Client Story
Holt Renfrew's Succession Planning: Building a Future-Ready Sustainable Organization
Lifting the leadership altitude and readying the organization.
Opportunity/Challenge
The Canadian luxury retailer was looking beyond individual succession decisions toward a sustainable talent pipeline for the Executive Leadership Team and its feeder roles.
The work needed to connect top-down direction from the CEO, ELT, and Board with bottom-up insight into organizational talent, role readiness, and future capability.
Nikoleta & Associates brought a contextualized Booster 90 approach to create momentum in an eight-week process.
The goal was to lift leadership altitude while giving the People Team a repeatable structure it could continue to use.
“Thank you for the call but more importantly, the thought leadership and genuine care.”
Solution and Implementation
An eight-week succession-planning booster combined leadership listening, future-focused role profiles, workshops, and People Team enablement.
The first phase included Listening & Engagement with the ELT, organization themes, future-focused role profiles, and short inspiration inputs that prepared leaders for a September quarterly business review.
The second phase used post-QBR listening and ELT workshops to refine the approach, connect leadership perspectives, and prepare for the December QBR.
NKA worked with the People Team throughout the process so that the framework, language, and tools could be carried forward internally.
Tailored pathways distinguished the needs of ELT and ELT-1 roles while connecting them to organization-wide talent themes.
Results and Future Outlook
Holt Renfrew established a clearer, more sustainable succession approach for executive and enterprise leadership.
The organization gained future-focused role profiles, a shared view of succession priorities, and a repeatable process available to the ELT.
The strength of the initial work led to a renewed invitation for NKA to continue supporting Holt Renfrew through 2025 and 2026.