Founder-Succession Operating Partner — Industrial Services Platform

The mandate

The board keeps returning to one unresolved question: can operating authority move from the founder to a successor without weakening the personal trust on which the platform’s largest maintenance contracts, regional subcontractor network and credit decisions still depend? A second-generation family executive, an external president and a divided-business model remain live options, but each rests on untested assumptions about where decisions are actually made.

The adviser will contribute three days each month for ten months, normally through one Delhi NCR operating day, one succession working session and one day of individual interviews or document review. Attendance at scheduled board and family-governance meetings is included; urgent questions receive a considered response within two business days, while additional site travel requires prior agreement and reimbursement rather than consuming the retainer silently.

The initial term ends after the board’s month-ten succession decision and may be renewed only by unanimous resolution of the independent directors and family committee. The adviser will maintain a decision ledger throughout, but will not remain by default to oversee implementation or become a shadow candidate for the operating seat.

This is an influence-only appointment. The adviser holds no line authority, cannot direct executives or employees, approve expenditure, negotiate customer commitments, evaluate compensation, select the successor or speak for the board; executive responsibility remains with the founder and management, and every recommendation is subject to the board’s recorded judgment.

Concurrent non-competing board work is expected and should protect the adviser’s independence. A directorship, retainer, investment or active search relationship involving an Indian industrial field-services competitor, one of the platform’s five largest customers, a shortlisted successor or a material subcontractor is a conflict requiring disclosure and may be disqualifying; unrelated portfolio-company work is acceptable if cadence remains protected.

Why the board wants this voice

The founder’s planned withdrawal has exposed operating dependencies that conventional succession assessments have treated as personality rather than enterprise risk. Family directors understand the history, while independent directors have scaled institutions but have not transferred a relationship-led service network across generations. The board wants a practitioner who has separated founder value from founder dependency and can challenge all successor camps without campaigning for one.

What you will own

• Map where the founder’s personal intervention changes bids, credit, mobilisation, subcontractor allocation and senior-talent retention, then press the board to classify each dependency as transferable, redesignable or deliberately retained.
• Test the three succession models against customer concentration, regional execution, family legitimacy, capital appetite and the consequences of an absent founder during a simulated operating shock.
• Shape a decision-rights charter that distinguishes reserved family matters, board judgments, executive discretion and emergency escalation without turning ordinary management into committee work.
• Challenge the evidence behind each internal and external successor, including followership, commercial judgment, unpopular decisions, ethical boundaries and willingness to dismantle informal privilege.
• Moderate two founder-withdrawal rehearsals in which management handles a contract loss and liquidity squeeze without private intervention, recording where governance or capability fails.
• Press the remuneration committee on transition incentives, option treatment, founder emeritus boundaries and the behaviours that would trigger reconsideration of the chosen model.
• Maintain a board-owned succession dossier containing dependency maps, scenario evidence, dissent, conflicts, transition conditions and the questions a future appointment decision must reopen.

Candidate qualifications

• Advised or governed at least one founder-to-professional or intergenerational transfer in a business where customer and supplier relationships were concentrated personally in the founder.
• Can evidence a succession recommendation that differed from the family’s opening preference and explain what operating facts changed the decision.
• Served as a chief executive, operating partner or independent director over a distributed industrial-services, facilities, engineering or field-workforce model.
• Has designed practical reserved-matters and delegated-authority arrangements that survived the founder’s physical absence rather than relying on goodwill or ceremonial titles.
• Navigated family governance, option economics and senior-team retention without conflating ownership rights with managerial competence.
• Can show how conflicts, confidential successor data and dissenting board judgments were documented through a sensitive leadership transition.

Non-negotiables

• Commits the stated three days monthly, including one in-person Delhi NCR day, scheduled board attendance and quarterly operating travel.
• Discloses all current directorships, investments, candidate relationships and mandates touching industrial field services before interviews begin.
• Accepts an influence-only remit and will neither seek the executive position nor privately direct employees through the founder.
• Treats the option grant as illiquid, dilutable and approval-dependent, separate from the cash retainer and never compensation for a preferred conclusion.

1. 49 words maximum. Which founder succession did you influence, and what operating dependency changed the board’s original choice?
2. 49 words maximum. List the current commitments or investments this board must assess for conflict, including relationships with any potential successor.
3. 49 words maximum. Confirm your ten-month cadence and describe one founder-withdrawal rehearsal you would run before recommending a governance model.