SUCCESS(ION): GET INSPIRED
Keynote speech: Key ingredients for a successful succession planning
Speaker: Jürgen Fitschen, Member of the Management Board, Deutsche Bank AG, Germany
NxG moderator: Anna Viegener
SUCCESS(ION): REFLECT WITH FAMILIES
Family business case 1: Conquer your space in the family business for success(ion)
Speaker: Carlos Trecenti and Sara Hughes, Lwart Group, Brazil
NxG moderator: Rania Labaki
“How would the NxG manage to successfully initiate changes in the family business, take over and significantly increase performance?” Carlos, a young second generation member, and his wife Sara will share their managerial succession experiences in a large Brazilian family business. You will learn how stressing patience, developing family business education and fostering tactful communication with the senior generation help overcoming expected and unexpected family and business challenges. By joining forces, Carlos and Sarah managed to make important changes on the corporate and family governance, strategic and social levels. With their impulsion, the family business has significantly grown and is now better prepared for the generations to come.
Family business case 2: What it means when daughters mean business!
Speaker: Carola Landhäuser, CEO Hark Treppenbau, Horstmann Group, Germany; Dominique Otten, University Witten-Herdecke
NxG moderator: Dominique Otten
In more and more cases a daughter chooses to be and is chosen as the next leader of the family business. In this workshop we want to explore what constitutes the particularities and challenges of female succession. What motivates young women to decide to take over the family business? Which pathways lead into the family business and is there a right path to success? What are the personal implications to consider before making this decision? These are some of the questions we will talk about while looking at one interesting succession story in detail as well as current theoretical insights. Come and discuss with us if you want to find out more and share your own experiences and thoughts about what it means when daughters mean business!
Family business case 3: Fighting family business crisis – Lessons on survival
Speakers: Andrea Prym-Bruck, Member of Shareholders Committee, William Prym GmbH & Co. KG, Germany; Catharina Prym, Shareholder of William Prym GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
NxG moderator: Samuel Maldonado
William Prym is the oldest industrial family owned business in Germany. Founded in 1530 Prym is a world-recognized brand, supplying high quality haberdashery products to the fashion and consumer markets. Without knowing it, many of us have used Prym products throughout our lives in the form of buttons, snap fasteners and electronic devices found in mobile phones or cars. When the company was embroiled in a public scandal with the EU competition commission in 2004, the news came as a shock to the majority of the family members. Taken aback by the sudden negative impact, the family was endangered to break apart and temporarily left the company vulnerable to third party opportunist and banks. The only way to save the company and its centuries of tradition was to bring the family together on a united vision. Please join us in a frank and open conversation with a mother-daughter team that were intimately involved throughout this process.
Family business case 4: Managing a private bank through financial turmoil
Speaker: Friedrich Von Metzler, Member of Partners Committee B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG, Bankhaus Metzler, Germany
NxG moderator: Thilo Wersborg
Metzler Bank is the oldest German private bank with an unbroken tradition of family ownership. Building on the slogan “Future needs Origin”, Friedrich von Metzler acts as a trustee looking after the bank for the next generation active in the business, mainly in the person of Leonhard von Metzler. You will learn how to achieve family and work balance as a manager. You will be also acquainted with the model chosen by Metzler Bank to last for generations and survive in periods of financial turmoil.
SUCCESS(ION): INTERACT WITH NXGS
Workshop 1: Distributing dividends is not enough - how to integrate shareholders in a large family business.
Speakers: Dr. Jürgen Heraeus and Alexandra Heraeus, Heraeus Holding GmbH, Germany
NxG moderator: Dominique Otten
Dr. Jürgen Heraeus and Alexandra Heraeus will elaborate from different angles of their vision that the primary relationship between the family business and its shareholders should not be of financial nature alone. Much rather, the aim should lie in creating family bonds that act supportively on the business and create identification with the company.
With more than 200 shareholders, Heraeus is facing the situation of having to bond these family members to the business and transforming passive shareholders into active ones. Acknowledging the complexity of this endeavour, the Management Board and family decided to install a calendar of events for the shareholders, each focusing on a different aspect of networking, knowledge transfer or education of the young shareholders. Through these activities and events, the family aims at creating the understanding that each shareholder is part of a “shareholder puzzle”, which is essential for a good functioning of both the family and the business. The workshop will give insights on why shareholder integration is vital and what steps can be undertaken to achieve family bonding with examples given from Heraeus.
Workshop 2: “To work or not to work in the multigenerational family business?” That is the NxG question!
Speaker: Santiago Pery, Member of the Family Council, Racafe, Colombia
NxG moderator: Rania Labaki
Common wisdom reminds us that “The first generation creates the business, the second develops it, and the third brings it to ruin”. The NxG poses indeed many challenges in multigenerational family businesses. Starting the third generation, the senior generation is often torn between the decision of opening versus closing the family business gates to NxG members. For the sake of protecting the accumulated wealth since many generations, the senior generation often refrains from finding an intermediary solution allowing the NxG to join the business. Strict rules are set instead, making the journey for the NxG willing to work for the business an almost impossible quest. Santiago, a NxG member of a large multigenerational family business in Colombia, is struggling at the heart of this battlefield. Through an interactive session based on his family business case, you will be invited to take part in his journey and reflect on yourself to find your optimal path through the business. Time for you to conquer the senior generation’s hearts and minds while collaborating with the other next generation members for an equitable process of success(ion).
Workshop 3: Tell me what your key values are, I tell you about your leadership style … Towards the NxG leader success(ion)
Speaker: Dennis Jaffe, Professor of organizational systems and psychology at Saybrook University, San Francisco
NxG moderator: Rania Labaki
Grounding the style of leaders lies in the values that guide their lives and choices. Discovering and exploring the meaning of one’s personal values is an essential element of leadership. However, it is often difficult to define them clearly, and clarify what specifically they mean in action.
This workshop will guide you in the Values Edge process, which has been developed over 20 years to guide individuals, families, groups and organizations in the process of wealth exploration. Using a deck of Values Cards, which you may keep, you will create a pyramid of your core values, and then transfer it to a display card, so that you can compare your values with those of other Next Generation members. You will then learn how to interpret your values profile, and see what key values motivations guide your life and define your leadership style. After defining your personal values, you will work in table groups to explore how you can bring some of your key values to your family, as you act as a next generation family leader.
Workshop 4: Between Generation 3 and 5 - Succession in 1990 and after 2020
Speaker: Arndt G. Kirchhoff, Chairman, owner and CEO of Kirchhoff Automotive GmbH
NxG moderator: Ingo Stork genannt Wersborg
The speaker as the eldestof 4 children took over the 227-year old company in 1990 and grew the KIRCHHOFF Group to a global company in the breathtaking mobility sector together with his brothers. The company is acting as automotive supplier and special vehicle manufacturer.The third Generation saw 1 owner, the fourth Generation 4 owners and the fifth Generation will see up to possibly 12 owners. Arndt will look back, how he and his brothers successfully took over from last generation and compare with the process of succession that was initiated 2 years ago to transfer the companies after 2020. You will learn the differences in time, culture and change of family business dynamics.
SUCCESS(ION): GET INSPIRED
Closing speech: (Re-)Framing NxGs roles and responsibilities in times of crises
Speaker: Sheikha Hessa Al-Khalifa, Director of Housing Policy and Strategic Planning, Ministry of Housing, Member of the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Bahrain
NxG moderator: Julia Hieber
How family roles and responsibilities in times of uncertainty and conflict are redefined? Sheikha Hessa Al-Khalifa will share with us her insights from a particular part of the world deeply concerned about such turbulent context. She will relate how intricately interwoven the history, politics and economics of the Gulf region are with how families redefine themselves across time and space. She will focus on the process of (re-)framing the role of the NxGs in large families with economic, social and political activities, especially in times of crisis. In this process, you will be encouraged to explore and utilize your own family pool of talents (soft skills, network, and professional skills) and consider your role as a NxG in keeping the family united in the face of risk of exclusion, disinterest and disintegration.
