Shownotes
Summary
In this episode, Fiona Graham discusses the rebranding of Family Business UK and their focus on advocacy and policy. She highlights the key areas in their 2024 manifesto and the importance of long-term planning for family businesses. Fiona also shares insights from Family Business Week and previews the upcoming annual conference, which will focus on people and the challenges faced by family businesses. In this conversation, Russ and Fiona discuss the importance of family businesses and the challenges they face. They delve into topics such as succession planning, governance, communication, and collaboration. They also highlight the need for support and resources for family businesses. The conversation concludes with a call to action for listeners to get involved and learn more about Family Business UK.
Takeaways
Family Business UK has rebranded to become a movement for family businesses, focusing on advocacy and policy.
Their 2024 manifesto highlights key areas such as people, growth, and ownership, with a focus on long-term planning and support for family businesses.
Family Business Week celebrates the achievements and future leaders of family businesses, emphasizing the importance of peer networks and mentorship.
The upcoming annual conference will explore the challenges faced by family businesses, including people issues, skill development, and non-family involvement. Family businesses play a vital role in the economy and society.
Succession planning and governance are crucial for the long-term success of family businesses.
Effective communication and collaboration within the family and the business are essential.
Family businesses need support and resources to overcome challenges and thrive.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Rebranding
03:03 Focusing on Advocacy and Policy
08:26 The 2024 Manifesto
10:17 Key Areas in the Manifesto
19:10 Budget and Election Year
28:49 Highlights of Family Business Week
34:19 Upcoming Annual Conference
02:00 The Importance of Family Businesses
10:00 Challenges Faced by Family Businesses
20:00 Succession Planning and Governance
30:00 The Role of Communication and Collaboration
40:00 Supporting Family Businesses
47:00 Conclusion and Call to Action
Support the Show
The podcast is entirely self-funded by me. I am not looking for sympathy as it is something that I love to do and I have a passion for providing great content for family businesses across the world. Some listeners have asked for ways in which they can support the show, be that through reviews, sharing with friends or a donation. As such I have set up a page that outlines all the ways that you can support what I am doing.
Work With Russ
If what I have spoken about in the show resonates and you want to discuss how I can help you and your family business drop me an email: russ@familybusinesspartnership.com or head over to www.familybusinesspartnership.com
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Transcripts
Well, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Family Business podcast. I am joined today on the show by our friend, Fiona Graham. The eagle-eared amongst you will have noticed that in the introduction to the podcast, we are supported by Family Business UK, as opposed to the Institute for Family Business.
The good news is it is the same people, but there have been a rebrand and I'm excited to talk to Fiona about that rebrand. But firstly, Fiona, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you.
Fiona (:Thank you for having me.
Russ (:And I guess the starting point is talk us through the rebrand. Tell us about Family Business UK.
Fiona (:So as you said, up until last summer, we were the Institute of Family Business and we had been since about 2001 when we were founded by a group of family owners who wanted somewhere to talk to each other about kind of the common challenges that come along with running a family business. And through the years, we've developed as an organization to introduce more formal learning and networking and support. And then also,
to kind of really take on a role championing and representing the family business sector and what they need from policymakers in particular. And what the rebrand was meant to kind of really help us signify and solidify is our change as an organization to become more of a movement for family businesses.
We are absolutely passionate about the essential role that family businesses play in the economy, but also play in our communities. And we wanted to make sure that was better understood by politicians and policymakers particularly, but also by the general public, the media, by kind of those who offer services to businesses. And this was part of this move to be Family Business UK was part of our move
kind of really step up our work on the advocacy side of things. But alongside that, we are also continuing to do many of the things that we did as the Institute for Family Business, supporting family businesses, providing a safe space for them to get together. But we've also added on some additional kind of streams to what we do. So we've launched a whole load of communities.
which are designed for peers of different roles to get together. So we have a very successful and active community for chairs of family businesses. We have a next gen community and they're going to be going off on a retreat in March. We have one now for non-family, which is kind of growing all the time for non-executive directors. And we've also launched kind of master classes for family businesses as well, which are open to family business UK members or non-members.
Fiona (:So there's lots that's coming, that's been developed alongside the rebrand. It's not just a change in name, it is a change in our ambition and our kind of commitment to make it, as I said, making this movement of family businesses where we all have a role to play in making sure that this sector is kind of understood and championed and celebrated and gets the recognition that it deserves.
Russ (:I don't know whether you can hear me, but I lost you there. It was great up until that point. The good thing is, so it will continue to record everything you've said, so we won't lose anything, other than I didn't hear it. So I don't know. Yeah, I'm going to turn mine off.
Fiona (:Oh no, okay.
Fiona (:Okay, yeah. Okay, I just I'll turn my camera off and that will hopefully help. I just kind of wrapped up talking about the communities and then a final wrap-up sentence about the rebrand. So I think that should be fine.
Russ (:Perfect, okay. I'll jump back in then. Okay, all right. I'll jump back in with a question based on that.
And as well as Family Business UK being rebranded, your job titles changed slightly as well. Can you sort of explain to people your role and how that's evolved and changed as part of the kind of newer impetus that Family Business UK are taking?
Fiona (:Yeah. So my new role is Chief Advocacy Officer. Essentially, my job is to be the person who goes out there and make sure that particularly politicians and policymakers are recognizing and understanding how important family businesses are and that they're engaging with them. And with the election coming up, you know, it's a very important, busy year for the political side of things.
politicians going to the election, they understand that family business is absolutely essential to our future success as a country. If we want to grow, if we want people to have good quality work, if we want our communities to thrive, we need to make sure that family businesses have the support and the policies and the regulation to ensure that they can thrive for the long term. And that's what my kind of day job is essentially.
Russ (:Fantastic and slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I'm grateful for the new job title because I remember reading out your previous one on an episode and For me, it was a bit of a tongue twister. So this one Certainly makes it more straightforward. So I'm grateful. That's obviously the reason you did it is to make my life easier, but One of the key elements and one of the key bits of output that we've seen
Fiona (:Hehehe
Fiona (:I'm going to go to bed.
Fiona (:Obviously that was it.
Russ (:recently from Family Business UK is your 2024 manifesto. And I'm keen to explore a little bit of that with you during this conversation. But as a kind of starting point, can you help us understand the ambition for the 2024 manifesto and what it is that you're looking to achieve from it?
Fiona (:So going into the election year, we wanted to be out very early with our manifesto. So we published that last November and we've been using that and the policy recommendations within that to have conversations with the various teams in various parties who are writing the manifestos for the next election. And essentially what we wanted to do was bring together in as clear and a straightforward
an easy to digest way, some of the key things that we need to see from the next government to ensure that family businesses can thrive. Because there's lots of policy ideas kind of being thrown around by lots of different people. And we really wanted to say that very clearly this is why this sector deserves a voice. So it's got some of the stats around the fact that family businesses provide employment for about 14 million people, that they pay over 200 billion pounds in tax a year.
So it's got the stats in there to kind of demonstrate why family businesses are so important, but then it's got the policy recommendations in there and we've been using that document to go out and talk to politicians, to manifesto teams, to people that within the civil service as well, to say, this is what family businesses need and really the core underlying message from our manifesto is we need to be thinking about the long term. There's been a lot of very short term.
policymaking over the past six years, particularly, and we need to make sure that we are not overlooking some of the big structural issues, but also the things that are going to allow family businesses to plan for the long-term because they have such a long-term outlook. Government should be trying to support them with that because that's a real positive. So it was really about trying to synthesize it as clearly as possible so that we could engage as many politicians and policymakers as possible.
to make sure that family businesses have a really strong voice going into this election and that their needs are really kind of at the heart of the thinking about what business needs for the future.
Russ (:Fantastic. And I know one of the topics we're going to come on and cover a little bit later on in this chat is the fact that not only is an election year, but we have a budget coming up. So we'll come back to a couple of those points when we speak about that. But focusing again within the manifesto itself, what are some of the key areas that you're focusing on within that manifesto?
Fiona (:So we've broken this down into three key areas. The first is people. Family businesses understand that people at the heart of everything that business does and they try extremely hard to look after their people, treat them well, provide them with good quality jobs, long-term career options. But there are challenges around the skills environment and how...
business can access that and what's available. So we have made some recommendations around people that talk around how we can particularly improve this apprenticeship levy, because I think it's widely recognised that the apprenticeship levy in its current form is not working. It's very, very hard to kind of make use of all of the money that goes into the pod. It's quite restrictive.
It's not working in the way that it needs to. And our recommendation is that is replaced with a future skills fund, which would be far more flexible and allow businesses to use some of the money that they are paying into the apprenticeship levy for other kinds of skills training. And what we're thinking about particularly there is those people who are slightly older, who have been in the workforce for quite a long time, but whose jobs are now changing because of digital.
you know, adoption within businesses or because of the transition to the green economy whose jobs are fundamentally changing and they need to re-skill and retrain and we need to help people through that and we need to help businesses to be able to do that. So that's one of the things that we really want to see. More flexibility for lifelong learning support and also so that people can get the training they need as their jobs evolve and as they want to move up within the business is there has been a really.
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:a really big focus on apprenticeships, but I feel that the pure focus on apprenticeships when we talk about skills has kind of sucked some of the air out of the skills debate and the skills discussion and everything has been looking at that. And there are clearly huge issues in some industries, you know, in construction, there's a huge skills gap coming if we don't train more people in some really important trades, but skills is bigger than that and we are all going to be working for longer.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:And so we need to support people through their career and get, and make sure they continue to have the skills training they need throughout their career, however long they work. The second area that we're looking at is growth, which obviously both the Conservatives and Labour have said is really kind of core to what they're going to be talking about going to the election. And everybody agrees we need to see economic growth. We've had a huge amount of disruption over the past kind of four or five years.
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:And it's now the time to try and kind of unleash some of the growth that's maybe been held back through some of that disruption. So we want to see things like a very clear long-term industrial strategy. There have been industrial strategies in strategies in the past that have come and gone, but we need something long-term and we need the next government to stick to it. We also want to see with that business tax roadmap so that business has some certainty around what...
potential tax changes are coming, but also to rule out things that maybe aren't because with constant speculation about every tax at the moment, it's very, very unsettling for business to kind of know what direction anything might be coming in. We did call in our manifesto for the full expensing regime to be made permanent. We obviously saw good news around full expensing at the autumn statement. We want both parties to commit to, if they are the next government, that will...
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:you know, remain in place. Um, we also really want to be looking alongside that kind of looking at investment through a family business lens, the way that families access finance, the way that they think about investment, how they fund their investment is different to other businesses and the, and that isn't kind of recognized in policy at the moment. So we want to see some movement on that. And then my
One of my areas of particular interest is around mid-sized businesses. And at the moment, mid-sized businesses in the UK tend to fall between the gaps in policymaking. They are badged together with small businesses. And we have lots of interventions for small businesses and there are interventions that kind of policy specifically designed for very large businesses, but mid-sized businesses have their own set of challenges and just putting them in the
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:of putting them together with small businesses is not the right way forward because what a company of 10 employees is dealing with and the support that they need compared to a company of 300 employees are going to be very different things. And if you look at Germany and the Mittelstand, those are majority family-owned companies. They are very successful and we think that there's a huge potential to unleash within the mid-size sector.
which is just kind of being overlooked because it doesn't sit anywhere naturally within policymaking. So we really want to see the next government commit to a mid-sized business strategy that specifically looks at the challenges that mid-sized businesses are facing and then what can be done to overcome them and support them to grow. And then finally, the third section we're looking at is ownership. And for family businesses, this is the thing that unites a lot of what they think around.
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:around the policy side of things. So, family businesses are all sizes, they are in all sectors, but the thing that unites them is that family ownership. And we know from our conversations with family businesses that the number one issue they talk to us about is inheritance tax and business property relief, and making sure they can successfully pass the business on without a significant tax charge. So, obviously, within our...
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:manifesto, one of our absolute central asks is maintain business property relief in full and ensure that family businesses can continue to successfully transfer between the generations. Within that, we've got a recommendation as well about slightly altering the regime to account for joint ventures so that businesses that have joint ventures aren't in a worse position when trying to claim BPR, which some of them are at the moment.
And then we've also want to see some alignment between business property relief and business asset handover relief so that businesses don't have to reach such a high trading test to pass over shares during lifetime, which some of them struggle with and can mean that people put off lifetime handover of shares because of the tax regime. Or actually we think tax shouldn't be a consideration when you're planning your succession.
shouldn't be what you're thinking about. It should be about when's the best time for the business and the family for that transfer to happen.
Russ (:Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the areas that I'm curious about or having read through this and obviously understanding your role and knowing how active you are within it is how are these kind of conversations going down with the parties that you're speaking with as a result of that? Have you had the opportunity to kind of present this to them and get some feedback?
Fiona (:Yes. So we've spoken to representatives in the Conservative Party and Labour, in the Liberal Democrats and in the SNP, and we've had very positive conversations with everybody. I think what's really important is that we view this, that policymakers view business and family business in particular as some, as an organ, as a group of people that they can work with who have a common aim. You know,
What politicians want to see is growth in the economy and employment, and they want to see people having happier, healthier lives. That is what family businesses want to see too. And so it's really important that they see us as an important partner in developing this, and it's not adversarial at all. We have had very positive conversations. I think particularly what we are trying to get through to politicians around
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:family businesses as a leading example of responsible business is really resonating with them. And they can see that what we say about these are businesses based in communities that are employing people, that are thinking for the long term, they can see that happening in businesses in their own constituency. So what we try and do is really kind of bring it to life with real life examples of what actual businesses are doing, as well as the kind of here is what the model
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:generally does. And we've had very positive and encouraging conversations. It will always be a challenge to get specific asks into party manifestos, because there's so many competing things. And particularly this year, what we're hearing from all the parties is they're really trying to have slimmed down manifestos. So it may be that just because something isn't in a manifesto doesn't mean they're not going to do it. It might be that, you know, we're having other conversations with
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:specific teams as well. So, you know, I've been talking to business ministers, shadow business ministers, we're talking to shadow treasury. And those conversations will carry on until the election, whether that and beyond, you know, whether the election is sooner rather than later. And we're still very much don't know what it's going to be, although everybody has their own theory, that we'll be continuing these conversations and continuing to build on them. And
Russ (:Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Fiona (:And this then sets the groundwork for us when the next, whoever comes in as the next government, for us to get off from the start and say, look, we've spoken to you about this, you know how important this is, now let's get things done.
Russ (:Yeah, and I guess one of the challenges that can be faced here, and it's great to hear that the conversations have been really positive, is that I guess there are kind of the natural inclination to put things into sectors. So you've got a retail sector, you've got a hospitality sector, you've got a services sector, and family business kind of transcends all of that and covers all of those different sectors. So it's helping politicians and policymakers understand that
that stability as you say and what you mentioned at the outset about how unstable and how much there's been in terms of change over the last six years, that actually adopting something that is across all of those different sectors as an ownership model, as a model for business, is positive for everybody.
but it takes that distinction away from it just being a retail sector focus or a services sector focus. Again, you're hearing positive noises that there is recognition that family businesses are such a large proportion of the economy and local communities that it is beneficial for them to think in this way.
Fiona (:Yeah, and I think, so I've been with what is now Family Business UK for about 10 years, and so talking to politicians about family business for that whole time. And I have definitely seen a shift towards understanding that the family business sector is an important, unique thing that requires a different approach and different thinking. And as you say, you're absolutely right, you know, a lot of
policymaking is made either by industry sector or by size, or even by startup, scale up, you know, that kind of where are you on your life cycle? And family businesses can be any of those things. So it makes it quite, it has made it quite difficult for people within, you know, the business department to say, well, where do we put these people? Who do they talk to? But we are seeing really good progress on that and people talking about family business as a concept.
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:something that is different, is unique, is thriving as well. Because certainly at the start when I joined, I felt like a lot of the conversations I was having with people were, oh, family business, yeah, that's something we used to have, that's a nice, you know, that was a nice thing. And now you can go in and say, well, no, it's not what you used to have, it's here. You know, it's a thriving sector. There are incredibly passionate people, you know, the next generation is super interested in these businesses. They have a great future ahead of them.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:And so it is very positive. I mean, we were at number 10 just before Christmas talking kind of with a group of other, so with the employee ownership association, with the self-employed association and some others to kind of go in and say, you know, government, you need to hear from a diversity of business types and sizes.
Russ (:Uh-huh.
Fiona (:And you can't just always hear from the very large people or the people you always hear from or listed companies. You have to hear from the full range of them because we all have a very different set of challenges, but also, for example, on an issue like prompt payment, what small businesses think about prompt payment and what very large businesses feel about prompt payment might be wildly different things. And if you only listen to one of those groups, you're not going to make the right decisions necessarily.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:So, yeah, I definitely feel that there has been big progress made on the recognition that family business is its own thing and it has its own needs and we need to listen and take account of that.
Russ (:And it'd be interesting. So this year, obviously, in the next 12 months, I think, is the it has to be by January next year in the UK. There is going to be a general election. And I saw something from the World Economic Forum that this year there's something like the most number of democratic votes in 2024 than we've ever seen. So outside of the UK, there's likely to be potential changes.
that can either bring more uncertainty or hopefully a bit more certainty and stability to the world. And particularly within the election kind of periods there can be sort of political statements and we're expecting a budget this year in March. And so I'm keen to kind of understand your thoughts on
given that it's an election year, given that it's a potential opportunity to try and woo voters, shall we say. What do we need to know heading into the next few months and the budget in particular?
Fiona (:So I think it's absolutely right to frame this budget in the context of we are not that far away from an election because anybody who is hoping for long-term structural changes within this budget to long-term outstanding issues that require kind of huge overhaul or a redesign of certain parts of the tax system or whatever.
I think you're probably going to be disappointed. I think the, there are the shoots of economic recovery and, uh, aside from the inflation figure kind of bump in the road this week, but, um, but people still are not feeling that necessarily in their own pockets, in their own personal finances, and I think what we will see from this budget will be the
lots of things or pulling different levers to try and make people feel that economic recovery is kind of felt in their own personal finances. So there has been speculation this week and last week about potentially more changes to income tax to see if that can potentially do something. The government is obviously hoping that people will start to feel
some of the benefit of the reduction in national insurance by the time the election comes. So they'll maybe feel that they've got a bit more cash around. And I think that we will really be looking at those kind of money in your pocket issues rather than long-term structural things. There are clearly, you know, campaigning, even though we're not in the official election period, the campaigning is already underway. And in fact, the
Russ (:Yeah.
Fiona (:the talks with the civil service that can happen between the opposition and the civil service before an election. The prime minister gave the green light for that and Keir Starmer has written to the civil service to start those. So we are very much in the kind of election campaign and rundown period. So I think that that's really what we will expect to see. Now there have been hints of changes around business tax. The chancellor has been
been suggested that he's been saying that he would like to do something around business taxes without any kind of details specifically on what that might be. And then the big kind of issue that was well trailed ahead of the autumn statement has been speculated about in relation to the conservative manifesto has been speculated and is very much something that we're getting questions about at the moment is speculation about IHT inheritance tax and what might happen.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:Could it be that the Chancellor either reduces the rates, increases the thresholds, or scraps it completely in the budget ahead of the election? It's still very much one of those things that there are as a group of Tory backbenchers and certainly some newspapers campaigning on quite heavily, but it still feels very much like...
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:it's really gonna depend on where the economic wins at the time are and whether they feel like there are measures that could get them more votes, to be honest, through doing something else. You know, if you did something around income tax, is that likely to endear you to more people because more people pay income tax than inheritance tax? But for family businesses, this is a really important issue because...
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:Keir Starmer has explicitly said that if the Conservatives scrap inheritance tax, that the Labour will bring it back in. And there's a long term issue there around if it was reintroduced, would the same reliefs exist in the new regime? And we absolutely need those reliefs from inheritance tax for family businesses. So we are working very closely with many people on this issue.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:to make sure that message is well understood, that we cannot have a situation where you maybe have six months without inheritance tax and any business that was passed over in that time, you're very lucky that you didn't pay anything at all, but that potentially, you reach a point where shortly after you then have no relief for anybody and that would be really damaging for family businesses and family farming as well. So we're very kind of.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Russ (:Thanks for watching!
Fiona (:very engaged in that discussion at the moment. I've been talking to lots of people about that.
Russ (:Yeah, I guess that's an example as well, isn't it, of the potential positive headlines for some core voters for political parties that scrapping IHT or inheritance tax might bring versus the need and desire for long term stability that helps support successful successions for in our case, what we're interested in is from the family business perspective and the need.
in this budget potentially to create something that does bring those headlines so that people feel as if the brighter option is say the consensus versus labour but it kind of goes against what we were saying earlier about the need for that stability and there to be some predictability about it is this year could potentially be one that is unstable as a result of statements that
I guess it's how do we suggest families approach these? What advice are you giving to families as they approach you with these questions about, in particular, things like inheritance tax potentially changing?
Fiona (:Yeah, it's very hard because you can't plan for spec, you know, you can't plan based just on speculation. And I think the important thing to do is to talk to your advisors, who you work with, who and understand what your, what your position is, and what the impact of different changes might be, because there are various things that could happen, thresholds could be increased, you know, various different things.
But to just try and understand what the impact of those things would be on you. But I think it is very hard because if people try to preempt a decision that is not by any means guaranteed, then you potentially are doing a lot of work and paying a lot of fees to advisors to do things that then wasn't necessary and you need to undo anyway. So, yeah, it's a very tricky one.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Russ (:Yeah. And that has happened before, hasn't it? In terms of inheritance tax, the speculation around inheritance tax seems to constantly be there. And I know from my previous experience in the world of financial planning and wealth management that there were, there always seems to be conversations around how to plan for the potential of IHT either being scrapped or increased or...
It's kind of this sort of football that's passed around whenever it comes to budgets or autumn statements. And I think the key is to, as you say, remember that this is speculation. So keep informed, keep up to date with what that might be, but be very cautious in terms of jumping the gun on planning when it is speculation as opposed to any form of certainty at this stage.
Fiona (:And I think one of the things that, as you say, people talk about inheritance tax all the time, there's always somebody running a campaign to scrap it entirely, and it's often badged as Britain's most hated tax, but a very small number of estates in terms of the kind of the whole country actually pay it, the amount it brings into the treasury is not a huge amount when you look at other taxes.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:Um, but it is a ideological point for certain people. Um, and there has been speculation about, you know, I remember back in 2010, George Osborne was going to put up to the threshold up to a million pounds. He didn't, he introduced a, um, introduced a, uh, rules around passing your house on instead. Um, but there hasn't.
Russ (:Hmm.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:But there haven't been changes to, for example, the thresholds for a really long time. And so more people are paying it now. And so kind of that's another reason people are saying we've got to get rid of this or we've got to do something with it because more people are being dragged into it. So I think it will continue to be one of those issues that people talk about. But it's often just talked about as though it's a personal tax issue. And for us, one of our key messages
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:around inheritance taxes always, this is a business tax for family businesses and family farms as well. You know, this has a real impact on their ability to employ people, invest, you know, all those kinds of things if they were having to pay a 40% charge on the death of a shareholder. And nobody can plan for when they're going to die. You know, nobody knows that.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:So you will always plan and be the most cautious for what do I need to need to do to make sure that wouldn't mean the collapse of my business. And it's, that's kind of something we've really been hammering home is just how clearly this is a business tax issue. It's not just personal tax. We're not just talking about whether, you know, your grandmother can pass on some money so you can hopefully buy your first home. This is fundamental to employment and growth and investment.
Russ (:Uh huh.
Fiona (:and it needs to be viewed in that lens.
Russ (:Yeah, and
as we say, hopefully that that's all being taken into consideration when they are pulling together what they're going to announce in the budget in a few weeks time. We mentioned the autumn statement back in November, but far more importantly back in November we saw the celebration of Family Business Week, far more exciting event than the autumn statement.
Fiona (:I'm gonna go to bed.
Russ (:What were your particular highlights of Family Business Week, not of the Autumn State?
Fiona (:Well, they fell in the same week in the end, so that was quite a fun week for me. So this was our Family Business Week 2023, it was our third Family Business Week. We started it as a way to kind of champion and celebrate the family business community, throw some light onto what they're doing and celebrate kind of stories from the family business community. And this year we looked at future leaders.
Russ (:Uh huh, I bet.
Fiona (:And we wanted to share stories of some of those kind of inspiring younger people who are preparing to lead or leading their family businesses, who are doing really interesting things. And it was such, it really was such a great week and there was so much energy around. And we had, as part of that, we had six ones to watch who we profiled and shared their stories and some of them were family, some of them were non-family. And what was just really...
interesting and inspiring was just how much energy and enthusiasm and passion they had for the legacy of the businesses and what had been achieved, but absolutely in building something stronger and even stronger, even better for the future and how much passion they had. It was
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:one evening for a reception where we had the business minister and other people along to kind of, you know, over a hundred people there celebrating this kind of how important family businesses are, but talking about the manifesto in the long term and how they need to be supported was had a summit where we got some of the leaders, the ones to watch leaders along to talk about their own experiences and share what their journeys had been. And it was just
It was so encouraging to hear their enthusiasm, but also how happy so many of those younger people were to share their experiences to help others as well. Like that is one of the things about the family business community, which I think if you don't, if you're not, if you've not been to family business events or.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:kind of met up with other family owners, I think you would always be surprised at how open people are and how much they want other people to succeed. And that was just such a fantastic thing to see these young people who, some of them, you know, would probably think, oh, you know, may think at the start, you know, I'm quite early in my journey, I probably don't have anything to share. But actually, when you get into it, they've got huge amounts of insights, and we're just so willing to kind of help others.
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:It was really fantastic and really inspiring and just so positive against what has been quite, you know, such a difficult time for business to look at the future and say, actually, it really does feel like this sector is in really great hands and there's a lot to be hopeful about.
Russ (:Yeah, I think again that it's a highlight or something that helps to highlight the benefit of peer groups, of community and the example you gave of somebody who may not feel as if they have an awful lot to give because of the time or experience that they have.
as well as finding people who have been through that experience who are happy to share their own experiences through that. They'll also find other people who are at similar points or perhaps earlier points of their journey as well and they'll be able to help others and the kind of uniting element that comes with being in a community with fellow family businesses is something that is fantastic to see at these events and conferences and various other things throughout the year but it's
That's part of the example of, I guess, the mission for Family Business UK is to encourage more and more people to come together in those kinds of formats.
Fiona (:Yeah, we've talked about this before that, you know, no family is the same. No business is the same. No one can present you with here are 10 tips to get it absolutely right in family business, because it's always going to have to be tailored to what, you know, why your family is in business together. What's important for you for the long term? What does your business look like? What changes potentially need to be made? And so coming together with other people.
hearing lots of different stories can help you think, okay, well, that, that definitely wouldn't work in my family because, you know, my uncle, you know, he's not like that at all, or whatever it might be. And you can weave your own path, but with information and insights and kind of go away and action what's relevant to you, but also say, okay, well, I've heard that story, and I really want to avoid that outcome. I want to talk to them about why they think it went that way. And people are very, always very willing to talk about things that went wrong, as well as the things that went right.
which I think is so encouraging. And one of the things that the, as well as the kind of peer network, one of the things that the next, the next gens and the future leaders that we were talking to talked about as well was how important mentors are. And mentors not just in your own business, but outside, maybe even in a different industry. And how useful it was to have that kind of outside voice to challenge you, but also to provide a perspective that you maybe don't get, if you're,
Russ (:Hmm.
Fiona (:kind of talk, regularly just talking to people in your own industry, and how useful they had found that. And that was something I thought was really, really came along really strongly from the conversations I was having with them as well.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Russ (:Yeah and again you see it at the events that you host and one such event is your annual conference and that's coming up this summer. What's the focus of this year's conference?
Fiona (:Yeah, this year's conference is the fifth to the seventh of June in London. And the title this year is the Faces of Family Business. So it's going to be about people, people. So we are going to be looking at kind of people issues and the different people that are involved in family businesses from all different angles. So we're going to look at things like who, you know, who counts as family in this day and age with blended families and kind of.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:increasingly kind of growing families, who counts as a family member and what rights and responsibilities do different family members have within that business and that situation. We're going to be looking at kind of understanding what the skill sets of your family are, not just as individuals but as a group, what are the skills that you have, what are the skills as you as a group of owners are maybe missing and how do you develop those. Around educating the next gen,
around non-executive directors, how you recruit them, how you support them, how you onboard them, how you get the right people. We've got a keynote speech from James Reid from Reid Recruitment, who's gonna be talking about recruiting and retaining talent because we know more and more our conversations are, how do we get the right non-family people in? So we're also gonna be having a conversation about reward in relation to non-family and family.
What does, as well as recruiting them, how do you reward them? Because it's a very different setup in a family business than say like a large listed company. Going to be talking about what we were just talking about around how do you build your own network? How do you make sure that you have the kind of insights and inputs that you need? You are hosting one of our new family business labs, Russ, on the elephant in the room. And that's all going to be about kind of...
Russ (:Mm-hmm, here I am. Yes.
Fiona (:interpersonal dynamics and dealing with difficult conversations and that sort of things.
So yeah, it's going to be all things people and looking at it from, you know, there'll be things designed for the next generation, for the now gen, for the kind of senior gen, for non-family. And it's open to family businesses who are members of Family Business UK, but also to family businesses who aren't members of Family Business UK. And if you aren't a member, it's a really great way to kind of come and feel that network and kind of...
have an introduction to what's going on. And then there are also social elements as well. So there are workshops, there are labs, there are plenary sessions, but then there's also lots of time for networking. We have a really great dinner and it's just always an incredibly open and honest kind of event where people share huge amounts and we have all sorts of expert advisors, but we hear directly from family businesses as well.
about what their experiences are. So I would strongly encourage everybody to come along and just have a really great couple of days.
Russ (:Yeah, I echo that as well. I was lucky enough to come along to last year's conference, which was held up in Glasgow and just happened to coincide with the hottest day in history, I think, in Glasgow. So yeah, me packing my vests because I was going to Scotland didn't work out particularly well when it was so hot. But the real beauty in those events is...
Fiona (:It was hot, it was hot.
Fiona (:Hehehe
Russ (:not just the sessions which obviously are hugely valuable and delivered by families themselves sharing those experiences but the conversations that happen between those sessions was you could kind of anytime there was a coffee or tea break there is so much conversation and interaction happening it's a fantastic community and the one thing that I kind of took away from the event in Glasgow I obviously took away more than this but one of the key things was
people who came along for the first time kind of thinking, I wish I'd done this sooner because it's such a caring and giving community. And so I again would echo what you've said, Defiona, in terms of people coming along, enjoying the sessions, but also enjoying getting to know other family businesses and sharing and not feeling shy about coming along if you've got a particular challenge that you want some kind of help and guidance with.
there's lots and lots of people there who are more than happy to share and I think that's part of the kind of huge benefit that you get from those types of events.
Fiona (:I think as well, people often come as kind of a family group, so a couple of people, three, four people. Increasingly, actually families are bringing, maybe if they've got a non-family CEO or some of their non-family non-execs, they're bringing them along because actually everybody...
depending on their stage, will hear things in a slightly different way, they'll take something away. And it's, they said that they find it very beneficial to kind of not go home and say, okay, I went to this conference and I'm going to report back on what I heard actually to then get together. And you quite often see, as you say, in those coffee breaks, you quite often see like a family groupings getting together and saying, Oh, what did you think of that session? I thought that was really great. And, you know, kind of immediately trying to process it, which I think is really nice and means coming together to learn as a family. And then one of the things that
Russ (:Uh-huh.
Fiona (:somebody said to me probably about five or six years ago now, was they said, they often feel that because there's so many things going on in the business, they sometimes feel that taking time to kind of think about the family side of things can sometimes feel to them as though they're being selfish. Although we know that that's not the case because getting the family harmony right, getting family purpose, all that stuff is absolutely essential for the future success of the business.
Russ (:Hmm.
Russ (:Yeah.
Fiona (:But they said that's how they felt, that they felt like it was selfish sometimes to take that time to think about the family stuff. So going for two or three days to a conference where that was solely what they focused on, they could kind of really, because it was a longer form thing, they could really think about it, clarify their thinking. They said that they found that really, really beneficial. It gave them the space to think about the things that they needed to think about, but sometimes felt that they shouldn't be thinking about because there were so many other things to do.
Russ (:Mm-hmm.
Fiona (:And that really stuck with me about how important it is to kind of have that space to allow yourself to think about these things.
Russ (:Yeah, I completely agree on that and again, very strongly advocate for people to come along to the conference and if someone's listening and thinks, yes, that's for me, how do they find out more about the conference and Family Business UK in general and the manifesto and everything that we've spoken about today?
Fiona (:So if you want to find out more about anything that we're doing at Family Business UK, you can go to www.familybusinessuk.org and you can find copies of the manifesto there, which you can download. If it resonates with you, please send it to your MP and let them know, because that's a really great way to spread the word about what's going on as well.
and you can find out information about all the events and master classes we have. And that's where the information is about conference as well. We have an early bird rate running for the conference, which closes on the 14th of February. So if you do want to book for the conference, please do so before then to get the best deal as well.
Russ (:Fantastic and I look forward to if not seeing you before but seeing you at conference and For those families that are listening who will be coming along as well. It'd be great to see you at the conference in June Fiona as ever it's a real pleasure to have these conversations and to find out about The fantastic work that you guys are doing. So thank you very much for your time and for sharing with the audience
Fiona (:Thank you very much for inviting me back. Thank you.
Russ (:See you soon.
