The Overlooked Succession Solution for Family Businesses

The coming decade is set to witness the largest intergenerational transfer of assets in modern history. Often described as the great wealth transfer, it is projected that more than $18tn in assets will pass from older generations to their heirs by 2030. Much of the attention has focused on inherited personal wealth, but it also highlights that family businesses will be changing hands at scale over the coming years.

Family-owned companies are estimated to contribute roughly two thirds of global GDP and generate close to 60% of jobs. Whether these businesses thrive or falter during succession could have significant global economic impact over the next decade.

Succession remains one of the most challenging moments in the life of a family business. The default is often to turn to lawyers, accounts and financial advisers. But the process frequently results in legal wrangles over influence or power. There are many public examples of messy handovers, from the prolonged intrigue around LVMH’s opaque succession plans to the highly visible disputes within the Murdoch and Koch families. Even fictional portrayals like the Roy family in Succession have resonated because they feel uncomfortably familiar.

Handing over to the next generation is deeply emotional, bound up in identity and legacy – which can’t be addressed through legal and financial means alone. 

What is frequently overlooked is the role of brand. Not branding in the visual identity sense, but brand as a shared understanding of purpose, values and direction. A strong brand strategy can help articulate what a business stands for and where it is going. For family businesses navigating generational change, it can become a powerful unifying force that aligns founders, successors, employees and customers around a renewed vision.

Spotlight your story
Family businesses can often draw on rich history and stories that can be a source of pride and identity. Revisiting and amplifying them can remind everyone involved why the business exists and what has made it distinctive over time. 

For businesses approaching succession, returning to foundational stories in this way can help bridge generational gaps. It allows outgoing leaders to see their legacy honoured, while giving incoming leaders a platform to reinterpret that legacy in their own voice. 

Using your visual legacy can also work well. What old slogans, jingles or visual identities do you have that still carry emotional weight with today’s consumer, and how can you adapt them thoughtfully? 

Archives can contain huge, unrealised potential. An old tagline might capture a truth that feels newly relevant. A historic logo may convey authenticity. For example, for the rebrand of Walker’s Shortbread, we redrew the logo based on an original piece of hand-painted signwriting. It was on a delivery van pictured in the family’s wonderful archives. Even small details (such as adding the apostrophe back into the Walker’s name) can make a difference and further emphasise family, ownership and belonging. Used carefully, these elements can anchor a forward-looking strategy in a sense of continuity and pride. 

These details all informed a wider rebrand that resulted in a refreshed look aligned with modern consumer habits, without compromising what it stood for. It has helped the business exceed £200m in sales for the first time in 2024.

Trim the excess
Not everything that worked in the past will work in the future. A clear and unifying vision requires objectivity and a willingness to let go and applies as much to brand assets as it does to products or processes. Leaders must ask difficult questions: are there messages that no longer resonate with customers? Are there offerings that drain resources without delivering value? Are there brand signals that once conveyed authority, but now feel outdated?

Such objectivity can be emotionally difficult. Longstanding products, symbols or terminology are often tied to personal memories and organisational pride. Yet succession demands honest conversations about relevance. What matters is not what once worked, but what will serve the next generation of customers and employees.

Johnson Nurseries, one of the UK’s largest commercial nurseries, demonstrated this tension in its recent rebrand. As part of clarifying its future-facing vision, the business chose to retire the generic collective term ‘nurserymen’ from its communications, a phrase rooted in heritage but increasingly out of step with contemporary language and values. Letting go of that terminology was not a rejection of the company’s history; it was an acknowledgement that clarity and inclusivity are essential to remain relevant. In doing so, the rebrand illustrates a broader principle: succession is not about preserving every legacy element, but about carefully curating which parts of the past actively support the future.

But know what to keep
At the same time, abrupt overhauls can feel like betrayals, especially for family businesses where emotions can run high – around the boardroom table, but also among loyal customers who often have a deep emotional relationship with these brands. Change should feel like a natural progression rather than a rupture. The most successful transitions respect what people love while gently updating how it is expressed. 

The Danish shoe and leather goods manufacturer (still owned by the founding Toosbuy family), for example, has not pursued dramatic reinvention. Instead, its recent shift has been marked by calibration rather than overhaul.

In an era when many heritage brands chase relevance through collaborations, logo redesigns or conspicuous pivots toward trend culture, ECCO has taken a different path. It has tightened its focus around the values that were always present but not always foregrounded: craftsmanship, material expertise, longevity and a distinctly Scandinavian spirit of pragmatic innovation. The change is less about saying something new and more about saying the right things more clearly.

This is where the evolution becomes subtle but significant. Marketing activity has been refined to speak more directly to a core audience. The emphasis is on what the company controls and does exceptionally well, rather than what the market moment demands.

Brand can be your flexible friend
Brand can act as a neutral language during succession. An effective brand strategy should have flexibility. It creates a framework for discussing values and direction and gives you more control over what you want to be known for – and how you can adapt when needed. It allows different generations to collaborate on a shared future rather than compete over the past. 

As the great wealth transfer accelerates, more families will face these challenges. Those who treat succession purely as a legal or financial exercise risk overlooking one of their most powerful assets. Those who invest in articulating and evolving their brand stand a better chance of preserving not just wealth but meaning. In a decade defined by change, that may prove to be the most valuable inheritance of all.