Succession Planning That Starts Before It’s Urgent
How Boards Build a Bench Without Creating Politics
Most succession plans fail for one reason: They start too late.
Neck Up reframes succession planning as an ongoing leadership readiness process, not a one-time emergency document.
The process begins by identifying critical roles, positions where safety, soundness, community trust, or institutional knowledge are concentrated. From there, potential successors are evaluated using the same leadership lens applied to the CEO:
How they think at enterprise scale
How they connect and build trust
How they act as culture carriers
Whether they deliver bank-critical outcomes
This consistency matters. It removes politics and favoritism and replaces them with shared language and evidence.
Succession conversations become developmental, not threatening:
“What experiences does this person need next?”
“Where are the leadership gaps and how do we close them?”
“Who is ready now, and who could be ready with intention?”
For boards, this creates confidence.
For CEOs, it creates partnership.
For future leaders, it creates clarity.
And for the bank, it creates continuity. Independence is protected not by hoping the right person stays but by knowing the next leader is ready.
