Emergency succession
Emergency succession is the pre-agreed plan for covering a critical role immediately after an unexpected departure or absence, usually with an interim leader while a permanent transition runs.
Emergency succession covers the first days and weeks after a critical role empties without warning: who steps in as interim, what authority they carry, who communicates the change, and how the permanent process starts. It is the difference between a bad week and a bad quarter.
The plan only works if it exists before it is needed. Deciding who holds signing authority during a CEO's sudden absence is a calm governance question in January and a crisis in the week it happens.
A usable emergency plan fits on a page per role: the named interim and one backup, the decisions they may and may not make, the board or executive approval already granted, the communication sequence for the first 48 hours, and the trigger that starts the permanent search or promotion. Boards increasingly expect this to exist for the CEO and CFO as a standing governance item.
Emergency succession and long-term succession feed each other. The interim named in the emergency plan is often a Ready-in-1-Year candidate getting the hardest possible development assignment, and how they perform as interim is the best readiness evidence a plan will ever record.
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