Succession Is Not a Yes. Succession Is a Conversation.
The article explores why successful succession in a family business requires more than simply deciding to take over. Drawing on personal experience, Nicole Ott illustrates how open conversations about expectations, values and personal motivation lay the foundation for a successful generational transition.
INSIGHT
Succession in family businesses is usually discussed as though the answer has already been decided. The next generation takes over because that is simply what is expected. Out of loyalty, out of gratitude, sometimes out of a quiet concern that doing otherwise might damage something that has been built over decades.
I know this pattern well. And I made a conscious decision not to simply follow it.
When I realised that I wanted to return to Vaduz, it coincided with my father's first thoughts about stepping back. The company he had co-founded in 2008 was within reach.
The easiest path would have been to say yes. He would have been delighted, and I would have had a good reason to do so. That was precisely why I paused first.
Before making this decision, I sought external support and went through a coaching process. Not because I doubted whether I was capable of taking on the responsibility, but because I wanted to answer one question honestly: Do I truly want this role for myself? Or do I want it primarily because I know how happy it would make my father?
The coaching brought exactly that into focus. That my motivation comes from within. That I am not fulfilling someone else's expectations, but making a decision that was entirely my own from the very beginning.
With that clarity, I stepped into the role.
After this first step, the direction was clear, but I wanted to be more certain. I wrote down a series of questions to help me assess whether my father and I were truly aligned on the future of the company. When we sat down together, he had, to my surprise, brought a list of his own. On the things that mattered, we agreed.
What I took away from that experience shapes how I look at the families we advise today. Succession is not a moment when a signature passes the baton. It is a conversation about expectations, about values, about the relationship between family and wealth. The transitions that succeed are almost always those where people started talking early and honestly. The difficult ones are those where everyone assumed things would somehow work themselves out.
That is why this topic matters to me, and why it stands at the beginning of this column. In "Insight", I write about the people and families behind the wealth, not the numbers. About the aspects that are discussed less often, even though they are frequently the most important.
I was fortunate to be able to shape my own succession. With a father who was willing to listen, and the courage to take an honest look at my own motivations beforehand. Not every family has that foundation. But every family can start asking the right questions earlier.
Ott, Hagen & Partner AG
© Copyright Ott, Hagen & Partner AG 2026. All rights reserved.