Recognized Succession Planning Leaders 2025

Lori Selsberg, JD is the Co-Founder and CEO of DocuGuardian, an Intelligent Legacy Infrastructure company redefining how individuals and families organize, protect, and understand life-critical information. With over two decades of experience spanning law, financial services, and SaaS leadership, Lori brings a rare combination of legal expertise and operational execution to one of the most overlooked challenges facing modern families: the clarity and continuity of essential documents. A licensed attorney and former estate planning firm founder, Lori has deep domain expertise in the legal, financial, and emotional complexities that arise when critical information is disorganized, inaccessible, or misunderstood. Her career has focused on solving high-stakes problems at the intersection of compliance, technology, and human behavior, particularly in moments of crisis, transition, and generational change. Lori is the visionary behind DocuGuardian, a secure digital vault and intelligence platform designed to provide structured governance and plain-English clarity for financial, legal, medical, and personal records. The platform’s proprietary approach, including its read-only AI intelligence layer (LegacyIQ), reflects Lori’s commitment to trust, accuracy, and responsible innovation in an era where misinformation and fragmented data create real-world consequences for families. Prior to founding DocuGuardian, Lori built multiple businesses and has led large-scale transformation initiatives across both high-growth startups and Fortune 100 environments. She is known for her ability to translate complex regulatory and operational requirements into scalable, user-centric solutions that drive both business value and meaningful human impact. Lori is a frequent voice on topics including generational wealth transfer, estate and legacy planning, digital asset organization, and the role of AI in high-trust environments. She offers a uniquely practical perspective grounded in real-world experience, focused not just on technology, but on how people actually navigate life’s most important moments. Her work is driven by a simple but powerful belief: preparation is an act of care, and clarity is one of the greatest gifts you can leave behind.

Jennifer Doherty, MIRHR, is CEO of ProvenHR, where she helps organizations align people strategy with business goals. With over two decades of HR leadership across legal, media, IT, and regulatory sectors, Jennifer brings a pragmatic, business-focused approach to complex workplace challenges. She developed the HR Excellence Matrix, a framework that helps founders and executives manage people-related risk and results with the same rigour as financial metrics.

I’m a FINMA-licensed financial advisor based in Switzerland, specializing in retirement and pension planning for individuals and companies. Through Invexa, I help clients build clear, sustainable long-term financial strategies that integrate both investment and insurance components. My approach combines personalized wealth planning with regulated insurance brokerage services to deliver practical, compliant, and goal-oriented solutions for every stage of life.

At Pathview Wealth Advisors, we help successful professionals, business owners, and families simplify their financial lives. Our mission is to remove stress from money decisions through proactive, tax-focused planning and personalized guidance. We believe money is a tool—not the goal. By aligning strategies with your values and lifestyle, we help you gain clarity, confidence, and control. If you're ready to turn financial complexity into peace of mind, let’s talk.

Steven Coles CPP.APMP Fellow is the Director, Strategy & Customer Success at Upland Qvidian specialising in strategic growth, business winning, customer success, and organisational transformation. An award-winning bid and proposal expert and senior leader with over 30 years of experience, he has won multi-million dollar business-to-business deals in the software, telecommunications, services, defence, and consulting sectors. Steven is an acclaimed builder and leader of high performing teams, retaining and motivating top talent to exceed outcomes for businesses, teams, and individuals. Visit https://www.stevencoles.co.uk/ for more insights.

How can organizations adapt to create new growth paths and manage risk in rapidly changing markets? This is the focus of my strategy and risk advisory work. I leverage my extensive track record in high-performance team building and operations leadership to help clients solve challenging problems at the nexus of risk, strategy, and innovation. I have over a decade of strategy consulting and executive leadership experience across multiple industries. I was the Director of Strategy for a Top 50 Foodservice Distributor, helping lead the company through its acquisition by a Top 5 Distributor. After that, I became CEO and led the turnaround of a produce merchandising and distribution company. My educational background includes a Master of Divinity from Denver Seminary, an MBA from Texas A&M University, and a PhD in religion from the University of Birmingham (UK).

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I am the founder of Bayview Financial Group and have been in business since 1998. We offer wealth management, retirement planning for Canadians and we also have an employee benefits division where we act as benefits consultant and broker for small and medium sized Canadian employers.

With 35+years of hands on experience and R12Million in invesment into research and expertise, Tony is an expert in optimising People, Teams, Leadership and Culture to thrive in tough Times. Developer of the REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE High Performance Teams system, The Success Ensurance Self Mastery System, and author of SWIFT SUCCESS Mindset, AdaptAgility and REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE CLEARx framework. Tony guides people and teams to unleash more of thier amazing potential.

Creator of the WYZE Rainmaker Method™ | 5 Driver Method For Client Attraction & Continuous Pipeline Building for Fractional Executives, Consultants, Professional Services. Author, Network Like A Fox: A Targeted Approach To Building Successful Business Relationships In Person & Online, and Direct Access: 5 Surefire Ways To Get Meetings With Ideal Decision Makers.

As EVP of M&A, Joe leads PRITCHETT's M&A integration practice which has consulted on acquisitions valued in total over $350 billion. He is the architect of PRITCHETT’s M&A integration methodology, an approach that has been used successfully by thousands of acquirers. Joe also conceived of and brought to market the Merger Integration Certification Workshop, the most successful M&A integration training program in the world. Plus, he created MergerIntegration.com which is now the most visited web site on M&A integration. MergerIntegration.com provides step-by step instruction on how to run integration projects and is populated with over 500 deliverables from PRITCHETT consulting engagements. Joe is the author of the books, Street Smart Moves for Selling your Business and What’s Next? He is also a licensed Certified Public Accountant.

Natalie Michael is a trusted advisor to CEOs navigating what's next—whether preparing for their own transition, developing key talent, or designing a purposeful next chapter. As Managing Partner of CEO Next Chapter, she combines over 20 years of experience in executive development with a unique focus on succession strategy, peer learning & leadership reinvention. A Master Certified CEO Peer Group Leader with Mackay CEO Forums and Chair of Tiger 21 Vancouver 3, Natalie works closely with business leaders stewarding enterprises ranging from $10M to $6B. She holds a Master’s in Organizational Leadership, numerous coaching certifications, and has authored two books on CEO development. Natalie also serves on the boards of Foundations for Social Change and Wavefront Centre for Accessibility. Her favorite book is Dr Hawkins Map of Consciousness.

Prior to founding AdaptiveERP, Sara spent over 20 years in institutional financial services — spanning trading, analytics and GRC consulting, — environments where precision and accountability are non-negotiable, enabling her to bring enterprise-grade discipline to cross-industry SaaS solutions. That experience shaped a mindset where controls, clarity and operational flow are designed as one continuous system. With an MSc in Computer Science from Imperial College — the UK's MIT, she now leads a cross-industry SaaS ERP platform that bridges enterprise risk and technical architecture, by embedding systemic security into core architecture and operations. She conceived and integrated every component of the methodology — spanning finance, operations, GRC, internal controls and cyber — into a unified system. Her rare ability to merge business strategy with technical execution ensures robust, scalable systems—minimizing risk and miscommunication from day one. She also served as Vice-President and Director of The Hedge Fund Association. Today, those same principles guide our approach: strategy and technology built together, so each strengthens the other, while mitigating systemic risk.

Govind Balachandran is the founder of Continuuiti, a climate and operational risk intelligence platform that helps enterprises quantify physical climate risk at the asset level. The platform delivers hazard assessments across 12 physical climate perils, flood depth modelling, and financial loss estimation using peer reviewed damage curve methodologies, enabling banks, insurers, and corporates to translate climate exposure into monetary terms. Previously, Govind founded SignalX, a leading AI-based third-party risk management and due diligence platform that he built over seven years into a 600+ customer business serving all Big Four consulting firms, major enterprises with global supply chains, and private equity houses. He raised venture capital from marquee funds, grew the business to profitability, and currently serves as Board Observer, supporting the board and leadership through a GenAI transformation of the business. He brings deep expertise in enterprise risk management, climate risk quantification, physical risk modelling, and building B2B SaaS platforms for regulated industries. Areas of expertise: Physical climate risk assessment, climate value at risk (CVaR), flood risk modelling, climate stress testing for financial institutions, operational resilience, enterprise risk management, third-party risk management, due diligence, supply chain resilience, climate risk for real estate and infrastructure portfolios, B2B SaaS for regulated industries.

15 + years of experience in Payroll Business Operations, 4+ years helping EOR, PEO, & Staffing companies for Business Operations w/ purpose-built workforce management & invoicing automation platform.

Joe Sagrilla is an independent management consultant and business advisor, top business school faculty, Board member, writer, and speaker. His specialties include business strategy, technology, transformation, process improvement, and organizational performance.

I am an exceptional IT Leader skilled at IT Service Management, IT Operation Management, HRSM, Supply Chain Management, Data Governance, Organizational Change Management, and Real-Time Dashboards Monitoring & Reporting. Technically-savvy with outstanding relation-ship building, training and presentation skills.

Sascha Drache is CEO of Ratgeber Stiftung and one of Germany’s most experienced advisors in the field of foundations, asset protection, and long-term wealth structuring. With more than 17 years of practical experience and involvement in the establishment and management of over 700 foundations, he combines legal, fiscal, and entrepreneurial perspectives into holistic solutions for entrepreneurs, professionals, and family-owned businesses. His work focuses on using foundations as strategic instruments for asset protection, tax optimization, succession planning, and sustainable corporate governance. Unlike purely theoretical approaches, Sascha Drache emphasizes practical implementation, long-term viability, and clear structures that can be integrated into everyday business life. He is a frequent expert contributor to leading German media outlets and regularly speaks on the strategic use of foundations for medium-sized companies and private wealth planning. His advisory approach is characterized by clarity, independence, and a strong focus on safeguarding assets across generations.