Successful AEC firms treat succession planning as a strategic priority from the beginning, not a last-minute retirement decision.
Imagine you are five to 10 years into your career. You appreciate all that you have learned but are brimming with ideas on how you can do it better. Now you and one or two of your colleagues have decided to form your own firm. Congratulations on your bravery and enterprising spirit!
As a founder, you will probably start off with your mind spinning. You decide you will only work with clients that you like and only work on projects that inspire your creativity. You will treat your future employees with the highest ethics, be a more empathetic mentor than you had, and give back to the community. With all these thoughts racing through your head, the last thing you are thinking about is how to exit from the firm you are building!
However, in architectural and engineering firms, succession planning is not a retirement issue – it is a valuation, growth, and risk management issue. I would argue that the question of how you will eventually exit from your firm is among the most important things to consider when starting out, or even if you are many years into building your own firm.
