Thank you to the 18 students from Canada and the US who participated in our inaugural cohort for “Managing Your Family Business”. We look forward to welcoming the second cohort this coming January 2020. If you are interested in registering, please contact us: [email protected]

 

What participants are saying about the class:

“I found it to be rare to be exposed to this quality and high caliber of impactful cases and breadth of content all in one course. I’ve come away with resources, strategies, and practical methods to support my own family business and better serve my clients.” – Karen Kirkwood, Executive Director (Alberta Chicken Producers)

“It’s been a real pleasure to be a part of this class with Vijay, Donna. The class was well organized, well thought out, great resources. The  opportunity to interact with students, many of whom were members of subsequent generations really added another dimension to the class along with the guest speakers, all of whom were outstanding. The class was exceptionally valuable. As a first generation of a family business, the class opened my eyes to looking down the road at possibilities for G2.” Nancy Schneider, CEO (Braceworks Custom Orthotics Inc.)

I found the class fascinating. It was very eye-opening to be a part of a learning group of next generation future family and current family business owners. The case studies brought forward really painted a diverse picture of what is happening not only in North America, but around the world. It gave different perspectives to problems that families are having irrespective of where they are in the world. That was a key highlight for me. Also, providing the opportunity for distance learning freed up space and time to not be in a physical space to participate, as someone who runs their own business, this made my life easier. It was a very good experience.” – Gena Rotstein, Principal (Karma & Cents)

“I enjoyed the format of the course, especially the diverse visitors and related real-life cases that were brought to life each class. It was particularly powerful to me to experience the variety of cultural impacts on the situations in many of the cases as my client base is predominantly from a North American, individualistic culture. Which I now realize after taking the course. Vijay, Donna, and other guest speakers did a great job at testing our logic as we thought through the cases.” Steve Nikiforuk, President (MyOwnCFO)

“The greatest take away from the class was the discussions with the professors, other classmates, and guest speakers. I believe the cases we did read were great insight into how things are done and different challenges families face. All the supplementary readings, we were really able to take away what we can do and what we should avoid when looking to the future.” Patrick Chiu, Business Development Manager (Trico Homes)

 “What I loved about the course were the multi-cultural and global aspects and how the content reflected that. This was also prevalent flipping between Canada and the US, many of the Drucker students were international. I liked the remote aspect was great as it allowed me to participate in a class I wouldn’t have been able to participate in. I really enjoyed the split between the practitioners, family business owners, and future family business leaders. It greatly enhanced the dynamic of the course and allowed for deeper and more practical answers and applications to scenarios we discussed. The diversity in the types of family businesses was quite fascinating as well. It allowed us to not only learn about one industry, but many industries. Even the ones from the same industry, were often structured and operated quite differently. Finally, this course really opened my eyes to the fact that although there are many issues regarding family businesses they all seem to revolve around emotional response to more practical decisions. Meaning, that the underlying sensitivities and issues prevalent in family businesses are often more paramount than the practical issues… once you get to the bottom of these issues you can tackle more of the problems on the surface.” Farialle Pacha, VP Business Development (Next Edge Capital)