Family succession is more than naming a successor

Family business succession planning should coordinate five decisions: who owns the company, who leads it, how authority is governed, how the outgoing owner receives liquidity, and what happens if the preferred path proves infeasible. Test a family successor against a written role and operating evidence, not relationship alone. Compare family transfer, management or employee ownership, and an outside sale on the same facts. Keep the outside option measurable until value, funding, governance, tax, and transition work are supportable. Compare family transfer, management or employee ownership, and outside-sale paths through leadership,…