I am delighted to have been published in the Family Firm Institute Practitioner alongside my peers, Pauline Lemaire and Daniel Trimarchi.
Click the link to access the article: https://ffipractitioner.org/navigating-individuality-and-family-unity-bowen-theory-today/
Family enterprise governance must serve more than profit maximization and corporate compliance. If it is to safeguard relationships, wellbeing, and legacy, it requires design principles that recognise both the corporate and the family systems. Without inclusive structures, the same rules intended to protect shared assets can be used to consolidate power for the benefit of some family members to the detriment of others.
In non-family enterprises, governance is largely geared toward effective decision-making for profit, stakeholder value, and legal and regulatory compliance. In family enterprises, governance should also preserve harmony and the welfare of family, protect vulnerable members, and honour the intentions that built the legacy.
My advisory experience shows that rigid reliance on majority-rule corporate mechanisms — without regard for family dynamics — often enables dominant coalitions to make decisions that exclude or harm others. This is particularly visible in sibling-partnership ownership structures where rivalry is evident.
Wealth, when well stewarded, is meant to unite generations. Yet even among the most successful families, it often becomes the source of their deepest divisions.
I’ve seen it first-hand in my own family’s court battle over inheritance. What was meant to symbolize continuity instead became a source of silence and conflict.
I share this not to dwell on the pain of it, but to highlight a truth I have come to understand both personally and professionally:
most families do not fail at succession because they lack wealth or advisors. They fail because they forget the human dimension of governance.
As a Family Enterprise Advisor and Coach, I work with business-owning families to build governance systems that blend both structure and soul. My work is informed by my technical training — an MBA from Columbia Business School, a CFA charter, and certifications from the Family Firm Institute — but equally by…