Succession Planning
Build your Succession Pipeline
For almost 80 years, RHR International has been helping clients identify, develop, and prepare talent for key leadership and critical roles.
Our succession-planning approach ensures your organization has a pipeline of talent ready to step into key positions to minimize disruption when leadership transitions occur and support the long-term sustainability and growth of your business.
Download our succession-planning guide
Our Approach
We deploy multirater, multimethod assessment protocols and expert guidance to help you make more data-driven decisions about your talent pipeline.
1. Organizational Context: We work with you to confirm business strategy and direction and leadership imperatives.
2. Leadership Assessment: Our assessments clarify succession readiness, identify hidden talent, and inform how to accelerate leaders’ readiness to scale into more-senior or complex roles.
3. Succession Mapping: We undertake a comprehensive and rigorous mapping process of your current and future leadership needs.
4. Coaching and Development: We prepare your leaders to take on greater complexity with tailored coaching and development programs across all levels of organizational leadership.
Whether you work on an annual or more frequent cycle, our assessments will help ensure you are leveraging objective data and focusing on the right leadership capabilities to achieve your organizational goals.
Why Partner with RHR?
We align our assessment and development programs with your business needs.
Our unique model (RFS) measures an individual’s ability to scale into more demanding roles.
We provide objectivity—We are not a recruitment agency so we offer rigorous, disciplined, unbiased, tailored assessments to identify, develop, and promote key leaders into critical roles.
We work at multiple levels in your organization—CEO and C-suite to midlevel management.
We offer best-in-class benchmarking against 5,000 of the world’s best leaders.
We are a trusted partner—Our data-driven assessments use a combination of deep business expertise, world-class analytics, and behavioral science.
We are the world’s longest-standing leadership advisory firm, independently owned with a proven record of success.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Our Impact
We provide an objective, unbiased succession-planning framework that enables you to make the right leadership talent decisions for your business.
We help reshape your talent conversations to understand where employees currently stand and their potential for the future and to guide decisions about training, promotions, and career planning.
We identify your future leaders as well as hidden and marginalized talent.
We partner with you to design and deliver individual coaching and development plans based on objective assessments linked to your business imperatives.
Our Experience
We are proud to have worked for the last 80 years with thousands of the world’s most ambitious businesses across every sector.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Reach out to Robert Abramo at rabramo@rhrinternational.
Get in Touch
If you’re looking to implement a succession planning strategy for the first time or are looking to refine and improve your current succession activity, we can help.
Robert Abramo is head of business development and the first point of contact for companies wanting to determine how RHR can help them in their succession planning requirements rabramo@rhrinternational.com
Dan Russell, MSc, CPsych, AFBPsS, PCC, is a partner at RHR and head of our assessment practice.
Jane Lim, PhD, is a partner at RHR International and our assessment impact lead. She brings significant expertise in organizational psychology, leadership assessment and development, senior team effectiveness, and data analytics.
Assessment Solutions
We offer four levels of assessment to reflect your needs and your candidates’ level within your organization.
The Winning Formula® — Ensure the suitability of candidates for your most-senior roles—including CEO—through a customized assessment that reflects your specific role requirements and organizational context.
RFSexecutiveSM — Identify development areas for current senior leaders and assess the readiness of internal or external candidates to support succession planning for critical executive roles.
RFSpipeline® — Evaluate your bench of future senior leaders and identify individual and organizational development needs by benchmarking against our global database of enterprise leaders.
RFSinsightsSM — Scan your deep bench to identify future leaders using our most scalable offering, which provides algorithmically generated insights to give you a view of your long-term talent needs.
Readiness for ScaleSM
Unlike traditional high-potential models, our Readiness for ScaleSM (RFS) model indicates leaders’ current readiness to take on roles of increased scope and complexity. Our database includes 5,000 leaders from a variety of industries around the world.
Leading Business
- Seeing the Whole
- Making Systems Decisions
- Leading the Future
Leading People
- Focusing the Enterprise
- Influencing with Impact
- Creating Shared Values
Leading Self
- Reasoning with Agility
- Thriving in High Stakes
- Knowing Yourself
Why Partner with RHR?
We align our assessment and development programs with your business needs.
Our unique model (RFS) measures an individual’s ability to scale into more demanding roles.
We provide objectivity—We are not a recruitment agency so we offer rigorous, disciplined, unbiased, tailored assessments to identify, develop, and promote key leaders into critical roles.
We work at multiple levels in your organization—CEO and C-suite to midlevel management.
We offer best-in-class benchmarking against 5,000 of the world’s best leaders.
We are a trusted partner—Our data-driven assessments use a combination of deep business expertise, world-class analytics, and behavioral science.
We are the world’s longest-standing leadership advisory firm, independently owned with a proven record of success.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Our Impact
We provide an objective, unbiased succession-planning framework that enables you to make the right leadership talent decisions for your business.
We help reshape your talent conversations to understand where employees currently stand and their potential for the future and to guide decisions about training, promotions, and career planning.
We identify your future leaders as well as hidden and marginalized talent.
We partner with you to design and deliver individual coaching and development plans based on objective assessments linked to your business imperatives.
Our Experience
We are proud to have worked for the last 80 years with thousands of the world’s most ambitious businesses across every sector.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Reach out to Robert Abramo at rabramo@rhrinternational.
Get in Touch
If you’re looking to implement a succession planning strategy for the first time or are looking to refine and improve your current succession activity, we can help.
Robert Abramo is head of business development and the first point of contact for companies wanting to determine how RHR can help them in their succession planning requirements rabramo@rhrinternational.com
Dan Russell, MSc, CPsych, AFBPsS, PCC, is a partner at RHR and head of our assessment practice.
Jane Lim, PhD, is a partner at RHR International and our assessment impact lead. She brings significant expertise in organizational psychology, leadership assessment and development, senior team effectiveness, and data analytics.
Readiness for ScaleSM
Our RFS assessments enable companies to focus time and resources to accelerate the readiness of leaders’ growth into more complex, demanding leadership roles.
Based on a number of key organizational factors, including a deep understanding of your company strategy as well as business unit/function needs and speed and timing of moves, our approach organizes your future leaders into four key segments according to their readiness to take on more complex, demanding roles:
1. Low Scalability: Potential long-term readiness to take on higher-level roles. Consider risks if promoting to address specific need and provide targeted support to address leadership gaps. Develop in role and monitor.
2. Modest Scalability: Midterm readiness to take on higher-level roles. Invest in broad-based development to cultivate readiness and monitor progress.
3. Solid Scalability: The individual will be ready in the near term, and there is a high likelihood of success at the next level. Invest in individual development to further cultivate and consider next priority for promotion and special assignments.
4. Strong Scalability: Readiness in the nearest term; the individual is prepared. Confidence in success is high; prioritize for promotion and special assignments while supporting through the transition.
Our Point of Difference
We help you make better-informed decisions when placing talent into mission-critical roles and maximize your investments in leadership development by prioritizing those individuals with the greatest potential for scalability.
Our research shows more scalable leaders are:
- More likely to advance to more senior positions
- Seen as highly effective or exceptional leaders
- Better connected within their industry
Why Partner with RHR?
We align our assessment and development programs with your business needs.
Our unique model (RFS) measures an individual’s ability to scale into more demanding roles.
We provide objectivity—We are not a recruitment agency so we offer rigorous, disciplined, unbiased, tailored assessments to identify, develop, and promote key leaders into critical roles.
We work at multiple levels in your organization—CEO and C-suite to midlevel management.
We offer best-in-class benchmarking against 5,000 of the world’s best leaders.
We are a trusted partner—Our data-driven assessments use a combination of deep business expertise, world-class analytics, and behavioral science.
We are the world’s longest-standing leadership advisory firm, independently owned with a proven record of success.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Our Impact
We provide an objective, unbiased succession-planning framework that enables you to make the right leadership talent decisions for your business.
We help reshape your talent conversations to understand where employees currently stand and their potential for the future and to guide decisions about training, promotions, and career planning.
We identify your future leaders as well as hidden and marginalized talent.
We partner with you to design and deliver individual coaching and development plans based on objective assessments linked to your business imperatives.
Our Experience
We are proud to have worked for the last 80 years with thousands of the world’s most ambitious businesses across every sector.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Reach out to Robert Abramo at rabramo@rhrinternational.
Get in Touch
If you’re looking to implement a succession planning strategy for the first time or are looking to refine and improve your current succession activity, we can help.
Robert Abramo is head of business development and the first point of contact for companies wanting to determine how RHR can help them in their succession planning requirements rabramo@rhrinternational.com
Dan Russell, MSc, CPsych, AFBPsS, PCC, is a partner at RHR and head of our assessment practice.
Jane Lim, PhD, is a partner at RHR International and our assessment impact lead. She brings significant expertise in organizational psychology, leadership assessment and development, senior team effectiveness, and data analytics.
Common Planning Mistakes
We frequently come across the following common planning mistakes that impact a company’s ability to deliver a successful succession-planning program.
- Ineffective talent-management tools and processes, including the 9 box as a framework for success
- Failure to focus on the right people — too much time and effort is wasted on mediocre (suboptimal) talent
- Assume past performance is an indicator of suitability for more critical and complex roles
- A lack of objectivity and assessment bias, causing diverse talent pools to be overlooked (delivering poor organizational diversity)
- Overreliance on subjective opinions that yield the wrong leaders at the wrong time
- Failure to attract, identify, and promote top talent within the organization
Why Partner with RHR?
We align our assessment and development programs with your business needs.
Our unique model (RFS) measures an individual’s ability to scale into more demanding roles.
We provide objectivity—We are not a recruitment agency so we offer rigorous, disciplined, unbiased, tailored assessments to identify, develop, and promote key leaders into critical roles.
We work at multiple levels in your organization—CEO and C-suite to midlevel management.
We offer best-in-class benchmarking against 5,000 of the world’s best leaders.
We are a trusted partner—Our data-driven assessments use a combination of deep business expertise, world-class analytics, and behavioral science.
We are the world’s longest-standing leadership advisory firm, independently owned with a proven record of success.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Our Impact
We provide an objective, unbiased succession-planning framework that enables you to make the right leadership talent decisions for your business.
We help reshape your talent conversations to understand where employees currently stand and their potential for the future and to guide decisions about training, promotions, and career planning.
We identify your future leaders as well as hidden and marginalized talent.
We partner with you to design and deliver individual coaching and development plans based on objective assessments linked to your business imperatives.
Our Experience
We are proud to have worked for the last 80 years with thousands of the world’s most ambitious businesses across every sector.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Reach out to Robert Abramo at rabramo@rhrinternational.
Get in Touch
If you’re looking to implement a succession planning strategy for the first time or are looking to refine and improve your current succession activity, we can help.
Robert Abramo is head of business development and the first point of contact for companies wanting to determine how RHR can help them in their succession planning requirements rabramo@rhrinternational.com
Dan Russell, MSc, CPsych, AFBPsS, PCC, is a partner at RHR and head of our assessment practice.
Jane Lim, PhD, is a partner at RHR International and our assessment impact lead. She brings significant expertise in organizational psychology, leadership assessment and development, senior team effectiveness, and data analytics.
Iconic Retail Brand with over 500 Stores
An evolving relationship that spans assessment, development, teams, and CEO advisory
Our retail client, an iconic retail brand, is undergoing various forms of transformation in its business and needed help ensuring the current and future success of its most-senior leaders.
How we have helped:
- Partnered with the board for assessing key C-suite selection scenarios
- Delivered eight learning modules across four one-day in-person learning events
- Created an initial coaching program in support of the top-50 leaders, more than 65% of whom were brand new in their role or had meaningfully expanded roles
- Partnered with the CEO and HR to carefully define success for key roles to ensure the coaching programs were driving business outcomes
- Restored executives’ trust in the safety and value of coaching, which had been damaged in past programs
Through our deep partnership with the HR team and talent leaders, we continue to create supportive and exceptionally well-regarded assessment and development experiences, which can be scaled and delivered to the next levels of leadership.
Top-Three Global Strategy Consulting Firm
Assessing and developing managing director partners (MDPs)
Although an in-person program was designed and kicked off in January 2020 to assess and develop 24 MDPs, the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic demanded a substantial shift in our delivery and a tactical shift in our content.
Instead of the regularly scheduled in-person content, our product development team quickly designed a new virtual-learning module to kick off the now-virtual learning session “Leading in Times of Uncertainty.”
The increasing global focus on diversity, Black Lives Matter, and social justice likewise prompted new and timely content on inclusivity and psychological safety.
The following quotes are taken directly from the presentation our client used to debrief its CEO:
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Why Partner with RHR?
We align our assessment and development programs with your business needs.
Our unique model (RFS) measures an individual’s ability to scale into more demanding roles.
We provide objectivity—We are not a recruitment agency so we offer rigorous, disciplined, unbiased, tailored assessments to identify, develop, and promote key leaders into critical roles.
We work at multiple levels in your organization—CEO and C-suite to midlevel management.
We offer best-in-class benchmarking against 5,000 of the world’s best leaders.
We are a trusted partner—Our data-driven assessments use a combination of deep business expertise, world-class analytics, and behavioral science.
We are the world’s longest-standing leadership advisory firm, independently owned with a proven record of success.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Our Impact
We provide an objective, unbiased succession-planning framework that enables you to make the right leadership talent decisions for your business.
We help reshape your talent conversations to understand where employees currently stand and their potential for the future and to guide decisions about training, promotions, and career planning.
We identify your future leaders as well as hidden and marginalized talent.
We partner with you to design and deliver individual coaching and development plans based on objective assessments linked to your business imperatives.
Our Experience
We are proud to have worked for the last 80 years with thousands of the world’s most ambitious businesses across every sector.
Our global network enables us to offer hands-on support to our clients wherever they operate throughout the world.
Reach out to Robert Abramo at rabramo@rhrinternational.
Get in Touch
If you’re looking to implement a succession planning strategy for the first time or are looking to refine and improve your current succession activity, we can help.
Robert Abramo is head of business development and the first point of contact for companies wanting to determine how RHR can help them in their succession planning requirements rabramo@rhrinternational.com
Dan Russell, MSc, CPsych, AFBPsS, PCC, is a partner at RHR and head of our assessment practice.
Jane Lim, PhD, is a partner at RHR International and our assessment impact lead. She brings significant expertise in organizational psychology, leadership assessment and development, senior team effectiveness, and data analytics.