Key Person Risk Score
Find out which people your revenue depends on, the dollar exposure if they leave, and who needs a backup first.
Example scenario—not a forecast or verified benchmark. Enable JavaScript to edit inputs, view charts, save locally and export your analysis.
Example inputs
- Total annual revenue
- 5,000,000
- Contribution margin
- 40
- Key people
- [{"name":"Owner","role":"CEO / rainmaker","revenueInfluenced":2000000,"knowledge":5,"backup":false,"flight":"low"},{"name":"Maria","role":"Operations manager","revenueInfluenced":1200000,"knowledge":4,"backup":false,"flight":"medium"},{"name":"Dev","role":"Top salesperson","revenueInfluenced":1000000,"knowledge":3,"backup":false,"flight":"high"},{"name":"Sam","role":"Lead estimator","revenueInfluenced":600000,"knowledge":4,"backup":true,"flight":"medium"}]
Example results
Key person risk: 89/100 (Severe). $613K of annual profit rides on 4 people, led by Owner at $360K; expected loss this year is $72K.
- Key person risk score
- 89/100
- Profit at risk if each person left
- $612,800
- Expected loss this year (probability-weighted)
- $71,920
- Largest single exposure (Owner)
- $360,000
- High-knowledge people with no backup
- 2
- Annual retention budget this exposure justifies
- $215,760
What stands out
Owner (CEO / rainmaker) scores 100/100
Influences 40% of revenue with knowledge rated 5/5 and no trained backup. A departure puts about $360,000 of profit at risk in year one.
2 high-knowledge people have no backup
Owner, Maria. This is the fastest risk to reduce and the first thing a buyer's diligence team will probe.
Flight risk: Dev
High chance of leaving combined with a meaningful risk score; expected loss of $28,000 this year.
Next actions
- Name and train a backup for Owner within 90 days: document their top 10 recurring decisions and have the backup run them for two weeks.
- Name and train a backup for Maria within 90 days: document their top 10 recurring decisions and have the backup run them for two weeks.
- Put a retention agreement (stay bonus or phantom equity vesting over 2-3 years) in place for Dev; it costs far less than the $80K at risk.
- Price key-person life/disability coverage for Owner; exposure of $360K is a starting point for the benefit amount.
Model assumptions & limitations
- Rule of thumb: year-one loss of influenced revenue ranges from about 5% (knowledge 1) to 45% (knowledge 5); a trained backup cuts it by 60%.
- Departure probabilities (5% / 15% / 35%) are rough planning estimates for low, medium, and high flight risk.
- Influence can overlap between people, so the total profit at risk is an upper bound rather than additive.
- Profit at risk uses contribution margin and excludes recruiting and ramp costs, so it understates the full cost.
- Retention budget of ~3x expected loss is a heuristic for how much prevention is worth spending.