Vistage Chair | Leader Transcend
Helping business leaders grow stronger companies, become better leaders, and navigate the challenges of leadership—without having to figure it all out alone.
Steve Kahn brings more than 35 years of entrepreneurial, operational, and leadership experience to his role as a Vistage Chair with Leader Transcend.
Throughout his career, Steve has experienced business ownership from the inside—the opportunities, the uncertainty, the difficult decisions, the responsibility for employees and customers, and the constant challenge of turning strategy into execution.
He understands that leadership can be rewarding, but it can also be lonely. Even highly successful business leaders need a trusted environment where they can challenge their assumptions, gain perspective, and work through their most important decisions.
That experience is at the heart of Steve’s work as a Vistage Chair.
Steve founded SK Archiving & Retrieval Services in 1989 and grew the business organically from startup to approximately $5 million in annual revenue.
Over nearly three decades, he built an organization serving more than 1,500 clients, including major healthcare institutions such as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NYU Medicine, and Northwell Health. The company managed more than 300,000 square feet of warehouse and records infrastructure and evolved alongside major changes in technology, including digitization, SaaS platforms, and web-based client systems.
Steve ultimately guided the company to a successful acquisition by a Fortune 500 company.
That journey gave him firsthand experience with many of the challenges Vistage members face today: building a leadership team, managing growth, creating scalable processes, developing people, managing P&L, negotiating contracts, retaining clients, adopting new technology, and preparing a business for its next chapter.
Steve ultimately guided the company to a successful acquisition by a Fortune 500 company—giving him firsthand experience with building leadership teams, managing P&L, scaling operations, and preparing a business for its next chapter.
Years Experience
Clients Served
Annual Revenue
Acquisition
Following his healthcare services business, Steve continued his entrepreneurial journey as owner and operator of Gyrolicious Grill in Jericho, New York—managing every aspect of the business for eight years.
His experience across very different industries reinforced a critical insight: while every company is different, leaders wrestle with the same fundamental questions.
Owner-Operator, 8 years, Jericho NY
Founder & CEO, 30 years, Healthcare
Full financial accountability across both businesses
Hiring, culture, performance & accountability
And perhaps most importantly:
Steve creates an environment where CEOs, business owners, and senior executives can step outside the daily demands of running their organizations and focus on the decisions that will have the greatest impact on their businesses and their lives.
Steve believes great leaders become even better when they surround themselves with other accomplished leaders who are willing to challenge, support, and learn from one another.
His role isn’t to tell members how to run their companies. It is to ask the questions that need to be asked, help members examine problems from different perspectives, hold them accountable to commitments they make, and bring together a trusted community of peers who help one another become better leaders.
A confidential group of accomplished CEOs who challenge and support one another
Step back from the day-to-day and focus on the decisions that matter most
Steve brings a particularly strong operational perspective to the Leader Transcend community—with experience spanning P&L management, strategic planning, process improvement, multi-site operations, team development, client relationships, vendor negotiations, compliance, KPI management, and organizational scaling.
He also has a strong interest in how emerging technology—particularly artificial intelligence—can help businesses operate more efficiently. He actively works with AI tools and explores practical applications for process improvement, documentation, marketing, research, automation, and business workflows.
P&L, multi-site operations, vendor negotiations, compliance
Practical AI adoption for business workflows & efficiency
Growth strategy, KPI management, organizational scaling
Leadership team building, hiring, performance accountability
Steve’s career has taken him from startup entrepreneur to CEO, from building and scaling an organization to navigating a Fortune 500 acquisition, and from one industry to another.
Today, he brings those experiences to Leader Transcend and Vistage with one purpose: helping other business leaders make better decisions, build stronger organizations, and achieve breakthroughs—without carrying the weight of leadership alone.
Bachelor of Science in Business Management
Long Island University, CW Post
Continuing Education in Culinary Arts
Culinary Institute of America
If you’re a CEO, business owner, or senior executive looking for a confidential peer advisory community that will challenge your thinking, broaden your perspective, and help you become a better leader, we invite you to start a conversation with Steve.
Discover whether the Leader Transcend Vistage community is right for you.
