The CEO should initiate an alert to department managers to speak privately with affected staff. This is because the trade secret is confidential and should not be disclosed to the public. Additionally, the CEO should verify legal notification requirements of PII and SPII in the legal and human resource departments to ensure compliance with data protection laws.
References: CompTIA CySA+ Study Guide: Exam CS0-002, 2nd Edition, Chapter 4, "Data Protection and Privacy Practices", page 194; CompTIA CySA+ Certification Exam Objectives Version 4.0, Domain 4.0
"Compliance and Assessment", Objective 4.1 "Given a scenario, analyze data as part of a security incident", Sub-objective "Data classification levels", page 23