We have an incredibly high-performing director who GWC's three different seats on our Accountability Chart. She is happy doing it, but we are twelve months from an exit. Will having one person in three seats hurt our valuation, and how do we offload these seats safely?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

While having a superstar wear multiple hats is common in early-stage companies, it represents a massive key-person risk to potential buyers. If one person occupies three critical seats on your leadership team, such as Marketing, HR, and Account Management, a buyer will assume the business cannot function without her. This risk will lead to a discounted valuation or a highly restrictive earn-out. To prepare for a clean exit, you must systematically offload her secondary seats over the next twelve months. Start by identifying her high-payoff seat, the one where her GWC™ is strongest and where she delivers the highest strategic value. Keep her in that single seat. For the other two seats, document the processes and begin transitioning the daily responsibilities to junior staff, outsourced vendors, or automated workflows. Your ultimate goal is to ensure that by the time you go to market, she occupies only one seat on your leadership team, and the other seats are filled by capable, independent owners. This proves to buyers that your operations run on robust, scalable systems rather than the heroic efforts of a single employee.