Our Events

Succession Planning with Roger Courtney

Training Session

11/02/2026

Succession Planning with Roger Courtney

In the Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector, effective leadership transitions are essential for organisational continuity and long-term success. CEOs, senior leaders, and Trustees play pivotal roles in navigating these transitions, ensuring seamless handovers and preserving mission-driven momentum. The “Succession Planning” training program is meticulously tailored to address the unique challenges and opportunities surrounding leadership succession within the VCSE sector.

By the end of this training session, you will: 

✔️ Understand Where You Are Now: Assess your current succession planning efforts and identify gaps.

✔️ Define Succession Planning: Clearly understand what succession planning entails and why it’s crucial.

✔️ Recognise the Benefits: Learn how effective succession planning boosts productivity, morale, and organisational stability.

✔️ Distinguish Between Executive and Board Succession Planning: Understand the unique aspects and needs of both executive and board succession planning.

✔️ Explore Three Types of Succession Planning: Gain insights into strategic leader development, emergency succession planning, and departure-defined succession planning.

✔️ Create a Succession Plan: Develop a comprehensive plan tailored to your organisation’s needs.

✔️ Use a Checklist & Review: Ensure your plan is robust with a practical checklist and regular review processes.

Who is it for?

CEO, Senior Leaders

Date: 04/02/2026

Time: 12:00PM - 2:30PM

Venue: CO3 Office, Belfast

Member Price: 149

Non-member Price: 249

🚨 Why Is It Risky to Not Have a Succession Plan?

Not having a succession plan can disrupt your organisation. Leadership gaps slow down progress and lower productivity. High turnover occurs as employees leave due to uncertainty, increasing hiring and training costs. Customer satisfaction suffers with inconsistent leadership, harming your reputation.

Board succession is also critical. Without a plan, losing board members can lead to poor governance and strategic disarray, weakening your organisation’s foundation.

📈 Don’t wait for a crisis. Plan for the future with our succession planning training. Learn to create and maintain a strong succession plan for leaders and board members.

This session will be facilitated by…

Roger Courtney

Courtney Consulting

What Members Say About CO3

We’re delighted to get behind the financial resilience programme who, which will support a range of charity leaders from the small right through to the large, will really help give them the skills to be strong and be there for their communities for as long as they’re needed.

As a chief executive it is a very lonely job at times, particularly in small charities and Northern Ireland has got many small charities. So when you feel that loneliness or isolation, the one thing that CO3 brought was the ability to go and chat to somebody, whether it be a mentor or whether it be just another chief exec to bounce off.

Kate Fleck
Member of the Board, OCN NI

CO3 offer a wide range of courses for middle, middle managers, senior managers and chief executives within the third sector. Some of the programmes include the Leading Edge programme, there’s other leadership programmes available and then they also offer some micro learning sessions around how to present things like finances to your board of directors, reviewing your governance structure within the organisation and they would bring in some expert facilitators to deliver those sessions as well.

Martin Flynn
CEO, OCN NI

We’re delighted to get behind the financial resilience programme who, which will support a range of charity leaders from the small right through to the large, will really help give them the skills to be strong and be there for their communities for as long as they’re needed.

As a chief executive it is a very lonely job at times, particularly in small charities and Northern Ireland has got many small charities. So when you feel that loneliness or isolation, the one thing that Co Three brought was the ability to go and chat to somebody, whether it be a mentor or whether it be just another chief exec to bounce off.

Kate Fleck
Member of the Board, OCN NI

“CO3 is always a great network for support, for encouragement, for advice, answers to tricky questions when you're really, really stuck. Overall, it's been a fantastic network of colleagues who are always there for guidance and encouragement whenever things are really tough.”

Karen Collins
Chief Executive, Aware NI

“It is so valuable having other people who are in a similar position that you can network with, you can share problems with, you can ask advice. And so my whole career, CO3 has been really, really important to me in providing those things.”

Roger Courtney
Founder & Director, Roger Courtney Consulting

“I think for me the CO3 is a safe space just to have a chat, to make connections and also to learn from other people who are in a similar position in their career as you are.”

Lisa Keys
Chief Executive, Northern Ireland Boys’ Brigade