I grew up around a family business where “meetings” happened at the kitchen table and in the pickup on the way to the shop. We worked with good professionals over the years—sharp accountants, thoughtful lawyers, even a couple of financial advisors who truly cared. But again and again, I ran into the same gap: they understood the business in isolation, or the investments in isolation, or the estate plan in isolation. They didn’t fully grasp the family part. The sibling who’d taken fewer dividends to fund a new line. The parent who wanted fairness but also wanted the company to stay whole. The in-law who wasn’t involved but carried influence at Sunday dinners. Each advisor solved a piece. No one owned the whole picture.
That’s when I learned the value of a Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA).
What a family enterprise advisor actually does
An FEA specializes in the messy overlap where family, ownership, and business meet. They’re trained to see three systems at once:
- Family: values, roles, communication, readiness of the next generation.
- Ownership: share classes, voting rights, buy–sell terms, liquidity needs.
- Business: strategy, leadership, compensation, risk, and capital.
Instead of treating decisions as purely financial or purely legal, an FEA asks, “How does this land at home, in the boardroom, and on the shop floor—at the same time?” That lens prevents well-meaning fixes in one area from creating problems in another.
Why this matters more than ever
Family companies carry unique strengths—trust, speed, shared purpose—and unique risks:
- Informal promises that harden into expectations (“We’ll ‘square it up’ later”).
- Unequal effort vs. equal ownership, which can breed resentment.
- Succession timing that feels personal, not only financial.
- Concentration risk, where too much family wealth lives inside one corporation.
A family enterprise advisor helps you formalize the good instincts you already have—without losing the human side that makes a family business special.
Turning intentions into structures
Great families talk about fairness; great plans define it. A family enterprise advisor will help you:
- Write a family employment policy (who can work in the business, under what qualifications, how compensation is set).
- Clarify ownership pathways (buy-sell agreements, valuation methods, and funding—so no one is forced to sell at the worst time).
- Create a family council or charter that sets expectations for communication, philanthropy, and conflict resolution.
- Separate roles (owner, director, manager) so people know which hat they’re wearing when decisions are made.
The point isn’t bureaucracy. It’s reducing future friction by agreeing on rules while relationships are strong.
Protecting both the enterprise and the relationships
Money decisions are rarely just money. An FEA brings facilitation skills that keep hard conversations productive:
- Aligning siblings on different timelines (“I want dividends now” vs. “I want reinvestment”).
- Balancing founder control with next-gen development.
- Navigating in-law involvement without sidelining the core family.
- Preparing successors with real responsibility before a handover—not after.
That work protects both value and relationships. Businesses can often survive a tax mistake; they don’t always survive a fractured family.
Integrating tax, estate, and liquidity—without tunnel vision
A good FEA partners with your accountant, lawyer, and investment advisor to connect the dots:
- Tax: income splitting, compensation design, estate freeze considerations, and when to diversify outside the corporation.
- Estate: wills, multiple POAs, trusts, and beneficiary alignment so assets pass as intended.
- Liquidity: funding buyouts, equalising inheritances for non-operating heirs, and building a “personal balance sheet” outside the business.
When these pieces are coordinated, you avoid the expensive surprises: unintended capital gains, forced sales, or heirs receiving assets they can’t manage.
Succession as a process, not an event
Handovers fail when the calendar drives them. An FEA helps you stage succession deliberately:
- Define readiness (skills, leadership behaviours, and decision rights).
- Pilot leadership in real roles with clear accountability.
- Phase ownership with guardrails—so governance matures alongside capability.
- Communicate with the broader family to keep trust intact.
Done well, the founder steps back with pride, the business keeps momentum, and the next generation earns authority rather than inheriting a job title.
How to choose the right family enterprise advisor
- Credentials and cases: Look for FEA training plus real-world family files, not only technical designations. Ask for anonymized examples that resemble your situation.
- Facilitation skill: Can they chair a tough meeting and leave you closer afterward, not further apart?
- Team approach: Do they collaborate smoothly with your tax, legal, and investment professionals?
- Plain language: You should leave meetings clearer, not more confused.
A simple first step
Before your next major decision—new shareholder, big dividend, leadership change—bring an FEA into a 90-minute session with your key players. Ask them to map the family–ownership–business impacts on one page and propose the smallest useful next step. If that step reduces tension and improves clarity, keep going.
I wish we’d had that kind of guidance earlier. We did fine—hard work covers many sins—but we also paid for preventable taxes, endured avoidable stress, and lost time to arguments that good structure could have solved. A family enterprise advisor won’t replace your accountant or lawyer; they’ll make every professional around your table more effective. Most important, they’ll help you protect two legacies at once: the company you’ve built and the family you’ve built it for.
