Strategy - Succession Planning and Leadership

Assessment of CEO knowledge concentration, management resilience, and strategic bottlenecks.

CEO Role: What’s Concentrated

Knowledge and decisions held by CEO (Mat):

• High-level finances and forecasting
• Shareholder relationships and communications
• Government correspondence (ASIC, ATO, Liquor Licensing)
• External accountant relationships
• Strategic decision-making across all domains

Resilience Assessment

If CEO unavailable for 2 weeks:

• Main risk: Government communications would be the critical bottleneck
• Low risk areas: Everything else. Staff carried on fine when CEO was away 3 weeks previously

Implication: Role is not entirely CEO-dependent, but government correspondence is a genuine knowledge concentration point.

Management Layer: Current Constraints

Current state (as of March 2026):

• No formal manager handover protocol
• Venue Manager (Monique Anderson) doing 16-hour shifts (setup → shift → close)
• Unsustainable and prevents manager from learning or stepping up

Risks:

• Burnout: Single manager at risk of burnout from extreme shift length
• Continuity: No depth in management. If manager unavailable, there is no backup.
• Growth: Manager cannot develop leadership skills, mentoring, or strategic thinking while in execution-only mode

Strategic Bottlenecks: Pain Points

Pain Point 1: CEO Bottleneck Across the Board

Issue: CEO is the point of approval/decision for too many daily and strategic decisions

Root cause: Better systems and automation would reduce the need for CEO input

Mitigation strategy:

• Implement automated reporting so decisions can be made by others
• Document decision criteria and approval thresholds clearly
• Delegate financial reporting responsibility to VM

Pain Point 2: Financial Situation and Strategy Held by CEO

Issue: Company strategy, budgeting processes, and financial outlook not clearly communicated to VM and Event Leads

Risk: Staff work in the dark; decisions are reactive rather than aligned to strategy

Mitigation strategy:

• Create weekly/monthly P&L and cash flow reports transparent to leadership team
• Hold regular planning meetings where financial data is shared
• Define clear goals and KPIs (e.g., “Target AUD $25k/week revenue”)

Action Plan

Immediate (Sprint 1)

1. Document government correspondence process:

   • What letters arrive, from whom, what are the deadlines?
   • Who approves responses? What is the approval workflow?
   • Identify secondary person to act if CEO unavailable

2. Implement shared financial reporting:

   • Build weekly P&L and cash forecasts (automated from Xero/Square)
   • Share with VM and Event Leads every Monday
   • Hold weekly 30-minute sync to discuss financial position and decisions

3. Reduce manager shift length:

   • Review current 16-hour shift pattern
   • Identify whether necessary or scheduling inefficiency
   • Implement sustainable shift length and cross-train second person

Medium Term (Sprint 2+)

1. Build decision frameworks:

   • Create thresholds: “VM can approve spend up to AUD $X without CEO approval”
   • Document approval workflows for common decisions (hiring, events, supplier changes)

2. Develop succession bench:

   • Identify one person to shadow CEO on government correspondence and shareholder relations
   • Provide shadowing and training for 4–6 weeks

3. Automate repetitive CEO tasks:

   • Invoicing, payroll, email triage (all identified in Automation Opportunities)
   • Directly reduces CEO input requirements

Key Success Metrics

• Manager shift length reduced to sustainable level
• Weekly P&L shared with leadership team every Monday
• At least one person can draft ATO/ASIC correspondence with minimal CEO review
• CEO reports spending <20 hours per week on operational approvals (down from current, likely 30+)

Related Pages

• Succession Planning — concept page with strategic decisions
• CEO Bottleneck — detailed analysis of decision concentration
• Automation Opportunities — systems and processes to reduce CEO input