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Services for Entrepreneurs and Families

Communication: Misunderstandings occur in all family enterprises and closely held businesses, creating stress and resentment that can affect business performance adversely. We identify the causes of communication difficulties and offer solutions for improving communication, with long-term benefits for both the business and its owners.

Sibling Rivalry: Sibling rivalries stem from childhood and tend to spill over into the family enterprise - sometimes with disastrous results. We understand how to untangle the complex web of feelings that often underlie such rivalries.
Intergenerational Conflict: Intergenerational conflict creates particular stress within entrepreneurial businesses. Roseview Advisors are skilled at identifying the underlying causes of such conflict and at providing workable techniques for easing inevitable tensions.

Continuity Planning: Maintaining the core values and heritage of entrepreneurial families and business founders while ushering in changes as new generations become involved in the operating business involves discussing sensitive issues of wealth, work ethic and core values. Roseview provides an interdisciplinary team of experienced professionals to help accomplish these softer goals while integrating personal estate planning, corporate strategic planning, and corporate finance for the enterprise through a process known as continuity planning. Our advisors understand that what the entrepreneur seeks and what the business needs are continuity of leadership and continued adherence to core values, combined with continuous reinvention of business strategies and tactics. This process is more fully detailed in "Heritage and Tradition in Family Business: How Family-Controlled Enterprises Connect the Experience of their Past to the Promise of their Future."

Real Estate: Owners of private and closely held family enterprises are often surprised to discover that substantial portions of their equity - namely, business and personal real estate - are overlooked, neglected or underutilized. Many owners avoid review and active management of these portions of their wealth until they undertake estate planning -- or worse -- until unforeseen events force hasty decisions. In family businesses, management of the family real estate portfolio sometimes surfaces difficult historical relationship issues which impede effective business decision-making. Roseview can help entrepreneurs and family enterprises deal with both relationship and real estate issues, and assist in structuring an effective real estate asset management program.

Assets Held in Trust: Tax planners often advocate placing an entrepreneur’s or family's assets in trust. But profound cultural changes emerge from transferring control of a business from an entrepreneur to a fiduciary. Trust instruments must, therefore, include clear statements of core values and carefully drawn powers for, and limits to powers of trustees in order to offset such unanticipated cultural change. Roseview helps clients avoid the conflict inherent in such structures by guiding trustee selection and by creating provisions most effective to promoting the concurrent goals of continuing family control and promoting family harmony.

Family Businesses Owned in Trust: A trust instrument, which separates control of the trust property from ownership, is used not only for purposes of tax liability reduction and professional management of the family's assets, but also as a vehicle for the older generation to control transfer of property to the next generation. However, when a family enterprise is held in trust, issues arise that profoundly affect family dynamics. Here too, Roseview helps clients avoid the conflict inherent in such structures by guiding trustee selection and creating provisions to promote the concurrent goals of continuing family control and family harmony. Please read, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Issues Arising from Holding Family Businesses in Trust", for more in depth discussion of this topic.

Services for Management

Management Succession: Of all the long-term issues confronting family businesses, problems concerning management succession to the next generation are often the most vexing. There are no simple solutions to these issues, because management succession requires both family relationship issues and business management needs to be addressed simultaneously. Roseview works with families and non-family managers to find an effective approach for developing and implementing succession plans.

Strategic Planning: Roseview advisors specialize in comprehensive strategies for the future direction of family enterprises, empowering families to embrace business changes while preserving the family's core values. Based on our understanding of complex family dynamics and our core philosophy that family issues drive business decisions, Roseview helps families explore, define and integrate family goals with the goals of the enterprise to create a solid foundation from which to anticipate and capitalize on present and future events in the business environment.

Organizational and Leadership Development: Roseview Advisors help increase both short and long-term performance of our clients’ companies by creating organizational structures that build on the values and mission of the enterprise. We work with our clients to help articulate these statements, establish clear performance goals, set up performance evaluation systems and institute guidelines for management training programs to develop the next generation of management leadership.

Executive Coaching: In addition to programs for the next generation, Roseview offers one-on-one training for both family members in executive roles and non-family managers to improve personal skills and create systems of enhanced collaboration, shared passion and purpose.

Services for Governance

Effective Corporate Governance: Roseview recommends its clients establish a truly supervisory governance process, where either a board of directors or council of advisors meets regularly and exercises genuine supervisory responsibility for the management of all business operations. We offer practical guidance and education regarding the role of the board, creating the right mix of chemistry and expertise for optimum board effectiveness, candidate recruitment, meeting procedures, and for companies with an existing board, recommendations for improved governance practices. In addition to a board of directors, Roseview believes that in many instances a council of advisors, which has neither fiduciary nor legal powers, can be a valuable ally for family controlled enterprises. Please see, "Creating Effective Corporate Governance in Family Businesses," for a full discussion of this topic.

Board Oversight and Audit: In the current environment of inadequate or sometimes non-existent oversight of internal and external audit functions, even for privately held companies, Roseview can assist its clients with implementation of board level oversight of their financial controls and financial management.

Family Governance Structures: A formal governance structure such as a family assembly or family council provides a forum for the entire family to come together to discuss shared values, air differences, plan future activities, determine philanthropic goals and celebrate passages separate from the ongoing operations of the family enterprise. These governance mechanisms for the family parallel a corporation's board of directors. Roseview assists in creating both the architecture for these important governance structures and their constituent document, a "family constitution," which serves to connect the family's core values and commitments to future family control of the enterprise to the enterprise's own core values and governance structure. For further details click on "Family Business Advisory Council Purpose And Structure," and, "Heritage and Tradition in Family Business: How Family-Controlled Enterprises Connect the Experience of their Past to the Promise of their Future."