WHY IS THIS COURSE RELEVANT?
While sometimes overlooked in the broader business context, family businesses are a dominant force for national and global employment, business activity and GDP. Even more impressive, multiple studies have shown that these businesses tend to outperform and outlast their non-family counterparts. And yet, despite their outsized impact, they are frequently misunderstood, underestimated, and overlooked in business schools, in popular culture, and in the broader conversation about what makes a great company.
This course is built around a single organizing idea: family businesses are the only type of business structurally positioned to build something sustainable, values first. Public companies answer to quarterly earnings. Private equity-backed companies are incentivized toward a 5-to-7-year exit. Non-profits lead with values but are structurally dependent on external funding, making true sustainability elusive. Family businesses sit at a rare and powerful intersection where they have the profit motive and the freedom to define "shareholder value" as something bigger than financial return alone: as a reflection of who they are and what they stand for, creating an incredible competitive advantage.
However, family businesses that fail to be intentional about governance, succession, and culture risk drifting away from the very thing that made them great. This course will give you the frameworks and perspective to protect and build on that advantage whether you are stepping into a family business, advising one, or simply want to lead with a long-term, values-driven mindset in whatever you pursue.
AUDIENCE:
If you are interested or intrigued by the idea of having financial and operational independence in your business and your life, this course is for you. This class is aimed towards students who are interested in exploring alternate paths to independence and entrepreneurship afforded by family businesses. We will explore the benefits of stewarding a business to preserve and create generational wealth, while also maintaining maximum control over your business and, more importantly, your personal values and life.
This course will be valuable to you whether you are planning to join or lead a family business, acquire one, invest in one, or advise one. If you see yourself as a future owner, operator, consultant, private wealth manager, M&A advisor, or banker who will work alongside family enterprises, the frameworks in this course will sharpen how you think and how you add value. And if you are simply someone who wants to lead with a long-term mindset — in whatever business you build or join — this course will give you a different and more powerful way of defining success.
CLASS MODEL / PHILSOPHY OF THE COURSE:
This course blends theory and practice in equal measure. Through cases, readings, guest speakers, and open in-class conversation, you will build a foundational understanding of family businesses and long-term ownership — and develop frameworks you can apply immediately, regardless of where your career takes you.
But the most valuable learning in this course may come from each other. Family businesses are deeply personal, and this classroom will reflect that. Students who have grown up in, worked in, or thought seriously about family enterprises bring irreplaceable perspective, and this course is designed to surface it. We will have open, sometimes uncomfortable conversations about the topics that don't often make it onto a business school syllabus: sibling rivalry, compensation disputes, succession battles, power dynamics, ethical dilemmas, and the blurry line between family and business.
