Helping Senior Leaders Design Their Next Chapter: A Savills Case Study
Most organisations know how to onboard people well. Far fewer know how to help their most experienced, most loyal leaders transition out with the same care and intention. In this episode, we share the full story of how Savills partnered with The Career Equation to do exactly that, and why it changed everything.
What we cover:
Why this problem matters. For many senior directors at firms like Savills, work isn't simply what they do, it's who they are. Decades of tenure, deep client relationships, and a career spent largely within one organisation create both extraordinary value and a quiet strategic risk when no transition plan exists.
The brief Savills actually gave us. It wasn't "retain these people at all costs." It was "help them transition well, because they deserve it, and so does the business." That different framing changed the entire design of the programme.
The three core programme principles. Building trust before anything else (including one-to-one confidential conversations before any group work); using biographical narrative to honour the past before designing the future; and shifting senior leaders from convergent, risk-managing thinking back into divergent, imaginative possibility.
What the programme looked like in practice. Across a year: an opening dinner, individual coaching sessions, group workshops, vision board work, worst-case scenario planning, and peer "success circles" to keep momentum alive beyond the formal programme.
The range of outcomes. From 2 to 5 year handover strategies to entrepreneurial leaps to joyful retirements, no two next chapters looked the same, and that was exactly the point.
The commercial and human impact. Better-planned exits, stronger succession, more structured knowledge transfer, and alumni who continued to refer and advocate for the business long after leaving.
Links:
Hear from Dominic Grace, former Head of London Residential at Savills and Your Next Chapter graduate, on what the programme gave him and what he did next: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-career-equation-the-formula-for-career-clarity/id1767894956?i=1000671247645
Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide
Free Equation Builder: https://www.thecareerequation.com
Book an intro call: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call
Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna
Zoë on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach