Charisma is easy to fake. Edge isn’t.
Charisma is easy to fake. Edge isn’t.
At Eagle Talon, we don’t back CEOs because they look the part.
We look for what doesn’t show up on the résumé — the behavioral signals that predict they will compound shareholder value.
Nikhil Varty, former CEO of ServiceMaster® Brands, is a case study in operational edge — delivering results while building high-performance cultures.
In his former roles, he:
• Slept at the office — not for show, but because the work wasn’t done
• Had his team cook Indian food together — building trust without ego or hierarchy
• Built a de novo venture inside a legacy business — bought and scaled it with an ownership mindset
• Got the call when operations broke — trusted to solve what others couldn’t
At ServiceMaster, he wasn’t the obvious pick for CEO — but he spun off the American Home Shield division as Frontdoor (FTDR), turned around Terminix, and sold it within two years to what is now Rentokil Terminix.
Operational edge is the:
→ Creativity to build within constraints
→ Trust to be handed the hardest problems
→ Drive to outwork perception
→ Humility to lead without ego — building trust, culture, and support
At Eagle Talon, this is what we look for.
Not just who communicates like a leader — but who walks the talk and receives the call when everything is on the line.