A headline at this level is not a job title and not a slogan. It is the one line that decides whether somebody with a seat to fill reads any further.
Three audiences, wanting different things: a search professional scanning for a match, an executive deciding whether to reply to your message, and a board member checking you out after somebody mentioned your name. All three are answering the same question — what is this person for — and most headlines answer a different one, which is what this person's job title currently is.
Passionate, driven, results-oriented. They are unfalsifiable, which is exactly why they carry no information.
A title that made sense in one company reads as noise everywhere else.
It answers a question nobody asked yet and shifts the read from what you do to what you need.
The headline answers what you are for. Almost every weak one answers what you are currently called.
Describe the work, not the gap. An executive between roles who describes their function and altitude plainly reads as an executive; the same person leading with availability reads as a candidate. The information is identical and the framing is not.
Show it to somebody two levels above you in a different sector and ask what you do and what you would be hired for. If the answer takes more than a sentence, the headline is doing less work than it appears to.
A board hires a story it can repeat. How to build one from twenty years of circumstance without inflating anything.
Read → The senior interviewSenior interviews are decided on judgement, not answers. Preparing for them is therefore a different exercise from preparing for any interview you have had before.
Read → The reverse job searchFifteen years of colleagues is the most valuable and least used asset in a senior search. How to see it clearly, and how to ask without spending it badly.
Read →A short call, your target list, and an honest answer about whether this fits how you are running your search.