FAMILY BUSINESS SUCCESSION
Succession Planning is one of the most important strategic HR operations. It aims at identifying the company’s high-potential and outperforming talents while ensuring their development to prepare them for top management positions.
A mature organization maintains strong succession pipelines at all levels—from executive leadership to front-line roles. This requires having a solid HR function to identify, develop and retain talents. Succession planning is critical to ensure leadership continuity in key positions.
CHAIRMAN SUCCESSION IN FAMILY BUSINESSES
In the context of family businesses, many organizations lack structured succession programs and often struggle to execute the most fundamental HR activities effectively. When considering succession, businesses do focus on their operations; developing succession plans for the CEO and downwards. Yet, they tend to overlook the critical position of Chairman in their succession plans. It is the responsibility of the board and the general assembly to ensure that the chairing of the board always has at least one identified successor.
Chairmanship is a role that could be performed by professional, experienced and non-executive Chairperson, who is capable of performing the requirement of the role.
CEO Succession
In the journey of ensuring a stable and sustainable CEO succession, three key elements must be in place:
1. Availability of Qualified Talent
The company must have a pool of qualified internal talents who can be developed and positioned as potential CEO successors.
2. Mature HR Function
The HR function needs to be sufficiently mature and capable of leading a structured, professional CEO succession program.
3. Clear CEO Career Path
The path to the CEO role must be clearly identified and aligned with the company’s strategy and business model.
Practical Perspective
For example, in marketing-oriented businesses, the natural and recommended path to the CEO position often comes from marketing or commercial functions.
In other organizations, the path may originate from manufacturing, finance, or other core functions.
Some companies choose to keep the CEO succession path open across multiple functions and assess readiness through KPIs and predefined objectives for senior management team members.
