We are nearly at the end of another year, hard to believe we are heading into wishing people ‘Merry Christmas’ and 2016 will soon be upon us.

I have been busy planning an exciting calendar of educational and social learning events, promising a fantastic year of peer to peer learning, network building and invaluable family business education. Please make sure you visit the FBA events page to see what we have coming up, we commence with our first event in February which will be an opportunity to meet the family behind a successful local business including a special site visit to get a behind the scenes look at how the business operates.

At the Family v’s Non Family event held in October we enjoyed listening to Harry and Demetra Xydas share their very personal and individual journeys in their two large family businesses the Doric and Jaxon Groups.  They guided us through their process on recruiting non-family CEO’s for each of these businesses and highlighted the importance of taking time to ensure you appointed the right person and that a cultural fit was paramount to the success of this non family member leading the family firm.

At our recent Disruption through Innovation workshop it became clear that many family businesses are looking for tips and tools around how to make the most of the social media space. This led me to investigate what sort of training was available to assist people in learning the basics and how to harness this cheap but effective tool. I happened across the newly launched Business Station, a government funded business support organisation.  They are offering a workshop ‘Introduction to Social Media for Business’ in different locations across the metropolitan area.

Congratulations to John Broons, Accredited FBA Adviser and Forum Facilitator on achieving becoming a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute. John was presented with his certificate at the recent FFI conference in London where he also presented to fellow international family business advisers.

I wish you and your families a safe and happy holiday season and will look forward to seeing you all in 2016.

Lorraine Willis 

WA State Manager
Family Business Australia