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OPINION
Inside the Executive Roundtable
E ach year, Zweig Group hosts an Executive Roundtable designed to give senior AEC firm leaders a rare opportunity to step away from the day-to-day to focus on strategic thinking. Thanks to our new partnership, I had the privilege of helping the Zweig Group team “host” the most recent roundtable in Boston. This event is a catalyst for honest conversation, shared wisdom, and renewed focus on ownership, governance, and the future of the industry.
Brad Wilson, CMA, MBA
I put the “host” in quotes because the AEC executives in the room were so eager to share their experiences and strategies with one another that very little facilitation was needed. This openness is a hallmark of the AEC industry and something I deeply admire. I encourage every leadership team to participate in this type of session; you’ll walk away with valuable insights that only peer-to-peer dialogue can offer. While the conversations touched on a wide array of topics, one surfaced repeatedly: the multi- dimensional issue of ownership. It’s an issue we’ve long advised clients to treat as a continuous process versus an event. And this group reinforced that view in spades. Even firms with several generational transitions under their belts reported new challenges to their ownership and governance models. These challenges fell into three major, but interconnected categories:
1. Finding young leaders who also want to be owners. At its core, ownership transition is a people issue, and this group of executives knew this well. Several firms shared recent changes they had made to make ownership more affordable or more desirable overall but with negligible results. The risk/reward equation around ownership has shifted for the current 30- and 40-somethings. Several of the roundtable participants expressed frustration at not fully understanding this shift in mindset, and concern that it could undermine the sustainability of their ownership models. The key takeaway here was the need for firms to invest more in business education of future leaders and the practical realities of ownership. None of
See BRAD WILSON, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER MAY 19, 2025, ISSUE 1586
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