Operational Executive Succession for Family Businesses
In your family business, determining "who's in charge" isn't always straightforward. Founders remain involved, and family shareholders sit on the board. The next generation may be eager to lead, but their role isn't always defined clearly. Titles like CEO or President can only go so far when authority depends on earning trust across the ownership, board, family, and employees.
Many family businesses face challenges when hiring senior executives because they focus on titles rather than responsibilities. It can be unclear whether they need a chief executive officer, president, or general manager. For this discussion, we're referring to the senior-most person on the org chart. Sometimes, that's a chief executive officer; other times, it's an executive vice president, president, or general manager.
Without clarity, even the most talented leaders can struggle.
At Stranberg, we help you define the true mandate of executive leadership in your business, clarifying who owns, who manages, and who makes decisions. Through strategic advisory and targeted recruitment, we identify leaders with the strategic skills to chart a clear path forward, and the humility and relational intelligence to unite diverse stakeholders around that vision.
Family Business Operational Hiring Considerations
Executives maintain the operational fabric that supports the entire family business ecosystem, including the family, employees, customers, and the broader community. Hiring the wrong executive can put your entire business at risk and jeopardize your personal finances and family legacy.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for family businesses to hire executives who are qualified on paper but ultimately fail to work in harmony with the family or meet their expectations. These problems occur when family businesses overlook common, yet equally important, factors.
Governance and Management Structure
One of the biggest mistakes families make is not recognizing that you don't manage a family CEO the same way you manage a non-family one. The way you communicate with your siblings or parents about how they're performing is fundamentally different than working with someone new.
Questions of governance and how that person is managed and held accountable will be different than what's happened in the past.
Power
and Control
Within business families, the desire is often to maintain control while bringing in someone to run the business. They aim to maintain control at the board level by hiring a non-family member who requires the board to approve every decision.
If you fall into this category, you'll end up hiring highly capable people who become frustrated with the power dynamics and may consider quitting.
Understanding What Your Family Values Beyond Financial Success
It's easy to focus on EBITDA and profitability. However, families also value other non-financial factors like connections to their community and people, the company's core values, the legacy story written by their ancestors, and family involvement in the business. These aspects are often undocumented and go unnoticed until new leaders make decisions that conflict with those values.
Stranberg’s Approach
Getting executive hiring right requires careful planning and a more advanced approach than many traditional executive search firms provide. If the role, values, and expectations are not clearly defined, no number of resumes will produce the desired outcome, regardless of how qualified the candidates are.
Stranberg can assist your family business in finding and placing its ideal executive by focusing on the 'whats' before searching for the 'whos.' Before beginning an executive search, we'll learn about your values and philosophy and work with you to develop a position description that matches your needs and long-term goals. Once you have clarity on what the role requires, we will help you identify an internal or external candidate who meets your specific criteria.
After the placement, we will collaborate with your team to smoothly integrate your new executive into the organization through a structured process that fosters trust and alignment. Here's how we work:
01
Define what your organization needs from its operational leadership. Before beginning an executive search, we learn about your values and philosophy and work with you to develop a position description that matches your needs and long-term goals.
02
Find who is most qualified to fill the role, whether internal or external. Once you have clarity on what the role requires, we help you identify candidates who meet your specific criteria.
03
Ensure alignment through structured processes and continued support. After placement, we collaborate with your team to smoothly integrate your new executive into the organization through a structured process that fosters trust and alignment.
OUR TRACK RECORD OF SUCCESS
Case Studies
The Client: A third-generation family business and one of the largest family-owned industrial laundries in the country. After 35 years of leadership by two brothers, the CEO was retiring with no family successor ready to assume operational leadership.
The Problem: The retiring CEO, and his brother knew the fourth generation were good owners but not positioned to operate the business. The family needed an outside CEO who would honor their people-first culture—where treating employees well was a core value instilled across generations—while maintaining their twelve-year growth trajectory.
The Solution: Stranberg embedded themselves in the company culture, attending quarterly meetings and visiting multiple facilities to understand what made the company special. They refined job descriptions to decouple owner and operator responsibilities, then conducted a comprehensive search of internal and external candidates. Through rigorous vetting—including interviews that assessed character and values alongside professional capabilities—Stranberg's process revealed that the company's CFO of fourteen years, was the best-positioned leader. The board voted "overwhelmingly, enthusiastically and unanimously" for the candidate, who successfully transitioned into the CEO role in early 2025, preserving the family's values while positioning the company for its next decade of growth.
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Testimonial
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Stranberg didn't wax over the imperfections in the system. They made it clear to provide guidance as a candidate on things you want to look at to make sure it will be a good fit. Their whole process of identifying the candidate, vetting, making sure that it's going to work, and then following up with support to make sure it does work after the fact is what sets them apart from other recruiters. I credit their thorough process and ongoing support for my successful transition into this role.
Mark Eckert
Vice President of Operations, American Pan (Bundy Baking Solutions)
How to Get Started
When it comes to leadership succession, the stakes are high. Our holistic succession planning process is designed to help family businesses find operational executives who have both the competency to run their organization and the temperament and values needed to ensure cultural alignment.
