Have the contributions that lawyers can make to family governance discussion been undervalued? So says this week’s contributor, Henry Krasnow, in a thought-provoking piece exploring how family business consultants can collaborate more productively with the company’s attorney.

Panta rhei. Everything flows and evolves. And family businesses are no exception. From the first-generation founder firm to a real family firm in later generations, and from a single business firm to a complex portfolio business. In some instances, that transition in the family firm – from one to many businesses – happens rather suddenly, in a revolutionary way. Such transformations usually require a few key elements: a natural entrepreneur in the later generations of the family and… a major liquidity event that financially enables the transformation. Marta Widz and

In this week’s FFI Practitioner, Eva Wathén examines the importance of culture within family enterprises and explores some of the differences between the cultures of family-owned and nonfamily-owned enterprises.

How do the personalities differ between family and nonfamily CEOs and what impact could this difference have on the performance of family businesses? In this week’s edition, Kim Schneider Malek reexamines the popular argument about family and nonfamily CEOs through her précis of “CEO Personality: A Different Perspective on the Nonfamily Versus Family CEO Debate,” an article appearing the March 2019 issue of FBR.

Thank you to Núria Vilanova, this week’s contributor, for continuing FFI Practitioner’s series of articles written in both English and Spanish by members of the FFI IberoAmerican Virtual Study Group. In this week’s edition, Núria explores the themes of her recent book, which addresses the importance of family enterprises implementing a communication strategy that incorporates the family’s values.

Every Wednesday authors for FFI Practitioner share insights on the field of family enterprise advising and consulting from a variety of vantage points. Today we’d like to invite you to Write for FFI Practitioner! And… as inspiration, we point you toward examples of articles from contributors across the globe and some topics that could use more contributors.

Thanks to Mitzi Perdue for this case study discussing some of the perils involved in misunderstanding core concepts underlying the frequently invoked “chain of command.” It is an instructive article for advisors and a case that could be shared with clients.

Thank you to this week's contributor, Janice DiPietro, for making this thought-provoking case for family-to-family investing. The article explores investing strategies for family-owned enterprises that can create three important opportunities for both entities involved.

This week’s FFI Practitioner focuses on buy-sell agreements and their role in protecting family enterprise from potential future ownership issues. Thanks to Dan Frosh, this week’s author, for providing an examination of the numerous benefits and features of effective buy-sell agreements within the family enterprise context.

This week, FFI Practitioner is pleased to share an interview with Dr. Salvatore Tomaselli, where he explains the development of his Family-in-Business Model Canvas, an adaptation of the Business Model Canvas, that Dr. Tomaselli has applied to his work with family enterprises.

What can family enterprises learn from a book titled, Who Moved My Cheese? Thanks to this week’s contributor, Ashvini Chopra, for sharing a case study that applies the book’s lessons about change and adaptability to a recent scenario Ashvini encountered with one of his family business clients.

Welcome to the first issue of the 2019 FFI Practitioner. What better way to look forward than to talk with one of the founders of the family enterprise field? We hope you enjoy this interview with David Bork, a legend in the field and, 50 years later, still a pioneer.

As 2018 is winding down, we’re taking a look back at “the year that was” for FFI Practitioner. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading and listening to the 50 editions by more than 65 authors published this year. This week, we’re pleased to share the 10 most popular editions from 2018!

Family business cases can serve as powerful tools to integrate into consulting and educational work with clients. Cases provide an engaging way for family enterprise members to recognize issues similar to the ones they face, helping evaluate potential, less emotionally-charged solutions. To further this publication’s mission to provide readers with practical materials that support their work with multi-generational family enterprises, we are pleased to feature a selection of family business cases previously published in FFI Practitioner.

This week’s FFI Practitioner edition addresses a topic of importance in the field of family enterprise – the family office. In addition to an article examining the history of the role of a family office executive by Annischka Holmes-Moncur, we are pleased to share four global perspectives on this topic as published earlier in FFI Practitioner.

How can relationship conflict and socioemotional costs impact a family business owner’s subjective assessment of the firm’s value? In this week’s edition, which is a précis of “Relationship Conflict, Family Name Congruence, and Socioemotional Wealth in Family Firms,” an article appearing in the December issue of FBR, Navneet Bhatnagar explores this question and the relevant implications for practitioners.

Thanks to Gaia Marchisio for this week’s article which discusses the importance of recognizing and addressing strong beliefs about “universal truths” and misconceptions in the field of family enterprise. In this article, Gaia urges advisers to avoid becoming too narrow-minded and entrenched in an established way of thinking. Instead, she encourages advisers to maintain an outsider’s perspective on conventional family business truths that are often taken for granted.

Thanks to Chris Casey for sharing his thoughts on what success means in family firms and some of the difficulties he encountered as he worked on his dissertation “Defining success in family firms using configurational fit: A quantitative study of family-owned construction firms” from Capella University.


This week’s FFI Practitioner addresses an often overlooked, but critical phase of the consulting process – contracting. Thank you to Judi Cunningham and Wendy Sage-Hayward for sharing this article that highlights the importance of contracting as an ongoing process, rather than a one-time discussion, and describes two levels of contracting that appear within an engagement.

In many parts of the world, October 31 is Halloween, so we couldn’t resist featuring some topics that might seem scary to approach with your clients. In the spirit of Halloween, here are some spooky editions.