Message from Nulsen Family Executive Director, Lauri Union
Welcome to our first Institute for Family Entrepreneurship (IFE) quarterly newsletter! In these issues, we will be sharing Babson’s most updated thought leadership in the family entrepreneurship space, stories about Babson family businesses, and updates about activities at the IFE.

The IFE is a relatively new institute, formed in April 2018. Our approach to the opportunities and challenges of business families is unique, so I often find myself politely correcting people about the name of our institute. “Actually, we are not the institute for family business (or family enterprise). We are the Institute for Family Entrepreneurship.”  Why am I such a stickler about these word choices? The reason is ...

Announcing the IFE Endowed Directorship
Supporting Past, Current, and Future Generations
of Entrepreneurial Families
A $2 million gift from Charlie Nulsen ’79 and JoAnn Kocum Nulsen ’81 will endow the Executive Directorship position at the Institute for Family Entrepreneurship, enabling the best in leadership and experiential programming for students and their entrepreneurial families.

Proud members of the Babson College community, Charlie Nulsen ’79 and JoAnn Kocum Nulsen ’81 knew that when it was time to start thinking of a succession plan for their real estate firm, Babson would be the place to go.
Thought Leadership
William Gartner, Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship, on Entrepreneurial Legacy
The stories that families tell about the history of their family and their family businesses matters. Stories that focus on how the family, over time, has solved problems and pursued opportunities enable succeeding generations to utilize the resources of their family’s businesses to engage in achieving new possibilities. While stories that focus on the characteristics of the founder and the founder’s achievements (without clues about how these achievements were accomplished) tend to trap succeeding generations into thinking of their family businesses as monuments to the past that cannot be changed, thereby preventing successors from considering their futures in new ways. In a soon to be published book chapter, my colleagues and I explore the stories that the next generation of business families tell by asking them to draw pictures of their family’s past, present and future. 
IFE Updates

  • Family Entrepreneurship Amplifier Enrollment Triples in Its Second Year
  • IFE Launches Innovative Program: Family Entrepreneurship Learning Community
  • Lauri Union Leads Live Case Study to a Packed House at the FFI Conference 
  • Benjapon Jivasantikarn MBA '05 Joins IFE as Associate Director
  • IFE Board of Advisors Engage in Strategic Planning

Details on IFE News .
IFE in the News


Upcoming Events

  • November 21, 2019 Live Case Study
  • March 23-27, 2020 Family Entrepreneurship Week

More details on IFE Events .
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