Lessons on succession planning from HBO’s ‘Succession’: Jamie Diaferia speaks to Forbes

Infinite Global CEO Jamie Diaferia spoke with Forbes about the realism of HBO’s television show Succession and its lessons for legacy business owners.

While many view HBO’s popular television show Succession as an entertaining drama, for millions of business owners—including many Fortune 500 companies that are family-owned or controlled—the issues of the dysfunctional Roy family and their Waystar Royco conglomerate may hit closer to home.

A show that features a dramatic dispute over the future of the Roy family business can offer real world lessons on how the failure to have and implement a succession plan can create a major crisis for businesses.

In speaking with Forbes, Jamie Diaferia, the founder and CEO of Infinite Global, comments that, “The messy family drama on Succession is not atypical at all, especially when you have hugely successful first-generation business owners at the helm. They tend to be competitive people who are accustomed to winning and are almost always addicted to the action. They are not normally people who want to step down at 65 and play bocce with their buddies.”

Infinite Global’s Diaferia also advised that, “There has to be a willingness by the founder to allow for a smooth transition to the next generation of leaders. There are two ways to accomplish this: convey that the founder’s legacy will be affected if the transition is not seamless, and to convey that the business interests of the company will be harmed if the succession plan is flawed.”

Read the full article on Forbes here.