Andrea Carpenter and Elizabeth Ledoux, co-founders of The Transition Strategists, were mid-negotiation on a business succession deal -- Andrea buying into Elizabeth's business -- when Andrea found out she was pregnant. The pregnancy wasn't the mistake. The mistake, as Andrea describes it, was her own rigidity: treating the closing of the deal as a fixed event that had to happen on schedule, instead of one point in an ongoing process.
In this episode, Andrea and Elizabeth unpack what changed when they let go of that mindset, and what it taught them about succession more broadly. They talk candidly about being opposite personality types -- Andrea a planner, Elizabeth an adapter -- and how that tension shapes their partnership. They also share the two mistakes they see most often when family businesses transition ownership: starting too late, and leaving the successor out of the design process.
If you're navigating a leadership transition, planning to bring in a successor, or thinking about what comes after you step back from something you built, this conversation offers a practical framework for treating that process as a journey worth designing carefully, rather than a deadline to hit.
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