessons, about 2.5 hours, "the starting point for anyone bringing Claude into their everyday work."
- Building Effective Human-Agent Teams: a beta course of about 45 minutes, with "No technical background needed".
- AI Capabilities and Limitations: 13 lessons, about 3.5 hours.
A course teaches the tool. A leadership team also has to agree the rules: which plan, what data goes in, who reads what goes out. That fits in one 90-minute briefing with everyone in the room. The decisions only leadership can make are set out in The Partner's 90-Minute AI Briefing.
The habit comes from the 20 minutes a day. The rules come from the room.
6. Where to Start
- Get a seat on the firm's business plan.
- Make one project for the deal, company or board that takes most of your week.
- Spend 20 minutes a day for two weeks on jobs 1 to 3.
- Keep a list of what Claude got right and what you fixed.
- Agree the rules as a leadership team before anyone's use goes beyond reading and drafting.
If your team has never used AI, start it with Claude Training for Beginners.
WorkWise Solutions, which publishes this guide, runs that leadership session as the Executive Briefing: 90 minutes, live online, for up to 50 people, $7,500. It covers where adoption stands, what is coming and the risks leadership owns, and leaves a decision memo and 90-day starter recommendations. The fee credits in full toward any program booked within 90 days; every price is on the pricing page.
Not a fit if your leadership team already uses Claude daily and has its rules in writing.
"If you're on the fence, start simple: ask Claude to read a doc and summarize it, then keep pushing the boundaries."
Alice Fong, Anthropic corporate finance and strategy team, in Anthropic's article on how its finance team uses Claude (May 22, 2026)
- •An executive's first use of Claude is reading and preparing: the 200-page board pack, the prep for the next meeting and the first draft of a reply, each read before anyone relies on it.
- •Executives should use a seat on the firm's business plan, Claude Team or Enterprise, where inputs are not used to train models by default; Free, Pro and Max run on consumer terms.
- •Scheduled tasks, available on all paid Claude plans, run a request hourly, daily, weekly, on weekdays or manually, and keep running while the computer is asleep unless they need local files.
- •Claude for Outlook is in beta, and activity in Anthropic's Office add-ins is not included in Enterprise audit logs, so an executive checks with compliance before using them on client or deal work.
- •Anthropic's free Claude 101 course takes about 2.5 hours over 13 lessons, but no Anthropic course is aimed at executives, so a leadership team still has to agree its own rules.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should an executive start using Claude?
Start with reading and preparing. Give Claude the board pack and ask what changed, ask it for the questions the next meeting will raise, and have it draft a reply you then edit. Use a seat on the firm's business plan, such as Claude Team, where business data is not used to train models by default, and keep one project per deal, company or board. Spend about 20 minutes a day for two weeks, and read everything before it goes to an LP, lender or board.
How much time does an executive need to learn Claude?
Plan on about 20 minutes a day for two weeks, on real work, to learn where Claude helps and where it needs checking. Anthropic's free Claude 101 course on Claude Academy takes about 2.5 hours over 13 lessons, and its beta course Building Effective Human-Agent Teams takes about 45 minutes, with no technical background needed. Neither is aimed at executives specifically. A leadership team also needs one meeting to agree its rules: which plan, what data goes in and who checks what goes out.
Who offers Claude training for executives?
Anthropic's Claude Academy offers free, self-paced courses, such as Claude 101 at about 2.5 hours, though none is aimed at executives specifically. WorkWise Solutions runs a 90-minute Executive Briefing for leadership teams of up to 50 people, live online, for $7,500. It leaves a decision memo and 90-day starter recommendations, and the fee credits in full toward any program booked within 90 days. The two fit together: the free course teaches the tool, and the briefing settles the firm's rules.
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Want your leadership team starting Claude on the same rules?
Tell me what your partners are asking about Claude and I'll build the Executive Briefing around it: 90 minutes for up to 50 people, $7,500, ending in a decision memo and 90-day starter recommendations. The fee credits in full toward any program booked within 90 days.