Senior team programmes and management succession

Structured work with an owner and his senior leadership team, in the business, on how decisions get made and how the important things get done. For owner-led and family-owned businesses in Dubai, the UAE and the GCC whose managers are struggling to take the responsibility the owner wants to give them, or whose next generation of leaders has to take over from the last.

Who it is for

Two owners in particular. The one whose managers are good at their jobs and still bring him every decision, so the business runs at the speed of his diary. And the one planning a handover: a younger group of managers, sometimes including the second generation of the family, coming up behind a long-serving senior team that will step back over the next few years. Nothing is broken yet. He wants the structure that will hold in three to five years built before it is needed.

Succession planning, on the operating side

In the UAE, succession planning usually means the legal side: shares, wills, foundations and a family constitution. That work belongs with lawyers and wealth advisers. This programme covers the other half, the part that decides whether the business still runs on the Monday after the handover: who runs it, who decides what, whether the next leaders are ready, and how what the founder and his long-serving managers know gets passed on before they step back. Management succession, in the operation, with the people who will carry it.

What the programme is

Work on the live operation with the people who run it. Which decisions belong to whom. What the senior team meets about, how often, and what leaves the room decided. How a manager shows he is ready for the next level, and how the business tells the difference between ready and well connected. What each long-serving leader knows and holds, and how that passes to a successor without the leader losing his standing.

It is built around the business, on real decisions in front of the team that week. There is no course material and no classroom.

How it runs

A fixed number of sessions over a fixed period, typically six to nine months, agreed at the start. Jeff works with the owner and the senior team together, and with individual managers one to one, in the business and around its operating rhythm. Where a handover between generations is the point, the programme maps what each senior leader carries before anything is announced, gives each of them a defined part in the leadership transition, and puts a dated succession plan in front of the family.

What it produces

Managers who decide, and an owner who hears about it afterwards. A senior team that resolves its own disputes at its own level, so that fewer of them reach the owner. One standard for readiness, applied to family and non-family managers alike. A written map of who owns what, and a succession plan where one is needed.

The rule on promotion

Readiness is earned and demonstrated. A title is never handed over to settle an argument, to reward loyalty, or to keep a well-connected candidate content. Jeff has promoted people early because they were ready, and held promotions back under pressure because they were not, and he will say which is which.

How it ends

The rhythm runs without Jeff. The senior team meets, decides and reports on its own. Where a handover was the point, the successors are in their seats and the long-serving leaders have a part they chose. Jeff leaves on the date agreed at the start.

Proof

At Apple Retail Switzerland, Jeff was part of the leadership group that built one talent pipeline across the four Swiss stores, with promotion decisions made against a single competency model, week-long role swaps between stores, and cover roles used to develop the next layer of managers. Five promotions came out of his Zurich leadership team, including his own successor.

At Swissôtel The Stamford in Singapore, his role was created above two long-tenured directors who had reported straight to the general manager for years. The role had to earn its authority with them, and issues in their areas were handled with them directly, without escalating upward.

At a Swiss home-services group, a founder-led family business bought by an investor, twelve agency heads moved from asking the founder's permission to owning their own numbers, and peer-to-peer problem solving between them replaced the habit of calling head office. The successor Jeff selected and handed over to became the group's chief operating officer.