I’ve been enjoying the lull between the Strategic Management Society Annual Conference in Paris in late September and the Family Firm Institute Global Conference, set to kick off next week on October 24 in London. It’s always so stimulating to get together with like-minded people who share common interests and to hear like-minded people who maybe have other views of topics that I feel strongly about. Our profession should be about learning and sharing, and about meeting new players and greeting old friends and colleagues.
And speaking of such, recently there was an historic meeting, at my invitation, between some of the best minds and leading family business consultants. We met in Paris, post SMS. I got to spend time with Peter May, of Peter May Family Business Consulting (Bonn, GR) and his partners Karen May and Dr. Arno Lehmann-Tolkmitt, Velitchka Hristova, Executive at Bank Gutmann (Vienna) and an associate at Family Business Matters Consulting, and Samuel Maldonado, also an associate at Family Business Matters Consulting.
The focus of the meeting was to better understand each firm’s protocol for consulting with family-owned enterprise and to explore possibilities for future collaboration. Both Peter and I are very passionate about family enterprise, and we both seek to serve in the best ways possible. The conclusion was that combining aspects of our respective methodologies has great potential for even better results in our consultative processes.
Peter and I will meet for two days in December to expand the reciprocal understanding of our methods, and the specifics about their application. Our recent coming together was also time spent laughing and exchanging stories and enjoying each other’s company. This is one of my favorite kind of days, and to spend it in beautiful Paris was a bonus. Now I am looking forward to chatting with and listening to other family business participants at the FFI Global Conference in London next week.
David Bork is an internationally-acclaimed family business consultant, author, and speaker with five decades of experience providing guidance to over 500 family business enterprises. He is the author of The Little Red Book of Family Business and just published the online course: Re-Imagining Relationships for Families in Business. For more information about David Bork, visit FamilyBusinessMatters.Consulting.
