Holder of a PhD in Business Administration and Management from Universit\u00e0 Bocconi, his research explores family firms, corporate governance and incentive designs.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n When a family sells or steps back from an operating business<\/strong>, the ensuing celebrations often follow a familiar script. After years of hard work, they have succeeded in building something of lasting value and can now enjoy its fruits.<\/p>\n What is rarely recognized is that the shift from running a business to running a family office is not a victory lap<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s more like starting a second business, with its own challenges, learning curve and risk of quietly unsettling business families<\/strong> who assume that the hard part is over.<\/p>\n For most families, the operating company was far more than a source of income.<\/strong><\/p>\n As Berrone et al<\/a>., Zellweger et al<\/a>. and other scholars have shown, the identities of the family and the business become fused over time.<\/p>\n In this regard, what owners stand to gain and lose is never purely financial<\/strong>. It includes their reputation, their influence and their sense of continuity. Guided by a shared mission, the business offered a livelihood and a scoreboard that everyone in the family understood.<\/p>\n A diversified portfolio rarely provides the same sense of meaning<\/strong>. It can preserve the family\u2019s wealth, but it does not automatically provide a shared purpose. Many families discover they must create one intentionally<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The building blocks of stellar organizations\u2014qualities such as control, speed, concentration and confidence in one\u2019s own discernment<\/strong>\u2014do not necessarily translate into successful stewardship of a diversified portfolio.<\/p>\n Running a business rewards deep expertise, decisive action and the ability to concentrate resources behind a strategy. Managing a family office demands a different set of capabilities<\/strong> grounded in delegation, diversification, patience, manager selection and the capacity to oversee multiple priorities without controlling each one directly.<\/p>\n This is not to say that family preferences<\/strong> should disappear when the business is sold. Research shows that family offices make systematically different financing choices<\/a> than private equity firms undertaking similar investments, reflecting the distinctive goals and constraints<\/strong> of the families behind them.<\/p>\n But investing is a discipline in its own right<\/strong>, one that few founders have had reason to develop because running the business never required it of them.<\/p>\n An operating business comes with built-in structure<\/strong>: board meetings, budgets and decisions that cannot wait. There are profit and loss statements, reporting lines, and, typically, a board asking uncomfortable questions.<\/p>\n In a family office, this scaffolding<\/strong> is absent<\/strong> unless someone intentionally builds it, and many families underestimate how much structure must be recreated<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In the UBS Global Family Office Report 2026<\/a>, which surveyed 307 family offices from more than 30 markets, fewer than half had a formal governance system<\/strong> with board-level oversight.<\/strong><\/p>\n Only 35 percent<\/strong> had a defined succession plan for the family office itself, and just 27 percent<\/strong> had a structured process to develop and prepare<\/strong> heirs<\/strong> for future roles.<\/p>\n Families plan carefully for the transfer of their wealth while devoting far less attention to the institution meant to steward it<\/strong>. Yet research on family wealth<\/a> has long shown that these governance structures come with their own tensions and need to be designed deliberately.<\/p>\n In the realm of family business, legal structuring and tax planning<\/strong> are almost always handled well because families entrust these decisions to experienced professionals.<\/p>\n What is often ignored is the relational shift from owner-operators<\/strong> with skin in the game to shareholders of a pool of capital\u2014a fundamental change in identity for which few families prepare.<\/p>\n The families who navigate this transition successfully refuse to treat the family office as a landing pad after the real work is finished<\/strong>. They consider it a second enterprise<\/strong> that needs its own strategy, governance and purpose.<\/p>\n The business gave the family a reason to work together<\/strong> for decades. The family office must earn that role<\/strong> as well.<\/p>\n Homepage image: Marcus Urbenz<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author: Uzay Sezer Holder of a PhD in Business Administration and Management from Universit\u00e0 Bocconi, his research explores family firms, corporate governance and incentive designs. When a family sells or steps back from an operating business, the ensuing celebrations often follow a familiar script. After years of hard work, they have succeeded in building something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2503,"featured_media":2104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14094,981],"tags":[120274,120222,120272,120271],"class_list":["post-2094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-leadership","tag-business-stage","tag-family-office","tag-risks","tag-transition","megacategoria-mc-family-business"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
\nThe business was never simply an asset<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
Leading a business <\/strong>\u2260 <\/span>investing wisely<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
Governance does not carry over<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
The bottom line<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n