Design a Three-Year Succession Plan for a Family Manufacturer
Overview
What this challenge is about.
Design a Three-Year Succession Plan for a Family Manufacturer. Advanced challenge in strategy. Developing strategies for real business problems, earn a block...
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
How can leadership of a fifth-generation family manufacturer pass to the next generation in a way that preserves family unity, governance integrity, and business performance, given that only one of two heirs wants to lead?
This is not a case study exercise. It is the work a consultant does when a client needs a recommendation backed by evidence. That distinction matters to every hiring manager who has seen candidates recite Porter's Five Forces and none who have built a recommendation a client would actually pay for.
When you finish, you will have something most graduates do not: a real-world deliverable, verified by Ewance, that you can show to a hiring manager and say "I did this. Here is the proof."
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Diagnose family, ownership, and business tensions from documentary evidence and translate them into a defensible succession strategy
- Design fit-for-purpose governance structures that separate family interests from management authority
- Sequence a multi-year leadership transition with clear roles, decision rights, and milestones under explicit constraints
- Craft audience-specific communication that sustains trust among family, staff, customers, and lenders during change
- Prioritize limited external advisory spend toward the decisions that carry the most legal and continuity risk
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Succession Planning
Apply succession planning to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Governance Design
Apply governance design to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Family Dynamics
Apply family dynamics to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Stakeholder Communication
Apply stakeholder communication to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Strategic Roadmapping
Apply strategic roadmapping to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Family Business Advisor
This challenge mirrors the core advisory engagement of guiding an owner-family through a generational handover, building the diagnostic, governance, and facilitation skills clients pay for when emotions and money intersect.
This challenge sharpens
- succession-planning
- governance-design
- family-dynamics
Corporate Governance Consultant
Designing a family council and a reshaped board under real constraints develops the structural and stakeholder judgment governance consultants apply when modernizing how privately held companies are directed and controlled.
This challenge sharpens
- governance-design
- stakeholder-communication
- strategic-roadmapping
Management Consultant, Strategy
Turning a messy human and ownership situation into a sequenced, constraint-respecting roadmap and a board-ready deck is the everyday craft of a strategy consultant translating analysis into executive decisions.
This challenge sharpens
- strategic-roadmapping
- succession-planning
- stakeholder-communication