[PaulMest]

It's pretty rare to give someone 10%+ equity after a business has been operating for several years. Even if you brought on a professional CEO, I wouldn't expect to see that. I've seen some founders put together special agreements to transfer some of their own shares to a person recognizing that they'll be taking over a big part of their own role and that it wouldn't be fair to dilute the rest of the company.

Regardless of what you do, make sure there is a vesting schedule in place (e.g. a 4 year vest + 1 year cliff).