Family Enterprise Insights

Most articles or speeches about family businesses start with some version of the “three-generation rule,” which suggests that most don’t survive beyond three generations. 

The New Ideas in Family Firms Academic – Practitioner Conference, co-hosted online with Columbia’s Global Family Enterprise Program and INSEAD’s Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise, took place on May 7, 2021. Leading academic researchers and global practitioners discussed the role of the family enterprise in society, the meaning and potential for ESG practices, and ways that the pandemic has impacted family enterprise advisory work

Columbia alumni, Cheyenne Wiskerke ’13 and Alan Wasserstrom ’63, share stories of the businesses they inherited and led — and some of the lessons they learned along the way.