I wouldn't suggest it at all. Especially for a brand new venture as the original post suggests. I would love to hear why the people responsible for for opening this establishment have chosen to go this route and why they think this would be the best way to proceed. Even a experienced chef will have his or her's hands full opening a new restaurant.
I personally didn't take on my first executive chef role until I was in my 30's after working in the business for 12 or so years and after several stages as a sous chef. And trust me, I still had several bumps in the road and hard lessons to learn along the way. I'm not knocking the value of a culinary education by any means, even though I'm not formally trained. You simply just cannot teach someone a real kitchen sense of urgency, good hiring and purchasing practices in a classroom environment.
I have been on the opening team of several brand new ventures during my time in food service and I do know from experience that opening a new restaurant is one of the hardest things I've ever done.
I also can count on one finger the only person I've ever known that has successfully taken on an executive chef role straight out of culinary school. I can also count on all my fingers and toes the number of seemingly, well qualified chefs who didn't cut the mustard when they were hired to open a new place, myself included.
Also, from experience, I've witnessed that there is a tendency of the young cook, fresh out of school that will think that since they are now a "Chef" that they aren't required to work the line or help clean up at the end of shifts. But they are very eager to tell you about their idea for a special that has 40 expensive ingredients and requires 20 steps and 4 sauté pans to plate up one serving.
Almost all of all them think they are going to end up on TV or on the cover of a magazine.
Having dealt with my share of interns from one of the local culinary programs, I can tell you that like everything else in life, the really talented good ones are few and far between. I wouldn't have suggested that even the best ones try to take on a head position right after graduation. I could tell you some interesting stories about the not so good interns, that's for sure. And then there are the older, approaching middle age people enrolled in culinary school who for some unknown reason have chosen to pursue a career in food service which are most of the time probably even worse.
A lot of them used to their former jobs selling insurance or the like have no idea of the toll this occupation has on your personal life and social skills. A lot of them are convinced that there are lots of jobs in restaurants where you finish at 5 PM so you can spend time with your family.
Personally, If they are insistent on some fresh faced and eager young gun straight out of school, I would also hire a consulting chef for the first 3-4 months or so, with some real world experience to work side by side with their newly hired culinary grad. That way there is some one to help guide them with things like hiring the staff, building good relationships with purveyors (these guys can smell blood in the water if they think they can take advantage of someone that isn't sure about what they are doing. They work on commission after all), those frighteningly expensive first initial orders and costing out and designing a menu that can be properly executed with the equipment and space that this new establishment will have. That way you also have sort of hedged your bet with a back-up plan having another person around if-and-or when, the new culinary grad hangs his or herself with the very lengthy rope that goes along with opening up a new food service establishment.