Expertise

Three areas, one continuous process.

Leadership and succession, the board and its governance, and the family’s ownership of what it has built.

My work falls into three areas. They are described separately because that is usually how they arrive. They are rarely separate in practice: a leadership question turns out to rest on a governance question, and a governance question turns out to be about a family conversation nobody has had.

Most engagements begin with the first of the three, because a leadership or succession question is usually what makes a family or a board pick up the telephone. It is rarely where the conversation ends.

Leadership & Succession

Typical mandates

The next generation in new roles.
Helping family members explore where they can contribute most effectively, in management, on the board or as active owners, and prepare to assume these roles.
An external CEO in a family-owned business.
Building a shared understanding with the family and the board of the mandate, the profile required and the conditions that will enable an external leader to succeed.
Succession of a long-serving CEO.
Working with the owners and the board to surface what the business will need in its next chapter and shape a succession and transition process suited to the situation.
Family CEO succession.
Supporting the family in exploring the available options, objectively assessing potential family successors and developing a shared understanding of their strengths, readiness and development needs.
The leadership team for the company's next chapter.
Creating a framework in which owners, the board and senior leaders can review existing capabilities together, identify what else will be needed and agree on how the leadership team should evolve.

Governance

Typical mandates

Evolution of the board.
Engaging board members and owners in a shared reflection on its composition, capabilities and roles to prepare for the next chapter of both the business and the family.
Collaboration between family and independent directors.
Creating the conditions for an open dialogue about roles, expectations and responsibilities, enabling effective collaboration while preserving the family's voice on the board.
Governance that keeps pace with growth.
Helping the family surface the limitations of existing structures and build a clear allocation of roles, responsibilities and decision-making between the family, owners, board and management as the business and the family grow.
An independent perspective on business leadership.
Bringing an external perspective and creating a framework in which the board can reach well-founded decisions about the CEO, the leadership team and succession.
Succession to the Board Chair.
Developing a shared understanding of the future role of the Chair, defining the required profile together and preparing a well-managed transition.

Family & Ownership

Typical mandates

Different visions of the future.
Creating a structured setting in which the different perspectives can surface, expectations are better understood and a shared direction can be built.
Shared ownership among siblings and cousins.
Helping family members define how they want to exercise ownership together, the roles and responsibilities they will assume, how they will make decisions and how they wish to engage with the business.
Preparing the next generation.
Supporting future owners as they explore their role, responsibilities and the different ways in which they wish to contribute to the family enterprise.
Ownership transition across generations.
Creating a space in which family members can express their expectations and develop a shared understanding of their future roles and responsibilities before structures and agreements are formalised.
Clarity across family, ownership and business roles.
Helping family members make their different roles visible, clarify their boundaries together and agree on appropriate responsibilities and decision-making processes.

Leadership & Succession · Board & Governance · Family & Ownership

Three areas. One continuous process.

Continuity is not a fourth area. It is what the other three exist to protect, and it does not stop when a transition does.

What I mean by continuity

Most of this work begins with a conversation about which of the three you are actually facing.

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