What does the Second Chair™ NDA cover?

Every Second Chair™ engagement begins under a mutual NDA, and it covers everything that is said. Sessions, the private diagnostic, the stakeholder interviews, the parent briefings, and the family and business matters that come up along the way are all confidential. The NDA does not expire: it continues after the six months end, for as long as the information exists. Inside the engagement, a separate written agreement sets out what the parent hears, which is progress and direction, not what the successor says in sessions.

Families who engage a coach for a successor are usually trusting someone with more than they would tell most advisors: tensions between generations, doubts about a sibling, the numbers behind a decision, what the senior team really thinks. This article sets out how that is protected.

Who is bound by it?

The NDA is mutual: both sides sign it and both sides are bound by it. For a family, the obligation that matters is the one on Second Chair™: nothing learned about the family, the business or the people in it is disclosed.

That is taken literally. No family is ever named, no case study is ever published, and nothing a client says appears in an article, a talk or a conversation with anyone else.

What exactly is confidential?

Everything said in the course of the engagement. That includes:

The weekly sessions, the rehearsals before events and the voice notes between sessions.
The private diagnostic: both intakes, the recorded baseline and the written report.
The stakeholder interviews. Three to five people close to the successor, such as senior executives, a board member and sometimes a sibling, speak in confidence. What they say informs the work. Who said what is not passed on.
The parent’s own conversations: the week-one intake and the monthly briefings.
Anything about the business that comes up: figures, plans, people, disputes.

It also covers the fact of the engagement itself. Second Chair™ does not confirm to anyone outside the family that it is working with them.

How long does it last?

Indefinitely. The NDA does not end when the six months end. A family’s private matters do not become less private with time, and a successor who will lead the business for decades should never have to wonder whether something said at the start of their leadership could surface later.

What does the parent hear?

This is a separate question from the NDA, and it is worth keeping separate. The NDA protects the family from the outside world. The agreement about what the parent hears protects the successor inside the family.

The successor is the client. The parent receives:

A private intake in week one.
A summary of the diagnostic in week two, including what success looks like at month six, agreed with the successor.
A thirty-minute briefing each month from month two: progress, upcoming events and how the parent can help.
A written closing report at the end of the six months.

What the successor says in sessions is not shared with the parent, and the successor knows exactly what the parent is told. A successor who suspects their sessions are being reported will speak carefully, and careful sessions rarely change anything. What the parent sees during successor coaching explains why the boundary sits where it does.

What does the NDA not do?

An NDA is a promise about disclosure. It does not:

Replace the family’s own legal advice. Families are welcome to have their own lawyer review it before signing, and should.
Turn coaching into legal, tax or investment advice. Second Chair™ does not give any of those, and the NDA does not change that.
Override the law. Like any confidentiality agreement, it cannot prevent disclosure that the law requires.

Why sign one at all?

Discretion could simply be promised. Putting it on paper does two things. It makes the boundary clear to everyone involved, including the stakeholders who are interviewed. And it lets the family’s advisors, who are often the ones recommending a coach, see exactly what protection their client has. Is successor coaching confidential? covers the wider question of confidentiality in coaching for successors.

When is it signed?

Before the engagement begins, alongside the agreement. Nothing confidential is asked for before then: the request form and the first private conversation deal only with what a family chooses to share. How a Second Chair™ engagement is agreed and paid sets out the order of steps.

In short

Every engagement begins under a mutual NDA.
It covers everything said: sessions, the diagnostic, stakeholder interviews, parent conversations and anything about the business.
It does not expire.
The parent hears progress and direction, through the intake, the diagnostic summary, monthly briefings and a closing report. What the successor says in sessions stays with the successor.
Families should have their own lawyer review it.