Coaching for succession and leadership in family businesses
When family, ownership and leadership meet in one role.
I work with managing directors and CEOs who have taken over a family business or are moving towards the handover. Three systems overlap in this role: the family with its history, the ownership with its responsibility and the operational leadership with its expectations. Successors are measured against a predecessor who is often still present, and are expected to build their own authority at the same time. From working with several young CEOs after a family handover and from my own view of owner-led companies, this dynamic is familiar to me. You therefore do not need to explain to me at length why a purely factual decision takes on a family meaning here. I work on your role, your stance and your conversations. Legal, tax and valuation questions belong with your professional advisers.
Succession is a leadership task, not only a handover
Formally, succession is settled once shares and offices have been transferred. It becomes effective in leadership terms only when the organisation follows the new role and the successor trusts themselves to decide within it. The real work lies in between: sorting loyalties, keeping the expectations of the family and of the business apart, winning over long-serving leaders without giving up your own line, and putting the relationship with the predecessor on a workable footing. In my practice it is usually exactly this in-between period that matters. I sort with you what belongs to your role and what you can hand back to others.
- Coaching several young CEOs after a family handover
- Working with owner-led and family-shaped companies across over twenty years of leadership responsibility
- Supporting leaders who carry a handover in the second row
What successors and family businesses bring to me
Clarifying your own role after the handover and building authority that is not borrowed. Clarifying the relationship with the predecessor when they remain present. Keeping family and business expectations apart. Taking decisions the previous generation would have taken differently. Winning over long-serving leaders and employees for a new course. And adjusting your own standards so the load stays bearable over years.
Leadership has a level, succession a context of its own
I work with successors in the managing team, with shareholders handing over and with leaders who carry a handover operationally. Depending on the situation the focus is personal sparring, clarifying the role or preparing difficult conversations. In Berlin in person or online.
Questions about the field of succession and family businesses
- What experience with business succession does Thomas Knoop bring?
- Thomas Knoop has worked with several young CEOs after a family handover and knows family-shaped, owner-led companies from over twenty years of his own leadership responsibility. The focus has been on clarifying the role, authority in the new position, the relationship with the previous generation and leading long-serving teams.
- Who is the coaching for succession intended for?
- For incoming managing directors and CEOs in family businesses, for shareholders handing over and for leaders who carry a handover operationally. The work is on role, stance and conversations, not on the legal or tax structure of the handover.
- Does Thomas Knoop also advise on the legal and tax structure of a succession?
- No. Legal, tax, inheritance, valuation and financing questions belong with the company's professional advisers. Thomas Knoop works on the leadership side of succession: roles, expectations, decisions and conversations. The two fit together well but stay separate.
Does my background fit your situation?
In a free thirty-minute orientation call we clarify where you stand in the succession, what support you are looking for and whether the collaboration fits both sides. In Berlin in person or online, confidential.
Book an orientation call