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Stories
Minding Families' Business
A twelfth-generation scion of one of the oldest merchant families in Quebec, Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien (MBA '54) acquired a family business the old-fashioned way-he built it. Today he dedicates himself to quite a different kind of work: trying to ensure that his progeny, and those of other successful entrepreneurs, won't find it impossible to carry on family enterprises.
Back in 1971, when de Gaspé Beaubien-with his wife, Nan-b - gained control of the then ailing media and communications company Telemedia, he wasn't thinking about handing it over someday to the couple's three children. "Like most entrepreneurs, I was focused on making the business go," he recalls. Only when he began to contemplate the company's future if he and his wife were to die unexpectedly did he think about a plan for passing the baton.
Given that his forebears, after almost 350 years, had never succeeded in maintaining a family business for more than two generations (and given his own failed attempt to enter a business relationship with his father after graduating from HBS), the current patriarch of his clan knows all about the difficulties of succession. So even though he and his wife recently transferred sole ownership of Telemedia to their children-Philippe III (MBA '88), François (MBA '89), and Nanon (MBA '91)-de Gaspé Beaubien doesn't see his work as complete.
"I can't tell you how much pain exists in families who are working together in business and how great their need is for support and guidance," de Gaspé Beaubien says. In 1993, mindful of the challenges facing such families, he and his family founded a nonprofit organization, the Institute for Family Enterprise. Based in Montreal, the Institute (of which he serves as chairman and Nan-b as president) offers educational programs for families in business and their advisors.
The de Gaspé Beaubiens started the Institute, in part, to fill in the gaps in research and education regarding family businesses that have historically existed in academia. They have also established a fund at HBS to support research in this field. "There are families in business who have found a way to endure over time," de Gaspé Beaubien notes. "There is a discipline, and there are successful practices. The Institute for Family Enterprise is committed to seeing that those successful practices are disseminated as widely as possible."
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