It’s an exciting time of the year for us with our State and National Conference programs beginning to take shape. The National Conference from 26- 28 August will have some great speakers and topics emerging from the iconic Darrell Lea story now managed by the Quinn family to Kirsten Grant Meikle, the great great granddaughter of the founder William Grant & Sons, UK Glenfiddich Distillery, sharing her entrepreneurial lineage, journey, passion and pioneering spirit.

The Victorian State Conference on 8 May will discuss two of the most important assets to a family business; values and vision. The lineup of speakers was announced this week including Travis Burge, Relationship Manager at LinkedIn. Travis will explore how to use LinkedIn as a platform to communicate across generations within a family business, enabling the incumbent and emerging generations of business leaders to understand and analyse the business. In addition, sessions will be run by Mark Stennett and Simon Quirk from Teams That Click, Dominic Pelligana from KPMG and Ari Galper from Unlock The Game, to name a few. The Western Australia State Conference on 4 June will explore innovation, inspiration and insights for family business, including the importance of storytelling in family business, creating goodwill and how to manage the process of innovation. Both conferences will provide interactive and informative environments for everyone with an interest in family business success. Watch this space for further details!

FBA has been engaging with the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman in the lead up to the release of the exposure draft legislation on 11^th March. Some key changes will be concerned with Commonwealth-wide advocacy, the supply of information and dispute resolution, with an emphasis on giving independent advice to government to make sure small businesses and family run enterprises are considered when developing policy and programs. I encourage you to take a look at the draft legislation open for submissions until 7 April 2015.

If you have any recommendations or have any matters you would like me to raise, please be in contact!

I look forward to seeing you soon.

Robin Buckham
CEO
Family Business Australia