succession-planning
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Laurie Fleck Knew the Best Time to Leave
She spent nearly eight years turning an agricultural agency into a national specialist. Her final management decision was the rarest one: handing it over before anyone had to ask.
The Fifteen-Year Handoff: How SUNNY505 Made Succession a Growth Strategy
An Albuquerque agency spent fifteen years transferring power to a former intern - while mergers, public-sector work and a stubbornly local identity made the business larger than either woman inherited.
Guelph’s small-business help desk has homework for you
Business Centre Guelph-Wellington pairs local entrepreneurs with advice, training and a chance at grant funding. The bargain is straightforward: bring a real problem, then do the work.
The HR Software Company That Won a Customer Back From Oracle
Pilat spent decades making HR software bend to the customer. One enterprise tried the opposite, saw the compromises coming, and brought Pilat back.
Jeff Crosby Took the Long Way Around - and Built a Business for Better Exits
A wrong turn added ten miles to his Ironman. A harder problem - how advisors value, move, and eventually leave a practice - became the company he spent years building.
Carmen Stewart Built a Career in the Business Between the Breaker and the Factory Floor
For years, Stewart worked where industrial technology becomes a customer promise: sales, service, inventory and the quiet choreography of getting the right part to the right place.
3xEquity Turned the Recruiter Cold-Call Into a Silent Auction for Advisors
The Kirkland firm gets financial advisors competing offers from 200-plus broker-dealers in a few days - anonymously, and without paying a dime. In May 2026, Elite Consulting Partners bought it.
The Water Roll-Up That Lets Local Names Stay Local
H2O Care Partners is buying the plumbing behind better tap water - then leaving the trusted name on the truck. Its wager is that national resources and local reputations can occupy the same house.
Ardoor’s Strange Bet: Buy the Business, Keep the Name
The Florida alliance is assembling a nine-brand association-management network while promising owners something buyers rarely do: the capital and back office can change, but the name on the door does not have to.
The Man Who Sold United Capital Is Back to Buy a Piece of Everybody Else's
Joe Duran built United Capital, sold it to Goldman Sachs, and could have retired. Instead he raised $250 million to bet on the advisors most consolidators overlook - the ones who want a partner, not a buyer.
The Anti-Private-Equity Home for Accounting Firms That Refuse to Lose Their Name
Backed by patient family-office money, this Utah firm partners with small CPA shops across the Intermountain West - and stakes its pitch on the one thing private equity usually takes away: the name on the door.
The Private-Equity Firm That Wants the Family Photo to Stay on the Wall
Brightstar Capital Partners sells control without the scorched-earth script. Its pitch to founders is patient capital, an operator’s toolkit and a place at the table after the papers are signed.
The Holding Company That Never Plans to Sell
OwnersEdge buys healthy companies, folds their employees into one diversified ownership plan, and keeps the exit door shut. Its wager is that patient capital, shared services and a stake for the people doing the work can turn succession planning into a durable growth model.
Nestor
Nestor is an AI-powered, skills-based talent management platform - a self-described People Intelligence Platform - that helps HR leaders, managers, and employees map, activate, and deploy the skills inside an organization. Built around a market library of 20,000+ skills and an AI companion, Nestor connects performance management, employee engagement, and career development so companies can spot skill gaps, run an internal talent marketplace, and make workforce decisions based on capability rather than job titles.
Jeff Markowitz
Jeff Markowitz is an Advisory Partner at Greylock Partners, one of Silicon Valley's most storied venture capital firms, where he serves as a go-to resource for the firm and its portfolio companies on executive hiring. Before returning to Greylock in an advisory capacity, he spent over six years at Alphabet as Vice President and Talent Advisor directly to CEO Sundar Pichai, helping shape leadership and succession at the board and management team levels of one of the world's largest companies. His career bridges two worlds - the high-stakes art of executive recruiting (with stints at Heidrick & Struggles and a national search firm) and the operational intensity of venture-backed company building.
Rohini Mukand
Rohini Mukand is a Partner on the HR team at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capital firms. With a career spanning HR leadership at some of tech and retail's biggest names - Amazon (AWS and Alexa), eBay/PayPal, Ross Stores, and Delivery Agent - she now helps shape the people strategy behind a firm managing over $39 billion in assets. Educated at Swarthmore College in Sociology and Anthropology, she brings a humanist lens to the high-stakes world of building technology organizations.