Ownership and Leadership Succession

• Generational Transitions
• Succession Planning
• Executive Search – SEE RECENT CLIENTS BELOW
• Shared Legacy, Mission and Values

More About Leadership Succession

Sam has served more than 25 multi-generational family enterprises by facilitating their succession planning processes, conducting executive searches, and supporting the successful execution of their leadership and ownership transitions.

• Ownership & Management Succession Across Generations
  • Working with their estate planning attorney and tax accountant, we helped a family business make the ownership and leadership transition from the second to the third generation. Two brothers were ready to retire after having owned and developed real estate through a holding company and a series of project specific LLCs. Of the seven cousins in the third generation, only three worked in the family’s urban mixed-use development company while the other four had small ownership stakes in several properties. Using an estate plan proposed by the family attorney, we engaged the entire family in a process of educating all family members about the rights and responsibilities of ownership and helping them establish a multi-generational board with independent, non-family members. Then, we worked with retiring generation of leaders and those who were to assume management of the business on a detailed plan of succession and leadership development.
• Leadership Succession in the Family Business
  • One 4th generation family business engaged us to assist them in planning for and implementing a leadership succession plan. Although two generations of cousins had been working together for almost 20 years, the retiring generation found themselves having difficulty giving full authority to their children. We engaged the team of six working family members in a shared values and strategic visioning process to gain a consensus on the future direction of the business. Through this process, we identified the capabilities required of the future leaders of the company.Next, we worked with four members of the 4th generation to develop a leadership succession plan, including the roles of key non-family executives and the identification of professional development needs of each successor. At the same time, we worked with the retiring family members to develop their individual transition plans. The resulting generational transition in leadership took place over a three-year period and left the company with a new leadership team supported by mentors who enjoyed their retirement roles.
• Search for a Non-Family VP of Manufacturing and Other Positions
  • Having recently completed a generational transition in the ownership and leadership of his large second generation family retail business, the President & CEO wanted to fill-out his senior leadership team with non-family executives who could bring new capabilities to the company and serve as potential mentors to his three children who were working in the business. We helped the President and his leadership team update the company’s Shared Values, develop a Strategic Plan, and restructure its organization to support new operating initiatives. In this process, we identified three new senior level positions that required external searches. Working with a Search Committee comprised of both working family members and non-family executives, we sourced and interviewed candidates for each position, and we presented the three best candidates for each to the Search Committee for final interviews and recommendations to the President. With our search assistance, the President & CEO hired three new members of his senior leadership team in a two-year period.
• Search for Next Generation CFO
  • We assisted our client in planning for and managing a generational leadership transition in the family business in which three “next generation” cousins would be assuming operational leadership roles. The cousins had some financial management experience, but the company’s CFO was retiring with his uncle, the CEO. The new management team found themselves without a qualified internal candidate and retained us to conduct a search for a new CFO. We worked with the cousins and their non-family executives who comprised the senior leadership team to define the position and identify the key capabilities and experience required. Finding qualified candidates was not difficult, but the best candidate needed to share the companies well-defined Values and fit with the leadership styles of the other team members. We sourced and interviewed numerous candidates, brought five in for interviews with the senior leadership team, and administered the Insights Leadership Styles profile to the final two candidates. Almost immediately, the candidate chosen as the best fit demonstrated her worth and became a key member of the leadership team.

• RECENT NONPROFIT EXECUTIVE SEARCH CLIENTS INCLUDE:

Agecroft Hall (Richmond)

FAHASS (Fredericksburg)

Virginia Beach SPCA

YWCA of Richmond

St. James’s Children’s Center

Peter Paul Development Center