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Welcome to Our Authors Directory!!

Here you will find a wealth of knowledge from writers who understand the unique dynamics of family-owned businesses. Browse our directory to find the perfect author for your business needs, or simply explore the wide range of perspectives and insights available.

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Claudia Binz Astrachan

Advisor and Head of Governance Practice

Claudia witnessed the devastating consequences of troubled family dynamics after her grandparents death, leading to the sale of the family enterprise. She has also seen family business from the other side, with her father being a successful non-family CEO of 25 years at bio-familia, a family enterprise in rural Switzerland.

She then earned a Marketing traineeship at the largest Swiss bank UBS and also pursued Ph.D. in family business institute at Witten/Herdecke University in Germany.

Claudia has been leading the Family and Business Program at Lucerne School of Business since 2014, and continues to provide research-based and peer-oriented learning opportunities for family-owned companies in Switzerland even after her move to the United States in 2013. In 2019, she joined Andrew Keyt as the Head of the Governance Practice at Keyt Consulting – a role that she continues to hold at Generation6. In this capacity, Claudia worked extensively with the boards of some of the largest private family companies in the United States.

Claudia’s research and practice are informed and shaped by her understanding of the role of family cohesion, effective communication and conflict management, and family and business governance that align with the values, culture, and objectives of the owning family.

She has received awards for her research from scholarly and business organizations alike. Claudia is a board member of the International Family Enterprise Research Academy and a former family business chair at the European Academy of Management. She is a visiting scholar at Witten/Herdecke University in Germany, and an affiliated researcher at Jönköping University (CeFEO) in Sweden.

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Dennis T. Jaffe

Author Senior Research Fellow at Banyan Global Family Business Advisors

For over 40 years, Denis Jaffe has been one of the leading architects of the field of family enterprise consulting. He is a clinical psychologist and an organizational consultant and helps multi-generational families to develop governance practices that build the capability of next generation leadership.

Dennis helps large, global families manage personal and organizational issues that lead to successful and fulfilling transfer of businesses, wealth, values, commitments and legacies between generations.

He is a family business fellow at the Cornell Johnson College of Business, and is also cited by Family Wealth Report for special commendation as an individual thought leader. He has served on the board of Family Firm Institute. Dennis was awarded with the Richard Beckhard and International Awards. In 2007 he was Thinker in Residence for S. Australia, helping the region design a strategic plan for the future of their entrepreneurial and family businesses.

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David Werdiger

Family Advisor | Business Strategist | Non-Exec Director | Thought Leader | Technology Entrepreneur

A successful family advisor, business strategist, entrepreneur, and thought leader with a proven track record of achievement in driving innovation and growth for entrepreneurial endeavours and not-for-profit organisations.

David’s experience includes founding and building multiple businesses from the ground up, and expanding and leading operations into new markets. He is recognised by colleagues as a creative problem-solver and strategist with expertise in coming up with ideas and creating new ways of improving business, strategy, operations, and results.

As a business and family advisor, he provides clients with expert business advice on intergenerational business and wealth transition, advancing entrepreneurial efforts, setting up good governance, improving financial and operational results, and strategic direction. He is also a seasoned program leader with an aptitude for providing governance in corporate and philanthropic pursuits with a strong focus on culturally focused non-profits.

He is also the author of the book Transition, and the Founder and Chairman of Billing Bureau, one of the leading Australian Telecommunications Recurring Billing Software companies. He has been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, The Wall St. Journal, USA Today and most recently has been speaking for high net worth groups in Macao, Singapore and New Zealand.

David is an adjunct professor of Swinburne University, has completed a Masters of Entrepreneurship and used his knowledge to expand several successful businesses in the Information Technology and Telecommunications industries. He currently mentors and advises family businesses, CEOs, and top-level entrepreneurs on how to successfully systemize their businesses so that they can increase revenue, scale, and even exit their business. He also launched his own Family Office. David lives in Melbourne, Australia with his wife and five children.

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Josh Baron

Co-founder Banyan Global, Visiting Lecturer at Harvard Business School, HBR author and thought leader

Dr. Josh Baron is a co-founder and Partner at Banyan Global. For over a decade, he has worked closely with families who own assets together, such as operating companies, family foundations, and family offices.

He helps these families to define their purpose as owners and to establish the structures, strategies, and skills they need to accomplish their goals. Prior to Banyan, he worked at Bain & Company and The Bridgespan Group. Baron taught family business courses at Columbia Business School in the MBA, EMBA, and Executive Education programs.

He is now a Visiting Lecturer in Executive Education at Harvard Business School where he teaches about how to build a family business that lasts, how to manage conflict in a family enterprise, and how family ownership can create a competitive advantage. He publishes and speaks frequently on subjects concerning family enterprises and is the co-author of the Harvard Business Review Family Business Handbook.

A regular contributor to HBR.org, including Why the 21st Century Will Belong to Family Businesses, Why Family Businesses Need to Find the Right Level of Conflict, and Every Business Owner Should Define What Success Looks Like, he is graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Cambridge, and Columbia University. Josh is also the author of Great Power Peace and American Primacy: The Origins

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Rania Labaki

Director of EDHEC Family Business Centre| Associate Professor of Finance & Family Business| Advisor| Editor|Board Member

Rania Labaki is Director of the EDHEC Family Business Centre and Associate Professor of Management at EDHEC Business School, where she teaches and conducts research at the intersection of the fields of finance, entrepreneurship and family businesses.

Rania is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Family Enterprise Research Academy (IFERA), a member of the Scientific Council of FBN France, and a member of the Advisory Board of Women in Family Business (WIFB).

She is the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneurship Research Journal and a member of the editorial boards of the main academic journals dedicated to family businesses. She has published extensively in academic and professional books and journals on family businesses, including the expert sections of Droit & Patrimoine magazine and Les Echos solutions.

She holds a PhD in Management Sciences from the University of Bordeaux and has received several international awards in recognition of her contribution in the field of family businesses including the prestigious Barbara Hollander Award in 2020. Her current interests focus on the role of family and emotional dynamics in financial, social and philanthropic, intra/entrepreneurial, and family business succession decisions.

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Patricia Annino

Fellow at The Family Firm Institute - FFI

Patricia M. Annino has been educating, inspiring and empowering women on wealth and legacy for over 30 years.

She educates and empowers women to value themselves and their contributions in order to accomplish great things in the world- and in so doing protect themselves, those they love and the organizations they care about.

Patricia M. Annino is a partner in Rimon’s Trust and Estates Group. A nationally recognized authority on estate planning and taxation, Ms. Annino has more than 30 years of experience serving the diverse needs of families, individuals, and owners of closely-held businesses.

Ms. Annino’s practice includes all aspects of private client work, including estate planning; will and trust planning; incapacity planning; prenuptial and postnuptial agreements; estate litigation; advising executors, trustees and beneficiaries and administration of estates and trusts.

A Boston native, Patricia is a graduate of Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, Smith College, Suffolk University School of Law and the Boston University School of Law, Graduate Tax Program.

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