Everyone wants a successor. Who is giving people the experience to become one?
Succession planning in financial services means preparing someone to take responsibility for the business. That requires time, broader experience and opportunities to exercise judgement before a senior leader leaves.
A name on a succession chart is a starting point. The work is deciding what that person still needs to learn, how they will learn it and who will help them get there.
An Irish Funds podcast brought this into focus for me.
In her conversation with Lassie Mulligan on The Long and the Short of It, Yvonne Connolly reflects on the early years of her funds career. What stands out is the opportunity she describes: taking on leadership responsibilities, working across different areas and learning as the business developed.
It raises a useful question for today’s financial-services leaders.
Are we giving our future leaders enough opportunities to develop the breadth we will eventually expect them to have?
Being excellent in one function is the starting point
A strong head of operations, finance, risk or compliance may be an excellent potential successor. They know the organisation, have established relationships and understand its history.
But leading the business brings a different set of decisions.
They may need to weigh investment in growth against limited resources, challenge a respected colleague, manage a difficult client conversation or explain a commercial decision to the board. They need to understand how decisions in one function affect the others.
Technical strength remains essential. The question is what experience someone needs to build around it.
For a smaller Irish management company (ManCo) or asset manager, this deserves particular attention. A senior leader may move from a strategic discussion to a detailed operational problem in the same morning. Their successor needs a realistic understanding of both.
Start with the business you expect them to lead
Before choosing a successor, ask what the organisation is likely to need over the next few years.
Will it be introducing products, entering markets, changing its operating model or managing a more complex network of service providers? Will the next leader need to spend more time developing business, strengthening operations or building the team?
These questions help define the role the successor is preparing for.
A useful exercise is to write down the five most consequential decisions the next leader is likely to face. Then consider which potential successors have relevant experience, where their gaps are and how those gaps could be addressed.
That gives development a purpose beyond simply becoming “more senior”.
Give people responsibility they can learn from
Broader experience needs to be planned. Adding more work to an already full diary is unlikely to achieve much.
Depending on the person and the business, useful opportunities might include:
Leading a project that requires several functions to work together.
Preparing and presenting a board paper, with feedback afterwards.
Participating in business planning and explaining the resource implications.
Taking responsibility for a difficult service-provider issue.
Deputising for the current leader within clear, agreed limits.
The important part is what happens around the assignment.
Explain the purpose. Agree the boundaries. Make support available. Afterwards, discuss the decisions: what did they consider, what did they miss and what would they do differently?
Attending a meeting can provide exposure. Preparing the recommendation, answering questions and following through provides a different kind of learning.
Make room for development in a small team
This is where a sensible succession plan can become difficult.
The person being developed already has a demanding job. Colleagues depend on them. Giving them broader responsibilities without changing anything else can leave them stretched across both roles.
If development matters, it needs space.
That might mean redistributing work, training a colleague, improving a process or hiring someone who can take ownership of part of the existing remit.
There is a second benefit here: developing one future leader can create progression for someone else. It can also reveal where the business relies too heavily on a single person.
The practical question is simple: what will come off this person’s desk so they can prepare properly?
Use the handover to explain judgement
A handover should include reporting cycles, key relationships, responsibilities and outstanding issues. It should also explain how the outgoing leader thinks.
Which situations deserve immediate escalation? Where has the business made a difficult trade-off? What warning signs have proved important? Which decisions looked straightforward but turned out to be more complicated?
When there is sufficient time, let the potential successor work through meaningful business cycles alongside the current leader. Have them prepare a recommendation before hearing how the incumbent would approach it.
That creates a useful conversation about judgement. It also gives both sides a better view of readiness than a list of completed training courses.
Check that the person wants the job
Being identified as a successor can be flattering. It can also make it difficult to admit uncertainty.
Does the person want the responsibilities that come with the role? Do they understand the pressure, the difficult conversations and the effect on their day-to-day work? What support would they need?
Discuss the likely timetable, how readiness will be assessed and what progression could mean for remuneration. Be clear about what is an opportunity and what has actually been agreed.
A vague promise can create expectations that neither side has properly examined.
Decide where an external hire could help
An internal successor may offer valuable continuity. An external candidate may bring experience the business needs. Both deserve a clear assessment against the future role.
Sometimes the most useful external appointment is someone who strengthens the team around an internal successor. In other cases, the development gap or available timeframe may point towards recruiting the next leader directly.
Start with what the business needs and what the existing team can realistically deliver. That makes the recruitment brief much more useful.
The lesson I took from Yvonne’s account is the value of being given opportunities to grow into responsibility. The succession-planning application is Dolmen’s perspective.
If you have identified a potential successor, what will they experience over the next two years that they have not experienced already?
If you would like to discuss succession planning or a senior appointment in your Irish financial-services business, contact Hugh Murray at hugh@dolmenrecruitment.ie.
Podcast credit: Irish Funds, The Long and the Short of It — Episode 3: Yvonne Connolly, hosted by Lassie Mulligan, published 16 September 2026. This article draws on the supplied transcript extract, particularly the discussion around 18:05–18:33.