Guest collaborator: Dominique Nelson (MBA ’26)
President of the MBA Family Business Club
The Legacy & Future Family Business Conference grew out of an amazing experience shared by a group of IESE MBA students, all members of the Family Business Club.
In March, more than twenty of us traveled to Harvard Business School for the 2025 Global Families in Business Conference, organized by its MBA students.
The experience was truly inspirational, giving us the chance to see students, scholars and cross-generational business leaders come together to talk openly and authentically about the common challenges facing family businesses around the world.
Featuring panels, meals and long conversations, the two-day conference revealed a simple but powerful truth: family-owned firms everywhere share the same challenges—succession, professionalization, governance and balancing tradition with innovation—yet rarely have a space to share their experiences in an environment of trust.
Back in Barcelona, we felt strongly that IESE needed its own student-led forum—a place where MBA students, professors and business leaders could spend a full day together to talk, learn and inspire each other. That is how this conference began taking shape.
We wanted to build a community beyond the classroom, with meaningful exchange not just during panels, but also over meals, dinners and the in-between moments that make conversations so much richer.
Over the past five months, we have worked diligently to organize the event and bring it to life, reaching out to top-tier business leaders, partnering with leading family businesses and building a vibrant network of current and future leaders that grows by the day.
Now we’re just days away from seeing it all come together. On November 15 in Barcelona, we’ll celebrate IESE’s first student-organized conference on family business.
We hope to see you there!