Governance of the family enterprise

Family and business governance both play a significant role in the successful governance of the family enterprise.

Whilst corporate governance focuses primarily on the role and functioning of the Board, family governance has as it key objective to create structures that allow the family (owners) to act as responsible owners, make constructive decisions together and communicate clearly with the business about their wishes and requirements as owners and to decide and communicate clearly with the family about the rules of engagement with the company.

Family governance structures can serve family owners in powerful ways when they are created collaboratively and for the right reasons. They can promote and support the glue that binds the family together and be forums for courageous, creative and considered dialogue and decision making.

I help families create cohesive governance structures according to their needs. This could include:

• Writing a family constitution
• Establishing a family council
• Creating a next generation forum or shadow Board
• Agree a process for collaborating with the Board of Directors