Andreas Pettersson

Andreas Pettersson is the founder and CEO of Leaders ADAPT, an executive coaching and AI leadership advisory practice based in Cypress, Orange County, California. He is a three time CEO. He built Arcules from zero to more than 150 employees, sold it to Canon, and became Canon's youngest standalone CEO. He created the ADAPT framework, hosts the Adapt or Die podcast, and wrote Power Without Permission with thirteen women leaders.

What he does now

Leaders ADAPT works with founders and CEOs scaling from seven to eight figures. The work is executive coaching, CEO masterminds, and AI leadership advisory, and it is aimed at one problem: the founder who has become the bottleneck in the company they built.

That is not a time management problem. That is an architecture problem, and it does not get solved by working more hours.

What he built before

Andreas founded Arcules, an AI powered cloud video surveillance platform, and scaled it from zero to over 150 employees before Canon acquired it. After the acquisition he became the youngest standalone CEO in Canon's group. Then Arcules merged with another Canon company, and the thing he built from nothing became part of something he no longer controlled.

He built and sold an AI company before ChatGPT existed. That matters for one reason only: when he talks to a CEO about where to place AI in a business, he is describing a road he has already walked, not a trend he has read about.

The ADAPT framework

ADAPT is the five step leadership framework Andreas built from that experience and now uses with founders and executives:

• Awareness. See the pattern you are actually running, not the one you believe you run.
• Direction. Decide where the company is going, in terms specific enough to say no with.
• Action. Move on the few things that carry the weight.
• Purpose. Anchor the work to something that survives a bad quarter.
• Transformation. Change the architecture, so the result holds without you.

Writing and speaking

Andreas wrote Power Without Permission with thirteen women leaders, published in September 2025, and AI Leadership Mastermind, a book for non technical CEOs. He hosts the Adapt or Die podcast and speaks on leadership, decision making, and AI adoption for executive teams. His keynotes and workshops run for leadership teams and conferences.

Background

He is Swedish and lives in Orange County, California. The Nordic default is flat, direct, and low on ceremony, and he has said that it reads as too quiet in an American room. He has had to learn to amplify. That habit shows up in the coaching: he goes blunt on the pattern and stays warm with the person inside it.

Who he works with

If you want a corporate approved leadership programme with a certificate at the end, this is not it. If you are a founder or CEO who has outgrown the way you are currently running the company, and you want someone who has sat in the chair, you will find what you need here.

See the CEO mastermind See 1:1 coaching

Elsewhere

Andreas on LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Fast Company, TechTarget, and YouTube.