Take me back to the early days. How did you get involved, and what did that look like?
By 2015, I had been studying family enterprises for many years. I was struck by how much we still needed to understand about the world's most common form of business organization. That made it an exciting area of research, and the questions we were studying also mattered to students preparing to lead or work with family enterprises.
At Columbia, Patricia Angus and Michael Preston were already teaching courses on family enterprises and bringing students together through activities and events. The Family Business Club had grown to 116 dues-paying members by the fall of 2015. Glenn Hubbard, then dean, and Lisa Yeh, then Senior Associate Dean for External Relations and Development, encouraged us to build on that momentum and formalize the program. We wanted to develop a strong curriculum centered on the MBA experience and establish a center for research on family enterprises.
That research ambition was where I could contribute alongside Patricia and Michael's work in the classroom.
During my sabbatical in the 2015-16 academic year, I spent my time working with Michael on that effort. Much of the work involved speaking with alumni and friends of the school, including Andrew Gundlach ’01, Ali Sabanci ’95, and Carter Sullivan ’84, about what we could build. In 2016, with the formation of the advisory board, the program was formalized.
What did those early days actually feel like?
I remember those early days as exciting. Students were eager for more, alumni were willing to help, and Glenn and Lisa gave us the support to move forward. In our conversations with alumni and friends of the school, that enthusiasm made the possibilities feel real. We were still a small program, but there was a sense that we could build something together that would matter to our students.
Looking at where things are now, what feels most surprising to you? What feels connected to what you were building back then?
What surprises me most is how much the program has become part of why students choose Columbia. We have a strong alumni community, and students now apply to the school with the program already in mind.
Seeing that grow out of those early efforts is very rewarding.
The clearest connection to the beginning is our focus on MBA students.
When we reviewed twelve peer schools in the fall of 2015, some of the best-known programs, including Harvard and Kellogg, placed more emphasis on executive education. We chose to concentrate on the MBA experience, developing courses, activities, and events for our students. Ten years later, I think that decision helps explain both the community we have built and the program's appeal to prospective students.
If there's one thing you’d want a current student or a young alum to take from your part of the story, what would it be?
I would want students and young alumni to know how much their own initiative can shape the school. A small group of students, with Michael as their faculty advisor, founded the Family Business Club in 2011 and launched the conference in 2014, before the program was formalized. They saw something worth doing and got it started. The school built on their initiative, so the program we celebrate today is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit of our MBA students.