Family businesses
Where should family business owners go for legacy and succession planning?
To an advisor who plans the people side of succession alongside the legal and financial side: who leads, how the family decides, and how it stays united through the change. Angelina Carleton of Legacy Planning© in Beverly Hills works with family businesses on succession as a decade-long apprenticeship, with structured family meetings, a family charter and leadership development for the next generation.
Succession is a process, not a date
In many family businesses succession happens to the family instead of being planned by it: after an illness, a dispute or a funeral. Her approach turns it around. Succession becomes a decade-long apprenticeship in which the next leaders grow into responsibility while the founder is still there to coach them.
The questions families get stuck on
- Who leads when the founder steps back?
- How do you keep the family united through transitions?
- How does the family make decisions together, and who has a say?
- What role does the founder keep after handing over?
What the work includes
Family governance: structures that strengthen communication, decision-making, leadership development and family continuity. In practice:
- A family charter and shared values
- Regular, structured family meetings about values, vision and expectations, not only numbers
- Leadership transitions planned years ahead, without crisis
- Conflict resolved before it becomes litigation
How the work runs
Every engagement follows the same three steps. Assess: the Wealth Continuum Assessment™ shows where the family stands today, its strengths, risks and opportunities. Clarify: values, purpose, stewardship and governance, made clear and shared across the family. Implement: a practical roadmap for wealth continuity, family governance and success across generations.
It begins with a 90-Minute Legacy Calibration, one private session online ($1,500), for the plan you have or the one you have not started yet. Clients then commit to six or twelve months of coaching. The Legacy Blueprint Experience gives six months to define, develop and carry out a family's legacy plan (from $50,000), and principals and family offices can retain her for ongoing private advisory, by proposal.
Questions
- Do we still need our attorney and accountant?
- Yes. They handle the legal and financial structure of the transfer. Legacy Planning© works on the family that has to live with it, and the two work best side by side.
- Does the whole family take part?
- Structured family meetings are part of the work, so the family takes part in the process, not only the founder.
- How long does succession planning take?
- Years, by design: her approach treats succession as a decade-long apprenticeship. The structured plan itself, the Legacy Blueprint Experience, runs six months.