Family business governance - successors & siblings

Listen to Kristi Swett, Navin Amarasuryia and Ben Grossman explain the importance of a family business governance system as well as familiarizing the rising generation with these processes. Implementing a governance structure that the next generation is acquainted with, will ease the process of transferring the family business from one generation to the next, ultimately benefiting the family business.

Kristi Swett I want the family business to continue and I want it to continue to grow as still being a family business, so like, I’m very supportive and try to get as many people involved in it and try to keep it going with a younger point of view, and trying to keep progressing and make changes which I think are for the better. Navin Amarasuryia It comes down to, I guess, managing the family and managing the business. Now, because it’s a family business and it’s privately held, I guess managing the family through some kind of family council might be a good first step. So laying down some basic ground rules, making sure that the different parties understand how to engage with each other on a familiar level, and this could be even external to the business. But hopefully they will bring some of the civility into the business side when they do discuss issues of ownership, issues of future strategy, of direction, of succession. Ben Grossman Dad would expose us and our grandfather would expose us to the business operations and what it meant serve a customer, what it meant to be a good employer, what it meant to work well with your family.