Dr. Tom Deans
President, Détente Financial Press
Session Details: Mastering the Psychology of Business Succession
Session Description: Prepare to unlearn everything you thought you knew about succession planning from Dr. Tom Deans, author of the best-selling business succession planning book, Every Family’s Business. Listed by the New York Times as a top ten book for business owners, Dr. Deans explores the psychology of personal reinvention before an exit. Succession planning is often framed as the start of an end - retirement and irrelevance, but Dr. Deans shows how owners can reimagine the last chapter of their career to be fun, purposeful, and highly profitable. He explains how owners can plan to transition their equity, reduce stress, improve health, and work with new capacity and energy. Whether you advise business owner clients or are on your own entrepreneurial journey, you'll gain valuable insights and strategies to view a liquidity event as a powerful new beginning.
Bio: Dr. Tom Deans is the author of three books on the subject of family wealth transfers. His first book, Every Family’s Business: 12 Common Sense Questions to Protect Your Wealth, remains the best-selling family business book of all-time -- selected by The New York Times as one of the Top Ten Books Business Owners Should Read. The book has sold more than one-million copies in more than 100 countries.
His second book, Willing Wisdom: Seven Questions Successful Families Ask, reached #2 on the Globe and Mail’s best-sellers List. The book has received critical acclaim for its controversial explanation of why 15 million Canadians do not have a legal will. Willing Wisdom continues to stir debate on the merits of disclosing a will with intended beneficiaries. Willing Wisdom reached #2 on The Globe and Mail Best-seller list and has sold more than 1 million copies world-wide.
In May 2024, Dr. Deans released The Happy Inheritor: How Successful Families Prepare Heirs and Transfer Wealth, the third and final book in his Family Wealth Trilogy.
The book examines how many successful families transfer wealth with the help of their advisor through the use of facilitated family meetings to bring predictability and transparency to their estate plans. For families who struggle with this process, the book offers insights into why. This ground-breaking book reinforces the importance of family philanthropy in preparing the next generation for the $300 million that is inherited every day by Canadians
Having delivered more than 2000 speeches in 28 countries, he is regarded as the preeminent thought-leader on the subject of inter-generational wealth transfers.
Deans is a graduate Mount Allison University, McMaster University and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick in England.
His books and speeches aren’t just about money and clever tax plans. They’re about giving people the confidence and inspiration to begin important conversations among family and their advisors.