IMPACT

In just three days, the Enterprising Families: Learning and Leading Together program will help you view your family’s enterprise situation through time-tested frameworks that provide best practices and lessons learned from academia and practice — delivered to you objectively and entirely free of affiliations to financial institutions or other businesses.

Business and investment managers will understand better how to work with and on behalf of others in the family. Family members who do not have formal roles will learn how to stay engaged and have their voices heard. Owners (directly or through trusts and holding structures) will gain perspective on how to understand their goals and expectations from family assets.

After attending the program, you will be able to:

• Better understand the unique opportunities and challenges of your enterprising family through analytical frameworks
• Create an action plan tailored to your specific situation
• Share your experience and learn from similarly situated families
• Identify common goals with your family members, regardless of role, age, or gender
• Understand how to be an active and engaged owner
• Learn how to read and analyze financial statements, speak a common finance language, and gain strategic insights into family investments and operating businesses
• Learn how to implement structure and integrate best practices into your existing family enterprise

Upon completion of this program, you will earn three days towards a Certificate with select alumni and tuition benefits. Learn more.

PROGRAM STRUCTURE

The program draws upon the deep resources of Columbia Business School’s Family Business Program to provide world-class instruction through interactive lectures, case studies, classroom exercises, and guest speakers. Some pre-reading is required but assignments will be completed during class time.

Day One focuses on understanding your current family situation from a new perspective. What do you own, and how does your family approach ownership across all assets? You’ll explore a case study that highlights ownership of a complex family enterprise from the family perspective.

Day Two will delve into business fundamentals for those who may or may not be involved in day-to-day operations and management. Managers and non-managers will learn best practices for family enterprises in a way that goes beyond business and investments and into the heart of the family.

Day Three rounds out the topics with a focus on wealth management, family offices, and other ways to organize your family enterprise. Students will have an opportunity to reflect and create an action plan tailored to their specific needs.

For a complete program schedule, download the agenda.

PARTICIPANT PROFILE

This course is designed for members of a family that own, operate, and/or govern a complex family enterprise. The family enterprise may include one or more shared assets including an operating business, investments, joint philanthropy, or a family office. Multiple family members are encouraged to attend together.

Alumni and up to four of their colleagues are eligible for a 25 percent tuition benefit for programs lasting up to seven days. More on the Alumni Tuition Benefit.

FACULTY

Patricia Angus, Faculty Director
Adjunct Professor of Business
Co-Director, Family Business Program

Patricia Angus, JD, MIA, TEP, is the founder and CEO of Angus Advisory Group LLC, an adjunct professor at Columbia University, and the director of the Family Business Program. A recognized thought leader in multi-generational family governance and wealth, she has advised families with businesses, trusts, and charitable foundations for more than two decades.

Angus helps clients navigate some of life's most complex issues, through critical analysis, strategic planning, and compassionate guidance. She practiced law at trusts and estates boutique Hughes and Whitaker (now Day Pitney) and Coudert Brothers international law firm (now Baker & McKenzie). She served as principal and chief wealth advisory officer at Shelterwood Financial Services LLC and as family wealth advisor at GenSpring and JP Morgan Private Bank.

She is member of the Society of Trusts and Estates Practitioners, Family Firm Institute (FFI), and Collaboration for Family Flourishing. She is a CFBA (Certified Family Business Advisor).

Angus serves on advisory boards of Trusts and Estates magazine, the Carter Center, and the NYC Family Enterprise Center. She is on the Editorial Committee of the FFI Practitioner. She has received numerous awards for her thought leadership in the fields of family business, trusts, wealth, philanthropy, and family governance.

Daniel Wolfenzon
Stefan H. Robock Professor of Finance and Economics
Co-Director, Family Business Program

Daniel Wolfenzon received a Masters and a PhD in economics from Harvard University and holds a BS in economics and a BS in mechanical engineering from MIT. Professor Wolfenzon previously taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, and NYU. He is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research interests are in corporate finance and organizational economics. He has studied control sharing in small firms, the effects of investor protection on ownership concentration, and the structure of business groups around the world.

Professor Wolfenzon's most recent research focuses on family firms. He has examined the consequences of family succession on firm performance and also the importance of managerial talent in family controlled firms. His work has been published in top economic and finance journals such as The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The Review of Economic Studies, The Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics. He received the Jensen Prize (second place) for best paper on corporate finance and organizations published in the Journal of Financial Economics both in 2002 and 2005.

Along with Professors Angus and Wolfenzon, additional Columbia Business School faculty contribute to and teach in the program.