IFE Quarterly Newsletter | Winter 2021-2022
Let's Celebrate!
Message from the Nulsen Family
Executive Director
Happy Holidays! On behalf of the IFE team, I'd like to wish you and your loved ones a joyful holiday season and a prosperous New Year!
 
The end of the year is not only a time for reflection, but also a time for celebration. And at the IFE, there are quite a few things that we are thrilled to share and celebrate with you. You will read more about these exciting updates in the sections below, but here are the highlights:

  • William B. Gartner, Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship and Director of Research at the IFE, was ranked in the Top 1.5% of scholars in the world.
  • Our Family Entrepreneurial Leadership (FEL) Program is growing! We are pleased to announce that Adjunct Professor, David Sands MBA’00, has joined the IFE as the Director of the FEL program. David brings more than 20 years of operational leadership experience in his own family business, one of the largest business process outsourcing firms in the US and recently received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence.
  • Thanks to the teamwork under the leadership of Benjapon Jivasantikarn, IFE Associate Director for Student Programs, over 650 students are engaged with the IFE this year!

Looking ahead, we have a series of exciting programs and events in the new year. Please stay tuned for more details!

Sincerely,
Thought Leadership
Avoiding Drama: How Entrepreneurial Families
Can Learn from ‘Succession’
Family entrepreneurship is about amplifying the capacity of families to create value together through stronger family functioning.

While “Succession” is a highly dramatized version of how a family business works, there are real-world lessons to learn from the show and the experiences of Waystar Royco and the Roy family.
William Gartner Recognized as Top 1.5% of Scholars in the World
Along with Babson College professors Candida Brush, Tom Davenport, Dhruv Grewal, Gina O'Connor, and Senior Fellow Philip Mirvis, Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship and IFE Director of Research, William B. Gartner, was ranked among the top of scholars in the world, according to the latest datasets released by Elsevier BV.
 
Citation metrics are often used as an indicator of the importance of the work of a scholar. Professor Gartner, a leading expert in the field of entrepreneurship, is one of the most cited scholars in the world with over 41,000 citations (in Google Scholar). Here at Babson, Professor Gartner is playing a crucial role in developing Babson’s family entrepreneurship thought leadership through his support and mentorship of numerous faculty research projects and his collaborations with leading global academics in the family entrepreneurship space. This year he co-edited a book with Babson faculty member Matt R. Allen (Family Entrepreneurship: Insights from Leading Experts on Successful Multi-Generational Entrepreneurial Families) that involved forty academic scholars and experts from around the world. 

Current projects in which Professor Gartner is engaged include a data driven study of the parenting behaviors that lead to entrepreneurship in the next generation (spearheaded by Babson faculty members Angela Randolph and Alisa Jno-Charles), the role of psychological safety in family entrepreneurship (led by Babson faculty members PJ Guinan and Alisa Jno-Charles), and a number of efforts to explore the characteristics and processes of instilling entrepreneurial legacies in business families with colleagues from Audencia Business School (Nantes, France), Dublin City University, Copenhagen Business School, and Utah State University.  In the coming months, we look forward to sharing details about how this research can guide your family. You can read more about Professor Gartner's research here.
Welcome to the IFE Team:
David Sands, Director, Family Entrepreneurial Leadership Forum
David Sands, Adjunct Lecturer in Babson's Operations and Information Management Division and 2021 recipient of the Dean's Award in Recognition of Excellence in Teaching, has been a moderator within IFE's Family Entrepreneurial Leadership (FEL) Forum since 2019. This fall, Sands joined the IFE as Director of the FEL program to help us scale this rapidly growing offering for both students and young professionals.
 
Prior to joining Babson, Sands served for over 20 years as Executive Vice President and Principal at his family business, one of the nation's largest financial services Business Process Outsourcing firms, with 750+ employees servicing Fortune 50 clientele. At Babson, David teaches Project Management in the undergraduate program and graduate courses in Operations and Project Management for UMass Amherst. You can read David Sands' full bio here.
NEW Program for Entrepreneurial Families:
Digital Transformation in Family Businesses
business_technologies.jpg
Start date: Spring 2022
Duration: 6 months
Location: Virtual

Faculty
Ruben Mancha, Associate Professor, Operations and Information Management Division, Babson College
Lauri Union, Nulsen Family Executive Director, Institute for Family Entrepreneurship, Babson College

Program Highlights
  • 2 generations in entrepreneurial families with shared learning in a confidential setting 
  • Build capacity to work together among generations while creating a digital vision for your family business
  • Expert faculty and moderators leading the small group sessions

If you are interested in learning more about the upcoming Digital Transformation program, please complete a short survey by clicking the link below.
Babson Connect Worldwide at Miami | Feb 3-5, 2022
Babson's signature global summit is returning this February to Miami, Florida. A cosmopolitan city known for its tropical climate, gorgeous beaches, vibrant nightlife, infusion of cultures, and growing start-up culture makes Miami the ultimate destination for Babson Connect Worldwide 2022.
 
IFE's Nulsen Family Executive Director, Lauri Union, will be hosting a pre-conference workshop in the format of a live case study and a lunch session on the topic of "Succession Planning with the Next Generation".
 
Don't miss this chance to connect with the global Babson community, and learn from keynote speakers and panels discussing emerging trends in family business, global investing, and social enterprise!
JOIN BABSON'S GLOBAL COMMUNITY
OF FAMILY ENTREPRENEURS
Please join the IFE global community of 5,000+ family entrepreneurs and get priority access to our networking events, virtual forums, and other exciting programs. JOIN NOW!
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