Rania Labaki
Director, EDHEC Family Business Center
Dr Rania Labaki is Associate Professor at EDHEC Business School, Director of the EDHEC Family Business Centre, and Family Business Fellow at Cornell University. In addition to her academic work, Rania advises business families at Lansberg Gersick Advisors mainly on responsible owners’ education and development, governance design and succession planning. She is actively involved in other international organizations, including The International Family Enterprise Research Academy as a board member and Women In Family Business as advisory board member. She is editorial board member of Entrepreneurship Research Journal, FamilyBusiness.Org and Droit & Patrimoine. Among her past appointments, she was academic expert of The Family Business Network International for seven years.
As a global speaker, she held presentations and lectures in more than 50 countries across continents. Her insights were featured in more than 200 publications in academic, professional and media outlets, such as Financial Times, Forbes and Les Echos.
Rania holds a Ph.D. in Management Sciences from the University of Bordeaux along with the Advanced Certificates in Family Business Advising and Family Wealth Advising from FFI and the Women Leadership Development Certificate from the University of Oxford. She is recipient of numerous awards recognizing her contributions to the family business field.
Session
From behind the scenes to the front of stage: Unveiling the “Ownership Top Governance Team” intricacies towards successful families owning cluster of organizations
Small Group Discussion
Over time, enterprising families increase in complexity. Family membership grows, ownership moves from "founder-owned businesses" to "sibling partnerships" and then to "cousin consortium”. In addition, the business tends to grow beyond the core (or legacy) entity through the creation, merger and acquisition, or spin-off of various organizations, such as businesses, family offices and other investment, philanthropic or social organizations. In this new scenario, family owners need to manage a much more complicated portfolio of assets to which their level of commitment and connection differ. This increasingly leads to diversity of interests and objectives among owners of the evolving family business cluster. Traditional corporate governance and family governance may become no longer sufficient to address these issues. Ownership governance stands therefore as the key to ensuring that the family business cluster is, on the one hand, sustainable over time, and on the other, has a positive impact on both the family and its stakeholders.
From behind the scenes to the front of stage: Unveiling the “Ownership Top Governance Team” intricacies towards successful families owning cluster of organizations
Small Group Discussion
Over time, enterprising families increase in complexity. Family membership grows, ownership moves from "founder-owned businesses" to "sibling partnerships" and then to "cousin consortium”. In addition, the business tends to grow beyond the core (or legacy) entity through the creation, merger and acquisition, or spin-off of various organizations, such as businesses, family offices and other investment, philanthropic or social organizations. In this new scenario, family owners need to manage a much more complicated portfolio of assets to which their level of commitment and connection differ. This increasingly leads to diversity of interests and objectives among owners of the evolving family business cluster. Traditional corporate governance and family governance may become no longer sufficient to address these issues. Ownership governance stands therefore as the key to ensuring that the family business cluster is, on the one hand, sustainable over time, and on the other, has a positive impact on both the family and its stakeholders.