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Family Values Tag

This week, we are pleased to share a family business case illustrating how Firmenich, the world’s largest privately-owned perfume and taste company, has utilized their concentrated family ownership and governance model to navigate worldwide crises.

Thank you to this week’s contributor, Maya Prabhu of the FBR Research Applied Board, for sharing her précis of “The Effect of Value Congruence Between Founder and Successor on Successor’s Willingness: The Mediating Role of the Founder–Successor Relationship” – an article that appears in the September 2019 issue of FBR.

Thank you to this week’s contributor, Tom Hubler, for reflecting on his more than thirty-five years as a family business consultant and sharing some valuable insights he’s gained during that time. We hope you enjoy reading about Tom’s experience and learning about what he refers to as the “soul” of family businesses.

The month-long FFI Practitioner series dedicated to the theme of “Reflections” continues this week with a very special interview with Dennis Jaffe, author of the recent working paper titled, “Resilience of 100-Year Family Enterprises: How Opportunistic Innovation, Business Discipline, and a Culture of Stewardship Guide the Journey Across Generations.” In this interview, hosted by Russ Haworth, Dennis reflects on some of the key takeaways from his study of nearly one hundred successful family enterprises.

For family businesses, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to governance and advisers need to understand each family’s unique values and ownership philosophies before attempting to implement specific governance structures. Thanks to Marta Widz and Benoît Leleux from IMD for illustrating this point by sharing two cases where the family businesses have divergent ownership philosophies but have both excelled in their governance practices.