My family business clients all have various amounts of what every family has: closeness and harmony, as well as distance and conflict, to name a few elements. And, they share various levels of involvement in a business – leadership, management, ownership, or simply working there to see if that is what they want for the coming decades. Being tightly connected to family can put a smile on your face, or a pit in your stomach – and sometimes both. I Read more »
Do Won Chang and Jin Sook Chang created the retail chain Forever 21 from nothing when they came to the U.S. from South Korea. They built it to revenues of more than $4B at its height and had 43,000 employees. Their daughters, Linda and Esther, both received Ivy-league educations and were given high-level executive positions. Mr. Chang was CEO dealing with real estate and vendors and Mrs. Chang was heading up design and merchandising. At the end of last year, Read more »
If you’ve read any of these posts over the years, you know I like to connect rock music and family business one way or another. Earlier this month elite rock drummer Neil Peart, of Rush fame, died. I’ve been a Rush fan since 1980 and have been mesmerized by the speed and complexity of Peart’s drumming and the deep, meaningful lyrics for which he was mainly responsible. Often known as “nerd rock” or “cerebral rock,” Rush quoted Shakespeare and Ayn Read more »
Jeff was interviewed by Jane Scaccetti of Drucker and Scaccetti – “The Tax Warriors .” Really more of a conversation between friends, sprinkled with great questions from attendees, they discussed wealth transfers within families. Please have a listen . Among the most significant insights for attendees was how early this process can begin and how little focus on “money” is necessary to set a solid foundation. As far as starting early, an example was given of how NOT to talk to a four-year-old about a family business (and how TO do Read more »
My friend and colleague, Michael Palumbos of Family Wealth & Legacy, LLC , has founded the Upstate NY Family Business Group. The inaugural Upstate New York Family Business Day Symposium will take place September 24, 2019 in the greater Rochester, NY area. I’ll be giving an opening keynote entitled “Cracking the Family Business Code” in which I’ll address the opportunities and challenges of combining family and business. In addition, I will present my Metallica documentary-based session “What Your Family Business Can Learn from Metallica” in the afternoon, which is consistently my most highly rated session. Read more »
Jane Beddall, my good friend and colleague, invited me to be interviewed for her podcast, “Crafting Solutions to Conflict.” You can CLICK HERE to listen to the interview. She and I have been members of a study group in New York City for many years. We present cases and support one another in the challenging profession of helping families work together productively across time and make generational transitions. I find the support of the group invaluable; the range of professional disciplines represented Read more »
In the November 16, 2018 “Wealth Matters” column in the NY Times, Paul Sullivan wrote about his interview with me and one of my family clients. My thanks to Paul and a special thanks to the Buckwald family – David, Jennifer, Jack & Morgan for their openness (and for their hospitality to the Times photographer who became stranded at their home overnight in a snowstorm while David was stranded elsewhere and could not make it home until the next morning!) Read more »
I’m thankful to Paul Sullivan of the NY Times for taking interest in my work and interviewing me for his December 29th Wealth Matters column, “Keeping the Family Tree Alive.” I’ve been fortunate in my career to have worked with a wide range of interesting families from very poor and even homeless, to extremely wealthy. One of my favorite questions for wealthy families struggling with a particular challenge is, “How would this be different if you were poor?” That question goes to the heart of big decisions by removing money Read more »
Many years ago (and unfortunately still to some degree today) heirs had to wait for someone to die before finding out what they would inherit, with whom they would own a business or other assets, and what role they would be expected to play. This often happened with little teaching and development to lay a healthy foundation for this intense experience and how to manage the technical, emotional and relational effects. Also, often lacking are conversations with the inheritor(s) to Read more »
My colleague Barbara Spector, Editor-In-Chief at Family Business Magazine , recently interviewed me about children from financially successful families and situations they face with their peers around the family business and, in particular, money. Click here to read the article, “Help Your Kids Parry Classmates’ Comments About Wealth.” I’ve been interested for some time in wealth and identity and how “wealthism” – bias against the wealthy – can be internalized by family members in a family wealth context giving them a sense of embarrassment and shame. Many wealthy people choose to be highly secretive about their wealth Read more »
