Topics of Family Business Governance

Hermut Kormann served as CFO (1989-99) and CEO (2000-08) of Voith, a 150-year-old German family enterprise. Prior to Voith, he held positions at Brown, Boveri & Cie. (currently called ABB) and Booz & Co., management consultants. Dr. Kormann has served on various supervisory boards of family enterprises. He advises owning families on issues of owner strategy. Dr. Kormann is a Visiting Professor at Leipzig University (Germany) and Professor at Zeppelin University (Germany) where he lectures on leadership, strategy, and governance in family-owned businesses. Birgit Suberg is an Associate Professor of Practice at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou (China). She is also the Managing Director of a Shanghai-based consulting company. After starting out in strategic consulting and project management in Germany, she has worked in China in several leading positions for multinational and Chinese family and founder-controlled firms.

The design of boards for comprehensive tasks and efficient processes.-  Introduction.- Exploring the topics of governance.- Modules and tasks of governance.-  One-tier and two-tier boards.- Design parameters of a board for family enterprises.- Governance for the lone founder.- Agenda setting:Clarifying the strategic situation and the challenges.- Monitoring: We need meaningful data.- The difficult task of advising.- To create a sense of urgency.- The board's key role during a crisis - such as COVID-19.- The board's discussions on topics of family enterprises' strategies.- The key issues of the family enterprise's strategy.- Profits as the basis of strategy.- Investments strategy for stability and development.- Innovation strategy for renewal and growth.- Patterns of family enterprise's growth.- Avoiding unacceptable risks.- Compliance and environmental protection: CSR in family enterprises.- Recession management for coping with economic cycles.- Fighting financial squeeze.- The trade-offs of mergers & acquisitions.- The trade-offs of going public of family enterprises.- Profit distribution policy in family enterprises.- The development of professional owners and capable executives in family enterprises.- Developing responsible owners in family business.- Development of executives in family enterprises.- Challenges and benefits of sibling-consortium in management of family enterprises.- Preparation for succession in family enterprises.- The challenges and benefits of non-family-management in family enterprises.- Professional executive search for family enterprises.- The trade-offs of incentive programs in family enterprises.- The family is the destiny of the enterprise.