Ep 468: Navigating Accelerated Succession When Cancer Forces An Early Retirement with KayDee Cole
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2025
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Succession planning is rarely easy, but when life circumstances accelerate the timeline, it requires courage, clarity, and deep trust in your team. This episode explores how to manage an ownership and client transition with empathy, structure, and transparency.
KayDee Cole is the founder of Clarity Wealth Development, an RIA based in Corvallis, Oregon, that manages $200 million in AUM for 220 client households. Listen in as KayDee shares how she navigated an expedited succession plan after a cancer recurrence, selling equity to her COO through a seller-financed loan and preparing other team members for ownership. We also talk about the structured four-meeting process she created to transition clients to new advisors, how she coached her team through readiness conversations, and how transparent communication helped retain nearly all clients through the change.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/468
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:07.1 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.4 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success |
| 0:17.4 | and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next |
| 0:22.2 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:29.0 | Welcome to the 468th episode of the Financial Advisor's Success podcast. My guest on today's |
| 0:34.5 | podcast is KD. Cole. KD. is the founder of Clarity Wealth Development |
| 0:38.3 | and RIA based in Corvallis, Oregon that oversees approximately $200 million in assets |
| 0:43.3 | under management for 220 client households. What's unique about KD, though, is how she has |
| 0:48.3 | navigated an accelerated succession plan within a growing firm after experiencing a recurrence |
| 0:52.9 | of cancer and deciding to transition |
| 0:54.5 | away from the business. In this episode, we talk in depth about how KD initially sold a minority |
| 1:00.0 | stake in her firm using a seller-financed loan to her chief operating officer, who had taken |
| 1:04.6 | many aspects of running the business off of KD's plate, with plans to increase the stake over |
| 1:09.3 | time, how KD's cancer recurrence has led her to |
| 1:11.9 | speed up the equity transition, with her planning to give other firm employees the chance to buy |
| 1:16.5 | in as well, and how KD is thinking through whether to hold on to the seller financed loans, |
| 1:21.8 | which could create stress by continuing to tie her to the business and its success, even |
| 1:25.6 | though she's retired, and how this decision will impact her own finances. |
| 1:30.2 | We also talk about how KD initiated a four-meeting process to transfer her clients to other advisors in her firm with a senior advisor leading, |
| 1:37.3 | the first meeting and giving the other advisor an increasing role until they are ready to lead the relationship, |
| 1:42.2 | how KD and other first chair advisors have regular |
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