From Founder to Successor: Navigating the CEO Handoff

About the Episode

Matt Sharrers joins us to discuss the challenges of replacing a CEO or founder of a company, with a focus on the need for a well-thought-out plan to ensure a smooth transition and maximize value. He emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and ego management for founders, as well as the need for a clear value creation plan and metrics to measure success.

“Elevate self-awareness, put your ego to the side. It’s hard to think someone else can do it as well as you can.”

Matt Sharrers

What You’ll Learn

• Develop a clear 3-5 year strategic vision: This provides the framework to find a successor CEO.
• Cultivating self-awareness is crucial: Founders need to overcome their ego and self-perception that the business can’t function without them. 
• CEO transition takes 18-24 months: This time includes distinct phases of planning, execution, and handoff to the new leader.
• Addressing cultural shifts: Private equity firms often underestimate the cultural and organizational impact of moving from a founder-led to a professional management team.
• Be objective: Bringing in outside expertise, whether a search firm or advisory, can provide critical objectivity and experience to navigate the CEO succession process successfully.

Topics Covered

Want More? Related Resources: 

• Will Selling Your Business Make You Happy?
• The M&A Training & Transition Period
• Why Do Business Owners Exit?
• The Second CEO by  Matt Sharrers

Meet Our Guest

Matt Sharrers

Managing Partner, ETJ Advisory | Scottsdale, AZ

With a career spanning three decades, Matt’s expertise, honed through roles as an athlete, F500 executive, and CEO of a PE-backed company, underscores his commitment to enabling extraordinary results in a domain ripe with opportunity. Motivated by impact rather than monetary gain, Matt seeks to inspire and effect profound change through his writing and consulting endeavors.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattsharrers/