INVISIBLE CAPITAL

Citibank Private Bank in New York hired me to become Latin America's "family and corporate governance champion" at the beginning of the new millennium. It was an elegant way of saying that it was my job to support family business owners in their goal of building dynasties to keep their families unified over generations and help their family-owned businesses to perpetuate.

An easy job? Research shows that 70% of family-owned businesses do not survive the second generation and only 13% the third generation. Furthermore, business succession failure also heavily weights on family relationships.

The insights from being involved as an external advisor, executive, and board member in family-owned businesses from Tierra del Fuego to Vancouver during the last two decades showed me that the human factor is the single biggest obstacle to achieving family business sustainability. It may therefore come as a surprise that emotions and perspectives, the forces that drive human behavior, are rarely addressed by advisors in the family governance space. To service my clients better, I took a deep dive into neuroscience and understanding the human mind. Little did I know that this new learning would awaken a passion for leadership coaching and, as some call it: "family business coaching."

Before discussing family business coaching, let's reflect on the family business..