WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR:
Successors taking over from a parent/founder
Next-generation leaders trying to earn trust
Family business heirs dealing with founder resistance
Siblings navigating control, fairness, and leadership
Owners trying to professionalize a family company
If you genuinely are a Disruptive Successor, you’ll have a bigger vision than that of your forebears. ou may already be known for your desire to achieve and ability to innovate, but you’ll need to bring fresh ideas, new technology, new or improved products/services and better processes to increase your family business’s competitiveness and profitability.
Because the founders view you as young with a short-term mindset, you’ll have to demonstrate that you actually have a clear long-term vision focused on ambitious but attainable goals. Now is your defining moment—one that may take years to demonstrate, but can be your legacy.
There are endless books out there on how to scale up a business. But very few of them are written for the next-generational family member of an entrepreneurial founder in a multigenerational business—the Disruptive Successor. That’s why I’ve written this guide for those who are gearing up for intergenerational transitions in family businesses, facing the reality that few succeed, and are determined to beat the odds.
PROBLEMS THIS BOOK SOLVES:
“My father built this company and won’t trust my ideas.”
“I’m trying to professionalize the business, but it’s creating family conflict.”
“I know what needs to change, but I can’t get people to follow me.”
“I don’t want to destroy the legacy, but I can’t keep running the business the old way.”
FOR FOUNDERS TOO:
If you built the business and are trying to figure out how to hand it to someone you trust, this book helps you understand what your successor needs from you — and what you need from them
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JONATHAN GOLDHILL is a family business advisor, coach, author, and host of the Disruptive Successor Show. He helps next-generation leaders, founders, and family-owned businesses navigate succession, leadership transitions, conflict, professionalization, and growth.
His work is personal.
Jonathan’s family built one of the country’s largest men’s apparel manufacturing companies across multiple generations. But the business did not successfully continue into the next generation. That experience shaped his career and left him with a question he has spent decades helping other families answer:
How can the next generation preserve what made the business successful while changing what the future requires?
For more than thirty years, Jonathan has coached and advised entrepreneurial and family-owned businesses. He has helped owners and leadership teams strengthen communication, build accountability, develop future leaders, reduce dependence on the founder, and create the systems needed for sustainable growth and succession.
He is the author of Disruptive Successor: A Guide for Driving Growth in Your Family Business, a practical playbook for next-generation leaders who are ready to earn trust, lead change, and carry the family enterprise into its next chapter.
Through The Goldhill Group, Jonathan works with a select number of family businesses and next-generation leaders who need more than a book—and are ready for honest conversations, clearer leadership, and a practical path forward.
Take the guesswork out of your strategic planning with these free resources mentioned in Disruptive Successor.
Core Values
Core Purpose
My Vital View
People Evaluator
Meeting Agendas
One Page Strategic Plan
Who, What, When (WWW) To-Do List
One-On-One Monthly Conversations