What should you do when your champion leaves the company?

What do you do in the first week?

Our plan, not a tested method:

Swipe to see more →

Talk to the contacts you already have before you approach the new owner. Whoever inherits the project will decide whether it still matters, and the people who sat in your demos can tell you how they're likely to see it.

How do you reach the new owner?

Lead with the problem, not the history. Example, invented for illustration:

It states the problem, the date and a clear question. It doesn't ask the new person to restart the project.

How likely is it that a champion leaves?

Higher than most deal plans assume, though no study measures this for champions specifically. The nearest data is from Lusha, a contact-data vendor. In its September 12, 2026 re-run, 12.25% of 140,284 US sales leaders (VP and C-suite) in its database had changed roles within 12 months (17,187 people), and 25.67% within 24 months. Lusha notes that it can only count job changes it has detected, that the most recent moves are the ones it's least likely to have caught, and that it measured a narrow slice of its own database, so it calls the figures a floor. Your champion may not be a sales VP in the US, so treat this as a rough guide.

Our math, using that 12.25% and assuming moves are spread evenly through the year: over a six-month deal, the chance that one given contact changes roles is about 6% (1 − 0.8775^0.5), roughly 1 in 16. Over a year it's about 12%. With three people in the deal who each carry the same risk, the chance that at least one of them leaves within six months is about 18% (1 − 0.8775^1.5). One person leaving is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason not to have only one contact.

How do you follow the champion to their new company?

Your old champion is often your warmest lead. They've seen the product work, or at least seen the case for it. Our approach:

1. Congratulate them, then wait a few weeks. In our view, new hires rarely have budget or settled priorities in their first weeks.
2. Send a short note tying your past work to the new role: "You were solving X at your last company, is that on your list here?"
3. Add them to a list and note their move date. Our page on sales trigger events covers job changes as a reason to reach out.
4. Check the address before you write. A former work email will bounce; see how to find a work email and the best email verification tool.

Don't assume they'll bring the deal along. Treat it as a new account with a friendlier first meeting.

How do you avoid single-threading in the first place?

• Ask who else has to agree in the first or second call. Forrester's December 2024 press release on its State of Business Buying report puts the typical buying decision at 13 people inside the customer's company, on average. See how many people are in a buying committee.
• Get two contacts per deal before you send a proposal. See how to find the decision maker.
• Give your champion something to forward, such as a one-page summary of the problem and cost, so the case survives them.
• Put a monthly reminder on every open deal to check that each contact still holds their role.

When should you skip each step?

• Re-mapping the whole account: skip it on a small deal where the champion was also the signer. Treat it as a new lead in that case.
• Contacting the departed champion: skip it if they left on bad terms with the company, or if you don't know why they left. Ask a second contact first.
• Following them to the new company: skip it when they've moved to a different industry or to a role with no budget for your product.
• Rebuilding the deal at once: skip the push if the new owner says priorities have changed. Agree a date to revisit.
• Waiting weeks to reach out: skip the wait if the project had a hard deadline. Reach the new owner now.