ENTERPRISE BARGAINING
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WORKFORCE CHANGE
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LEADERSHIP TRANSITION
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ESG DISCLOSURE
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ENTERPRISE BARGAINING | WORKFORCE CHANGE | LEADERSHIP TRANSITION | ESG DISCLOSURE |
LEADERSHIP TRANSITION
Communications advice for CEO succession and leadership transitions
A leadership transition is one of the few moments where an organisation can actively shape how the market, its people, and its stakeholders read its direction. Done well, it builds confidence that compounds. Highett Partners is a specialist in CEO transition communications strategy that turns an inevitable moment of uncertainty into a deliberate signal of strength.
The challenge.
How to announce a CEO departure — and the weeks that follow — shape how every subsequent action by the incoming leader is interpreted. Get the communications right, and the new leader inherits goodwill. Get it wrong, and they spend months overcoming a first impression that was never theirs to make.
Most leadership transitions involve extensive planning for the selection process and very little planning for the communications risk. Executive search firms identify the right candidate. Legal counsel manages the contract. The board approves the appointment. And then, often, a press release is drafted the day before the announcement.
The CEO announcement communications strategy for a leadership transition should be developed in parallel with the selection process and with proactive risk management in mind — not as an afterthought once the decision is made. The narrative needs to account for multiple audiences simultaneously: the board's confidence in the decision, employees' continuity concerns, the market's reading of strategic direction, and the new leader's own positioning from day one.
Highett Partners provides that strategy and the narrative, supporting board communications for leadership transition, the outgoing leader, and the incoming leader to build the communications architecture that makes the transition land well across every audience.
WHAT WE DO
Our role in your leadership transitions.
We work with the board, the outgoing leader, and the incoming leader — separately and together — to build the communications framework for the transition. Our work covers three areas.
TRANSITION NARRATIVE
We establish the story of the transition — why now, why this person, what continuity looks like, and what signals the organisation wants to send about its direction. This narrative must work simultaneously for employees, investors, customers, and the media, without feeling engineered or evasive.
INCOMING LEADER POSITIONING
We advise the incoming leader on how to communicate in the first weeks and months — what to say in their initial all-staff address, how to engage with the board and key stakeholders, and how to build authority without undermining the legacy of their predecessor. For first-time CEOs, this is often the most consequential communications work of their career.
ANNOUNCEMENT SEQUENCING
How to announce a CEO departure. We design the announcement — who hears what, in what order, and through which channels. We write the board announcement, the all-staff communication, the ASX release (where required), and the CEO's own message. We also prepare the outgoing leader's departure communications, which is a dimension that is frequently neglected and often mishandled.
"The first impression a new leader makes is largely set before they say a word. The announcement, the sequencing, the language chosen by others — that is what they inherit on day one."
HIGHETT PARTNERS · LEADERSHIP TRANSITION
WHAT IS AT STAKE
The cost of a poorly communicated leadership transition is real and well documented.
A leadership transition that starts poorly rarely recovers quickly. The cost of a mishandled transition is measured in months of lost leadership effectiveness — and sometimes in the appointment itself.
Investor confidence
Leadership transitions are closely read by investors as signals about strategic direction and board governance. A transition announcement that is vague, defensive, or inconsistent with what the market knows about the organisation raises questions that a new leader then has to answer before they can focus on the job.
Employee trust
Employees form judgements about incoming leaders quickly, and those judgements are sticky. An early communications misstep — a message that felt inauthentic, or that didn't acknowledge the significance of the moment — can take months to overcome. The first all-staff address matters more than most incoming leaders realise.
Outgoing leader legacy
The departure of a long-serving or high-profile leader is a communications event in its own right. How it is handled affects both the outgoing leader's standing and the incoming leader's starting position. Organisations that manage the departure poorly create a narrative they do not control.
Who engages us leadership transition communications counsel.
Highett Partners are engaged directly by enterprises with the primary referral and collaboration partners for leadership transition communications counsel often the Board chair, and General Counsel. We are also typically introduced through the executive search firm managing the appointment, or through an employment lawyer advising on the transition arrangements.
We work across CEO and C-suite transitions — including CFO, COO, and General Counsel departures and appointments — at ASX 300 companies, mid to large private companies, and government-owned enterprises. We also work with newly appointed CEOs directly, engaged privately to help them build their own communications positioning in the first 90 days.
All work is conducted under strict confidentiality. We do not publicise clients, reference past engagements, or discuss transition work with any party not explicitly authorised by the client.
Undergoing leadership transition?
We should talk now.
Communications strategy is most effective when it is in place before negotiations begin, not after they become difficult. If you are undergoing leadership transition, a confidential conversation costs nothing.
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