Member Spotlight: Gerald Wernette | Starting Succession Planning Before Urgency Takes Over
Succession Planning Resource 
See how CSP® Gerald Wernette uses a succession planning assessment tool for advisors to help clients plan years before a sale.
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Gerald Wernette
CPA, CEBS®, C(k)P®, CEPA®, CSP®
Troy, Michigan
For Gerald Wernette, CPA, CEBS®, C(k)P®, CEPA®, CSP®, the most important succession planning conversations often begin years before a business owner is ready to sell.
As Principal/Director of Business Transition/Succession Planning Services at Rehmann, Gerald works with owners preparing for transition, exit, retirement, or next-generation continuity. Too many wait until urgency has already narrowed their options.
“The biggest thing I run into is the need to get a client to think about succession planning sooner rather than later,” Gerald said. “They should be thinking about it three to five years before they’re ready to sell their business.”
That timing discipline shapes his approach: build a clearer planning process while there is still time to address what surfaces before, during, and after transition.
Serving Business Owners Before Transition Becomes Urgent
Gerald works with a broad range of small to medium-sized business owners, from single-owner businesses to more complex ownership arrangements involving family members or multiple siblings. In every case, the work centers on helping owners think through what comes next before the business is forced into a decision.
Service businesses can be harder to transition when they depend heavily on the owner. Multiple-owner businesses add layers of coordination, communication, and decision-making.
At Rehmann, Gerald draws on a multidisciplinary team, valuation, M&A, tax, estate planning, wealth management, HR, fractional CFO, and executive retention, whenever a client’s transition plan requires it. Succession planning rarely stays inside one discipline.
The Planning Conversation That Should Start Earlier
Gerald’s central concern is timing.
Advisors and business owners often connect succession planning with a sale, so the owner starts thinking about it only once they’re ready to leave, ready to sell, or already under pressure. But succession planning is rarely a single event. It’s a process that touches ownership, leadership, management continuity, financial readiness, family considerations, governance, business performance, and future strategy.
Starting earlier, before urgency limits the options, gives owners space to identify what might affect the business, the family, the management team, and the future successor. It gives the advisory team time to ask better questions and everyone a clearer picture of what must be addressed before transition begins.
When Owners Don’t Know Where to Begin
How much guidance a client needs depends on where they are in the process. Some owners already know whether they’re considering a sale, family transition, internal transfer, or management-led path, and Gerald helps them evaluate options, test assumptions, and carry out a plan. Others know succession planning matters but don’t know where to start.
“The further a client is away from knowing what their transition plan is going to look like, the more structure they’re going to need and benefit from,” Gerald said.
That clarity keeps the conversation from narrowing too quickly. A client may raise one concern, retirement timing, business value, ownership transfer, only to find the planning process surfaces other issues that need attention first.
Turning Experience Into a Repeatable Planning Foundation
Gerald’s background as a CPA shapes how he approaches succession planning: he values process, clarity, and moving through complexity in an organized way.
“I like process, I like math. I like clarity,” he said. “I like being able to kind of see the big picture and navigate my way through it.”
That mindset is part of what made the International Succession Planning Association® and the Certified Succession Planner™ (CSP®) designation valuable to him. Gerald calls himself someone with a “ferocious appetite for learning,” and treats professional development as an ongoing part of serving clients well.
“I’ve never felt like I had a corner on the market when it comes to, ‘Here’s how I’m going to do something, and this is the only way to do it,’” he said.
Through ISPA®, Gerald found a repeatable approach that matched how he already thinks, plus new tools and language for client conversations. At a larger firm like Rehmann, that matters beyond his own practice: succession planning needs a foundation the whole team can share.
“If I’m working with a bigger team, I need to be able to spread that knowledge out and teach people,” Gerald said.
That shared foundation helps more people across the firm understand the process, spot client needs, and run succession engagements with more consistency.
Seeing the Picture on the Box
One of the biggest shifts in Gerald’s work has been using the Succession Planning Assessment™ (SPA™) as the starting point for client conversations.
“The biggest shift in my work has been utilizing the assessment tool as kind of a launching pad when I’m interacting with the client,” he said.
Gerald explains the process through a puzzle analogy:
“We’re going to build a puzzle. We’re going to dump the box on the table. But right now, we have no idea what the picture is on the box,” he said.
A business owner and advisor may face many pieces at once, financial questions, ownership concerns, leadership issues, family dynamics, management continuity, estate considerations, tax implications, long-term goals, but the pieces alone don’t show what the owner is trying to build. The assessment creates that first view.
“The assessment has really given us, once we’ve gone through it, some perspective on what that picture might look like,” he said.
The SPA™ helps Gerald explore readiness across multiple planning areas and identify where the conversation should go next, moving it from general awareness to focused planning.
When the Right Questions Reveal the Next Step
Gerald saw this play out in a recent conversation with a single-owner manufacturing business. As he and his associate worked through the assessment, the client began recognizing issues beyond the one already on the table.
“You could just see light bulbs going off for the client,” Gerald said.
Each new issue became a potential area for follow-up, some Rehmann could address directly, others requiring outside professionals or third-party support. The value came from helping the client see the planning needs clearly.
“That was a huge light bulb for me,” he said. “Whether you’re an organization that can deliver a lot of these things yourself or you would have to interact with third parties, it really set us up as a valuable consultant for the client.”
For advisors, that’s the practical value of guided discovery: it helps clients recognize planning needs before the advisor has to prescribe solutions.
Creating a Shared Planning Language
For a multidisciplinary firm, that discovery process carries even more weight. A business owner may need valuation insight, tax planning, estate planning, wealth management, executive retention planning, leadership support, governance guidance, or transaction advice, and each discipline sees the client’s situation differently.
The assessment gives Gerald’s team a common planning language to start from, so they can identify where specialists need to get involved. That gives advisors a more disciplined way to ask questions, uncover gaps, and connect clients with the right resources at the right time, which matters because succession planning combines technical issues with deeply human decisions.
Why Timing Shapes the Transition
Asked what separates a well-prepared transition from one that struggles, Gerald pointed to the human side of the work.
“The human factor is the biggest part of this,” he said.
Even strong technical knowledge can’t offset personal issues, health concerns, exhaustion, family dynamics, or urgency already shaping an owner’s decisions. Tools and resources help an advisor bring more to the table, but they can’t create time that’s already been lost.
“A lot of it is when the process begins,” he said. “It’s not even during the process. It’s when it begins.”
The later the conversation starts, the harder it becomes to address what inevitably surfaces. If the owner is already facing health challenges, burned out, or ready to leave immediately, the process compresses, and decisions that should be thoughtful become reactive.
“We need a runway,” he said. “We need time to navigate all the issues that inevitably are going to come up.”
That runway gives the advisor room to guide, the owner room to consider, and the business a better chance to prepare.
Client and Referral Focus
Gerald may be a strong fit for business owners who are:
- Beginning to think about ownership transition, succession, exit, or retirement
- Unsure where to start
- Leading small to medium-sized businesses
- Navigating single-owner or multi-owner transition questions
- Preparing for a future sale, internal transition, or next-generation leadership
- Facing planning needs that may involve business, tax, valuation, retirement, estate, or leadership considerations
Ideal referral partners may include:
- CPAs and tax advisors
- Estate and business attorneys
- Wealth advisors and financial planners
- Exit planners and M&A advisors
- Valuation professionals
- HR and executive compensation advisors
- Fractional CFOs and business consultants
A More Disciplined Starting Point
Gerald’s perspective points to a simple planning discipline: succession conversations are strongest when they begin before the owner is forced to act. With the right approach, advisors can help business owners see the issues ahead, involve the right people earlier, and build toward the transition they actually want.
For Gerald, that’s the value of starting earlier: a clearer planning conversation, a stronger advisory process, and more time to address what shapes continuity.
Continue Exploring ISPA® Member Stories
The ISPA® Member Spotlight series highlights professionals applying disciplined succession planning in real client conversations and advisory practices.
Explore more from ISPA®:
- Hear from more advisors in our Member Spotlight series.
- Try the Succession Planning Assessment™ (SPA™) with your next transition client.
- See what ISPA® membership includes.
Categories: : ISPA® Member Spotlight
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