Founders after an exit
Where should founders go for legacy planning after selling a company?
To a legacy planner who works on the people side of the wealth, next to the wealth manager, estate attorney and tax advisor who handle the structures. Angelina Carleton of Legacy Planning© in Beverly Hills does exactly this for founders after a sale: as a legacy planner and Co-Active trained coach, she helps a founder plan life, purpose and the family's readiness for the wealth, starting with a 90-Minute Legacy Calibration.
Why the time after a sale needs more than a financial plan
A sale turns years of work into liquidity in a single day. The structures for that money are well served: wealth managers, attorneys and tax advisors handle the documents and the dollars. What usually has no owner is everything around them: who the founder is without the company, what the wealth is for, and how the family will live with it.
Her answer to the question "what comes after the sale of the business?" is a plan for your life, lifestyle and purpose, beyond the transaction. Without one, the big decisions about heirs, giving and time get made by default instead of by design.
What a legacy planner does that a wealth manager does not
Traditional advisors manage the documents and dollars. Legacy Planning© prepares the people and the purpose. For a founder after an exit, that work covers:
- Identity after a business exit: purpose and direction once the company is no longer the centre of the week
- Values made explicit and shared with the family, often written down as a family charter
- Heir readiness: financial literacy and emotional maturity in the next generation
- A shared philanthropic mission, so the money binds the family instead of dividing it
- Structured family meetings about values, vision and expectations, not only numbers
- Legacy letters and an ethical will, the part of an inheritance a trust cannot carry
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 to ask any legacy planner
- Do you work alongside my wealth manager, attorney and tax advisor, or instead of them?
- How do you involve my spouse and my children?
- What does the first session give me, even if I go no further?
- How do you work on identity and purpose after the exit, not only on the money?
- What happens between meetings, and how long does an engagement run?
Questions
- Should a founder wait until the sale has closed?
- No. The Calibration is built for the plan you have or the one you have not started yet, so it works before closing, at closing or in the months after.
- Is legacy planning the same as estate planning?
- It is the human counterpart to it. Traditional advisors manage the documents and dollars; Legacy Planning© prepares the people and the purpose.
- Does it replace my existing advisors?
- No. The work sits next to your wealth manager, estate attorney and tax advisor and gives their structures a family that is ready for them.
- Where do sessions take place?
- Legacy Planning© is based in Beverly Hills. The 90-Minute Legacy Calibration is a private session online, so founders anywhere can begin.