Engaged Ownership: A Guide for Owners of Family Businesses - Hardcover

by Amelia Renkert-Thomas (Author), Kenneth McCracken (Foreword by)

Successful ownership transition requires effective decision making at the top

Engaged Ownership is the definitive owner's guide to the family enterprise. Whether you're taking over a family business, family office, or trust, this book shows you how to work effectively with the management and board to keep the enterprise moving in the right direction. The first guide of its kind written from the owner's perspective, this book is designed to help owners who are truly committed to growing all forms of capital be successful in their role. You'll learn the time-tested process that helps you 'unstick' decision-making, become engaged and effective, and manage the transfer from owner control to shared ownership while minimizing risk. Improve communication and relationships with the board, and ensure that every stakeholder understands your strategies and vision for the future. You'll allay the fears that frequently accompany ownership transfers, and inspire a sense of teamwork that leads to sustainable success generation after generation.

As the Baby Boomers retire, business founders and entrepreneurs worldwide are transferring ownership of privately held enterprises to their children in record numbers. It can be a complex and difficult-to-navigate time for everyone involved. This book helps you smooth the way to a successful transition, and transcend the owner's traditionally passive role.

• Learn to work effectively with management and the board
• Get everyone on the same page in terms of vision and direction
• Build relationships that lead to forward-thinking decision making
• Succeed in the ownership role by bringing your expertise to the fore

Ownership transfer often triggers a radical change in family enterprise, and if poorly managed, can turn a business in the wrong direction. Engaged Ownership shows you how to build a dynamic and effective partnership with trustees, board, and management, and become a successful steward of the family's financial, human, social, and operational capital.

Front Jacket

Praise for ENGAGED OWNERSHIP

"Ownership is strategy. The controlling shareholders of Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn, along with Patek Philippe, Hermès, and Ford know this. But you never hear that from business academics and management consultants. Engaged Ownership responds to the need to get the record straight. Engaging owners and creating the governance system that mediates their relationship with their wealth and enterprises is the fundamental challenge of family enterprises. Amelia Renkert-Thomas nails it in this book. Engaged Ownership is a timely book; read it and practice it!"
--Ernesto J. Poza, Founder and owner of E. J. Poza Associates, Inc. and family-business.com; Professor Emeritus, Thunderbird School of Global Management

"The story of the Owen family over several generations vividly illustrates how engaged owners can make not just a great difference in the success of a company, but add a form of value that cannot be duplicated with good management alone. I will share this book with my clients who are looking ahead to how they will organize their ownership structure to cross generations."
--Dennis T. Jaffe, PHD, Wise Counsel Associates

"Amelia captivates the reader with a family business case study that illustrates key steps and best practices to building engaged ownership in a family. A must-read for founders and those looking to pass on the family enterprise to future generations."
--Kirby Rosplock, PHD, author of The Complete Family Office Handbook; CEO, Tamarind Partners Inc.

"Amelia's work offers empathy and experience dedicated to creating a road map for 'engaged ownership' and meeting the challenges of 'shared purpose' in family businesses. Her book is a living tutorial which offers readers 'Aha' moments of awareness and motivates them to take the well-articulated steps to achieve truly engaged ownership. I highly recommend it to family business owners and their 'constellation' of advisors who seek to preserve and perpetuate the family legacy and its core capital. It is insightful and instructive."
--Lorraine F. George-Harik, Partner, HPM Partners LLC

"Engaged Ownership explores the question confronting all multi-generational business families: 'Why do we want to be owners of this business together, if at all?' Amelia Renkert-Thomas has crafted a tightly written guide for family enterprise owners and their consultants and advisors that will help them make decisions that are right for the individual family members, the family enterprise, and the family as a whole. A must-read for family business advisors!"
--Michael T. Hartley, CFP, CEO, DKE Inc., Family Office Division

Back Jacket

As Baby Boomers retire in record numbers, business founders and entrepreneurs worldwide face the challenging task of transferring ownership of privately held enterprises to their children. Engaged Ownership offers owners and successors alike a new way to approach ownership of the family business. The time-tested process inside gives you hands-on tools for growing core capital, including how to manage the transfer from controlling owner to shared ownership with minimized risk, while inspiring a sense of teamwork to sustain success for future generations.

Exclusive guidance from the recognized authority on family business governance and succession lets you act with confidence as you:

• Learn to work effectively with your fellow owners, management, and the board of directors
• Get everyone on the same page in terms of vision and direction
• Understand and manage the unique challenges that arise when a managing owner, trust, or outside investor is part of the ownership group
• Practice the actionable steps owners must take to develop and maintain engagement

Engaged Ownership offers families and their advisors a road map for integrating owners into the decision-making fabric of the company to carry on the family's legacy, vision, and strategic direction.

Author Biography

AMELIA RENKERT-THOMAS jointly founded Withers Consulting Group, an award-winning international family-business consultancy. She works with families and enterprises of all shapes and sizes, from entrepreneurs coping with the consequences of liquidity events to large multi-generational families with highly sophisticated business and investment structures. She helps families to design tailored governance structures, create more effective board structures, form and govern family offices, set up shareholder councils, and make trusts more--functional.
Her understanding of the complexities family businesses face stem not only from her consulting work but also from her own family background. She is the former President of Ironrock, Inc., her family's fifth generation manufacturing business, and the granddaughter of the founder of Fisher Price Toys.
Amelia's consulting work fills a void between family dynamics and management consultancy. Her work reduces and manages the conflicts that can be created by structures of ownership, such as voting and non-voting shares, trusts, partnerships, and foundations, all of which are very familiar to Amelia as a trained lawyer. Her work on ownership has been referred to as "the missing piece of the puzzle" for family businesses.
Because of her mix of personal and professional experience, Amelia is often asked to comment in the press and provide consulting and training for families and family business advisers alike.