Succession Planning Report — Leadership Team, Harborline Logistics

Organisation / unit: Harborline Logistics (regional freight and warehousing firm, ~240 staff) Prepared by: Priya Venkat, Head of People Date: 18 February 2026 Review cadence: reviewed twice yearly Next review: 17 August 2026 Audience: Board and Managing Director

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1. Scope and purpose

• Roles in scope: Managing Director, Operations Director, Head of Sales, and Systems Lead
• Planning horizon: the next three years (2026-2028)
• Out of scope: warehouse-floor and driver roles, which are filled through ongoing recruitment, and the Finance Director role, which was reviewed separately last quarter

2. Critical roles and key-person risk

Role	Incumbent	Why the role is critical	Departure risk	Impact if lost	Overall risk
Systems Lead	Daniel Mboya	Sole architect of the routing and tracking platform; knowledge exists nowhere else	High	High	High
Head of Sales	Grace Okafor	Owns the top five customer relationships, which make up 44 percent of revenue	Medium	High	High
Operations Director	Tomas Reuben	Runs daily fulfilment across three depots; deep operational know-how	Low	High	Medium
Managing Director	Helen Aturu	Sets strategy and holds banking and board relationships	Low	High	Medium

3. Successors and readiness

Role	Successor	Readiness	Key strengths	Main gap to close
Managing Director	Tomas Reuben	Ready now	Trusted internally, strong operational grasp, board-ready	Limited exposure to banking and investor relationships
Managing Director	Grace Okafor	Ready in 1-2 yrs	Commercial instinct, external profile	Has not run a full P&L or operations
Operations Director	Lena Sorvino	Ready in 1-2 yrs	Best depot manager, respected by floor teams	No cross-depot or budget-ownership experience
Head of Sales	Marcus Bell	Ready in 1-2 yrs	Strong closer, owns the mid-tier accounts	Untested on the largest strategic accounts
Systems Lead	None identified	Gap — action required	—	No internal candidate; single point of failure

4. Development actions

Successor	Target role	Development action	Owner	Target date
Tomas Reuben	Managing Director	Shadow Helen on board and banking meetings for two quarters	Helen Aturu	Q3 2026
Lena Sorvino	Operations Director	Rotate across all three depots and own the regional fulfilment budget	Tomas Reuben	Q2 2027
Marcus Bell	Head of Sales	Co-manage two of the top five accounts alongside Grace	Grace Okafor	Q4 2026
(Systems)	Systems Lead	Hire a deputy systems engineer and begin documenting the platform with Daniel	Priya Venkat	Q3 2026

5. Emergency cover

Critical role	Interim cover	What they would need on day one
Systems Lead	External contractor on retainer (vendor: NorthStack)	Platform access, Daniel's runbooks, and a priority list of live issues
Head of Sales	Marcus Bell	Introductions to the top accounts and delegated pricing authority
Operations Director	Lena Sorvino	Cross-depot reporting access and signing authority for the period
Managing Director	Tomas Reuben	Board confirmation as acting MD and banking signatory access

6. Risk summary and priorities

• Highest-risk role: Systems Lead. Daniel is a flight risk, the platform runs the whole operation, and there is no internal successor — this is the single most urgent exposure in the business.
• Top priorities this period: (1) hire and onboard a deputy systems engineer and document the platform; (2) formalise Tomas as the ready-now MD successor through board shadowing; (3) reduce sales concentration by bringing Marcus onto the largest accounts.
• Roles with strong cover: Managing Director and Operations Director both have credible near-ready or ready-now successors, so the leadership core is well protected against a planned transition.

7. Review cadence

• Routine review: the full report is reviewed by the Managing Director and Head of People every six months and presented to the board annually.
• Trigger reviews: an immediate refresh follows any resignation among the four roles, a restructure, or a material change in customer concentration.
• Board / owner visibility: the Managing Director succession line is reported to the board at each half-year meeting.