Governance Professionalisation for a Family-Owned Industrial Group

This reflects the type of challenge our consultants are built to solve, drawn from real industry experience. The group was managed by two brothers in their early 60s, with succession now urgent across a third generation of five family members with differing levels of involvement, and differing opinions about who should lead what. There was no formal board, no independent directors, no intercompany pricing policy, and no framework for making decisions when the two brothers disagreed. They'd been managing that last problem by avoiding certain conversations for years. A PE firm had paused due diligence after flagging these gaps.

A 14-week programme. The first four weeks were a governance diagnostic, mapping actual decision flows, which differed significantly from what either brother initially described. Three independent directors were identified and constituted in week 8: one with sector expertise, one with financial markets experience, one with family business governance experience. An intercompany pricing policy was drafted and approved. A family charter was developed across three family sessions that were, by all accounts, not easy conversations. The goal was not consensus on everything, it was a documented framework for handling disagreement.