Borrowed from Your Grandchildren The Evolution of 100-Year Family Enterprises

"Dennis Jaffe has consolidated hundreds of years of family lessons into one compendium that maps the journey that successful family enterprises follow. His insights on the critical stages of development will enrich every family enterprise and assist with whatever generational transitions are underway. Don't miss the final chapter on the Economic and Social Future of Family Enterprises and their vital role as stabilizing forces in countries that are facing tremendous challenges in the next decade."
—Sara Hamilton, Founder and CEO, Family Office Exchange

"With the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in American history underway, and a search for positive social impact rising among newer generations, Borrowed from Your Grandchildren is a timely research report and guide for family business assessment and planning, with values at the forefront. Dennis Jaffe counters myths and shows what really works to create long-term successful businesses that nurture families, unite successive generations, and leave a legacy."
—Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Arbuckle Professor, Harvard Business School; author of Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time

"This is an amazing read. So many of the processes and structures described reflect our own experience around family strategy and governance over the last 100 years. If we had only had this publication, many blind alleys would have been avoided! And there are some useful indicators to guide us as we move onto the next 100 years. A real tour de force."
—Andrew Wates OBE, Past chairman of the Wates Group and chairman of the FBNi Polaris Programme

"Much has been written about what family business should do to avoid going from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations, but little about what to do to continue to prosper beyond that. This book, based on research of what families that have passed that threshold have done, offers valuable insights to any business family interested in continuing to prosper and grow."
—Cristina, Bruno, and Manuel J. Carvajal, Members of the Carvajal Family Council, Colombia

Learn How 100 Families Have Sustained Their Wealth for Generations

Successfully passing wealth on to future generations is more challenging than many assume. You need to prepare accordingly if you wish to sustain a family fortune that grows as the decades pass. Borrowed from Your Grandchildren illustrates how you can pass your family enterprises across generations not only in the form

of financial wealth but also through familial success, creative and responsible new generations, and positive community impact. Reporting on interviews with family leaders of 100 global business families who have consistently kept and grown all forms of their "wealth," this book reveals principles anyone can apply to ensure that your family's assets and enterprises are sustainable and secure for the future.

This useful resource:

• Examines real-life stories of Generative Families with successful family enterprises
• Shows how financial and business success stems from a foundation of clear values and cross-generational collaboration
• Offers rare insights from otherwise private global families
• Demonstrates how family enterprises evolve over the years

The proven wealth and enterprise management practices in this book can sustain your family through the passing of time and lead to your family having a positive impact on each new generation, their businesses, and their community.

Families share how they have maintained and grown their wealth from generation to generation.

While creating wealth is a wonderful achievement, business families are also concerned with how their wealth is used to support their values, the lives of their children and the well-being of the community. Over several generations, families who are successful in growing their wealth have been able to reinvent themselves and their business in the face of significant environmental transformations and internal differences cause by family dynamics. Borrowed from my Grandchildren is a fascinating look at how large, long-lasting business families succeed across generations.

Author Dennis T. Jaffe, one of the leading architects of the field of family enterprise consulting, has interviewed members of successful, well known, 100-year family enterprises from 20 countries, who serve as role models for those wishing to see their wealth positively impact their children, employees, and communities. Half continue to own their legacy business and others have gone on to become family offices with a portfolio of shared assets, but all these families have sustained their values and identity as a family over more than three generations.

Offering the collected wisdom of nearly 100 global business families, this insightful book shares the real-life stories of partners in business and wealth management over three of more generations. Families that generate rather than reduce their wealth across generations, known as Generative Families, focus on engaging across generations and develop collaborative governance for both family and business to ensure responsible stewardship from one generation to the next.

This unique resource:

• Presents real-life stories of families sustaining wealth over generations
• Explores both the successes and failures of retaining family wealth
• Includes rare private insights from members of prominent wealthy families
• Examines the nature of global family enterprises and their evolution over generations
• Discusses the financial, human, and social dimensions of wealth

Borrowed from my Grandchildren: The Evolution of Stewardship in 100-Year Families is an essential read for family members, non-family executives, family offices, estate planning lawyers, family business consultants, trust officers, philanthropic and foundation advisors, financial advisors, financial planners, CPAs, and other finance professionals.