Exploring the challenges of founder leadership and succession.

Family succession is one of the ultimate tests of long-term leadership. Founders build organisations around their personal vision and values, but ensuring long-term survival requires knowing when to relinquish control, prepare the next generation, and allow new leadership to emerge.

When succession stalls, organisations risk experiencing “Founder’s Syndrome” – a state where an enterprise is so bound to its creator that transferring authority becomes nearly impossible, a tension famously dramatised in HBO’s Succession.

Yet, successful transitions are happening. In this Kellogg Conversation, Hans Schöpflin and his daughter Dr Lisl Schöpflin discuss candidly what passing the baton requires both professionally and personally, drawing on their experience transferring leadership across the Panta Rhea Foundation (https://pantarhea.org/) and Schöpflin Foundation (https://www.schoepflin-stiftung.de/en/). Joining them is award-winning playwright and Succession co-executive producer Lucy Prebble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Prebble), who will reflect on how the series captured real-world dynamics of power, inheritance, and family leadership.

Chaired by Dr Susanna Kislenko (https://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/our-people/susanna-kislenko/), Director of the Founder Leadership Research Project (https://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/kellogg-centres/centre-on-mutual-and-co-owned-business/founder-leadership-research-project/) at Kellogg College, this event explores what it takes to build an organisation that outlasts its founder – distinguishing between protecting a legacy and holding onto power, and creating the conditions for the next generation to lead differently.

The event is free to attend and open to all. Advance registration is advised.

About our speakers

Chair: Dr Susanna Kislenko (https://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/our-people/susanna-kislenko/), Director of the Founder Leadership Research Project at Kellogg College

Hans Schöpflin (https://www.schoepflin-stiftung.de/en/), Founder and Chair, Schöpflin Foundation

Dr Lisl Schöpflin (https://pantarhea.org/), President and Chair, Panta Rhea Foundation / Deputy Chair, Schöpflin Foundation

Lucy Prebble (https://www.concordtheatricals.co.uk/a/116137/lucy-prebble), award-winning writer and producer for film, television, theatre and games

Further information

This event is one of a series of three Kellogg Conversations to be held this term on the topic of “Leading for the long term in a fast-changing world”. Our other Kellogg Conversations are:

Leading in an age of disinformation (https://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/events/leading-in-an-age-of-disinformation/) on 4 November

Leading fashion’s future (https://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/events/leading-fashions-future/) on 11 November

Playwright Lucy Prebble

Description supplied by the event organiser.