Retiring as an owner or partner: what comes next?

The handover is done, the money is sorted. Then comes the first Monday with an empty calendar, and nobody calls to ask you anything. That is how it goes for many who leave a role without selling a company: a partner leaving a Zürich law firm at 62, a country manager in Zug handing over, a senior physician, an owner after passing the firm to a daughter or son. If you sold, the closer fit is After selling the company: who am I now?

Why does retirement hit partners, senior physicians and owners differently from employees?

Anyone who has run a firm, a practice or a division for thirty years loses three things at once: the rhythm others set – meetings, deadlines, calls; the authority – people asked because you could decide; and the answer to “What do you do?”.

Employees lose the rhythm too; the difference lies in the other two. An owner was not in the company, he was the company. Where that much identity rested on a role, the gap takes longer to fill. That is not a deficit but the consequence of decades in which the model worked.

For international executives in Zug and Zürich there is a fourth loss: the office often was the network, while colleagues go home to clubs and families they have belonged to for decades. Retire here, and the one structure that held you in place is gone in a day.

Money is rarely the issue: in the AXA Ruhestandsmonitor 2025 (n = 1’200), people who feel financially well secured look forward to retirement at 8.1 out of 10, the poorly secured at 6.7. What comes after rarely features in that planning, because retirement planning in Switzerland usually means AHV, pension fund and tax.

What do Swiss figures say about satisfaction, contacts and working past 65?

Most retired people in Switzerland are content. In Swiss Life’s study “Wie lebt es sich im Rentenalter?” (YouGov, January 2025, 2’063 respondents aged 65 to 80), three in four people in early retirement are satisfied with their social network. 23 per cent have fewer social contacts since retiring; 34 per cent find their contacts more valuable. 31 per cent of 65- to 74-year-olds feel lonely at least sometimes – fewer than in younger age groups.

Many keep working: between 180’000 and 200’000 people aged 65 and over are in work each year in Switzerland, and just over half of those working between 65 and 70 are self-employed or in a family business (Swiss Life, “Länger arbeiten”, 2024).

Among owners, letting go shows in the succession figures: in 80 per cent of realised handovers the outgoing generation withdrew for age or health reasons, and almost half were still in the firm at least an hour a week two years later (CFB-HSG/Credit Suisse 2022, over 150 companies). 21 per cent of owners aged 66 to 90 could not name a handover date in autumn 2025 (UBS/CFB-HSG, Kurzstudie 01, January 2026, 401 SME owners).

The average retiree, then, manages well. It gets hard for a minority; that owners, partners and senior physicians turn up in it often is not a statistic but an observation: they were needed the longest.

“Nobody needs me any more” – what is behind that sentence?

It sounds like self-pity and is usually an accurate observation. For decades people called because they wanted something from you – a signature, a judgement, a yes. Being needed was tiring and also a reliable signal that you mattered. When it stops, it is not the work that is missing but the mirror.

Behind the sentence are usually three things. An open account with the successor: she does not call, and that stings, although it is what you wanted. A shift at home: your wife or husband has had a rhythm of their own for years, and suddenly you are there all day. And the question nobody asked because every other one was more urgent: what should count now that you are no longer in charge?

A hobby does not answer that, nor does the next board seat. Your spouse, your former colleagues and your fiduciary (Treuhänder) all have a view on what you should do now. A sparring partner has none.

A session lasts 60 minutes, 90 on request, at your home or a quiet place of your choice in Zug, Zürich or on the Gold Coast, travel included within 60 minutes’ drive of Wetzikon; online also possible, in English or German. The fee depends on the format and the length; I tell you what it is in the first, confidential conversation, before you decide.

Which questions should you settle before accepting board seats, advisory roles and committees?

The offers come fast: a board seat at a former supplier, an advisory role at the chamber of commerce, a foundation board. Together they refill the calendar within a year – minus the direct say you used to have. Five questions before you say yes:

1. Do I want this, or do I want to be needed again? Both are legitimate; only the first still carries once the appeal of being needed wears off.
2. What is my contribution that nobody else makes? If the answer is “my name”, it is a representative role, not a mandate.
3. How much responsibility without authority can I bear? On a board you share responsibility and liability; someone else runs the day-to-day.
4. What does the person I live with say? Not as permission but as information: she or he had prepared for a different retirement. For couples who moved here for your career, “stay or move back?” returns here too.
5. What do I decline so that space remains? A retirement fully booked in its first twelve months does not answer what comes next; it postpones it.

The first offer you accept should not be the first that arrives. A mandate with a reply date is a typical reason for a single session, not a programme.

When is this one for your doctor, not for a conversation?

A conversation about what should count now assumes that you are on firm ground. Most people are. I do not diagnose; the points below are the observations that make another address come first:

• You have slept badly for more than three weeks.
• What used to give you pleasure leaves you indifferent – not just work, but people, food, exercise.
• You drink more than before and would rather not admit it to yourself.
• You think it would be easier without you. Then do not wait for a doctor’s appointment: Dargebotene Hand helpline 143, around the clock; emergency 144.

If any of these apply, see your family doctor first, not me. Whether an illness lies behind it is for a doctor to judge, not me; a conversation about mandates does not replace that check. Sparring is not psychotherapy and does not replace it; where the line runs is set out in When you need a therapist, and when a sparring partner is enough. A treated, stable condition is no exclusion.

In short

Most retired people in Switzerland are content; it gets hard where the job was the answer to “Who are you?”. What is missing then is not money or occupation but a question only you can answer, and a counterpart with no stake in the answer. Board seats and committees do not answer that question, they postpone it – so settle first what should count, and only then say yes.