The Executive Succession Guide

The version that fails is a grid of names produced annually, where each executive nominates a direct report as their successor and nobody tests whether that person could actually do the job. The version that works is a recurring board conversation about the consequences of losing specific people, and what is being done about it now.

• Which roles would cause real damage if vacated without notice, and what kind of damage.
• What happens in the first week of a sudden departure — decisions, customers, banks, staff.
• Who internally could hold the role temporarily, honestly assessed.
• What the business would need in a permanent replacement, which is rarely a copy of the incumbent.
• What knowledge, relationships and access exist only in one person's head or inbox.

• Give genuine ownership of a decision area, with the authority and the consequences attached.
• Expose potential successors to the board, to customers at a senior level, and to bad news as well as good.
• Assess readiness against the role as it will need to be, not the role as it is today.
• Be honest about gaps and timescales. A successor who is three years away should be told that, with a plan.
• Accept that an internal successor may not exist, and that concluding so early is cheaper than concluding it late.

Running an external search alongside an internal candidacy is defensible where the stakes justify it — provided the internal candidate is told. Discovering it by accident is how businesses lose both the appointment and the incumbent.

1. Agree the end date and the degree of confidentiality required before anything else.
2. Define the role for the next phase of the business, rather than re-advertising the outgoing executive's job description.
3. Start the search early enough to absorb notice periods, which are frequently three to six months at this level.
4. Plan an overlap where relationships need transferring in person.
5. Sequence the announcement: board, then the team affected, then customers and suppliers who matter, then externally.
6. Define the outgoing executive's role after the transition, if any, so authority does not remain ambiguous.

1. Secure decision continuity: who signs, approves and decides from tomorrow morning.
2. Protect access — systems, banking, contracts and records — as a matter of routine, not suspicion.
3. Communicate deliberately and early to staff and to the customers, lenders or suppliers who will notice.
4. Put credible cover in place, internally or through an interim appointment.
5. Only then define the permanent requirement, with the benefit of seeing the function without its incumbent.

Founder transition combines three separate questions that are frequently treated as one: who runs the business day to day, who owns it, and what role the founder holds afterwards. Separating them makes each answerable.

• Operational succession — usually a Managing Director or Chief Operating Officer appointment, with real authority rather than delegated errands.
• Ownership — shareholding, sale, management buy-out or family transfer, each with tax and legal consequences requiring qualified advice.
• The founder's future role — Chair, non-executive, consultant or exit, defined explicitly and with a date.

The common failure is appointing a Managing Director while the founder retains every material decision. The appointment is then blamed for a lack of impact it was never permitted to have.

• Keep the internal circle small and explicit about who knows.
• Approach the market without identifying the business until the appropriate stage.
• Handle candidates from customers, suppliers and competitors carefully — discretion protects both sides.
• Take advice on process, particularly where performance or contractual exit is involved.
• Plan the announcement and handover before an offer is made, not after it is accepted.

• Document pricing logic, contract history, supplier terms and the reasoning behind current structure.
• Introduce key relationships in person, not by email handover list.
• Record decisions that are pending, and the reasoning already applied to them.
• Set the incoming executive's mandate in writing, including authority and reporting.
• Hold the mandate steady for the first two quarters — changing it repeatedly is the most reliable way to make a good appointment look like a bad one.

A succession plan should be revisited at board level at least annually, and immediately after any material change in structure, ownership or strategy.