FBA Summer Session: Preparing for Non-family Leadership

Many family-owned businesses are reaching the point where family leadership is reaching retirement age.  Often there is no clear successor in the firm.  The speakers will lead a discussion about how to prepare the family business for a leadership transition that includes a non-family CEO or other senior leadership.  They will identify the Key Success Factors for navigating this transition, viewed through the lense of executive recruiters who combined have over 70 years of recruiting experience dedicated to family-owned businesses. 
Rich Folts, Partner in the firm’s Chicago office with over 30 years retained executive search experience, has successfully developed a niche practice working with family enterprises in West Michigan for the past 22 years.  In that time he has completed over 100 assignments across most functions including replacing the founders and/or CEOs. 
Bruce Walton, Partner in the firm’s Boston office, is co-leader, along with Rich Folts, of Battalia Winston’s Family-Owned Business Practice.  With thirty five years of executive recruiting experience, Bruce recruits CEOs and their direct reports to family-owned businesses.  He is a member of the Family Firm Institute (FFI) and together with Rich has written numerous articles on family business governance in transition.
Battalia Winston is a 56 year old Top 20 retained executive search firm with five offices.  The firm has nine partners, each focused on specific market segments with a particular strength in mid-cap private manufacturing companies.  Over the past decade the Family-Owned Business Practice has worked with over 75 family-owned businesses nationally, helping these organizations replace/upgrade the organizations’ leadership.