Strategic Growth of the Family Enterprise: Cultivating Acumen Early for Sustained Success

Welcome to Legacy Builders, strategies for building successful family enterprises. Brought to you by Beacon Family Office at Assante Financial Management Limited. I’m your host, Cory Gagnon, Senior Wealth Advisor. And on this show, we explore global ideas, concepts, and models that help family enterprises better navigate the complexities of family wealth.

Today, we welcome Anna Giampà, Chief Learning & Development Officer at Crysalia. Anna brings over 20 years of consulting experience to support clients with complex needs. She has held leadership roles in the not-for-profit sector serving as Executive Director and in academia as Lecturer at John Molson School of Business. An accomplished entrepreneur, Anna co-manages a real estate portfolio and is known for her integrity and collaborative style. She balances her impressive career with active community involvement, serving on non-profit boards and dedicating time to causes close to her heart.

My goal is to be the most curious person in today’s conversation with Anna Giampà, where we explore her experience in guiding enterprising families through complex decisions and multi-generational challenges. We’ll discuss how Anna’s journey from growing up in a family business to her work at Crysalia has shaped her approach to family advising, focusing on strategic alignment, active listening, and understanding each family’s unique circumstances. Together, we’ll uncover the importance of balancing emotion and strategy, integrating diverse perspectives, and fostering harmony across family, ownership, and business circles.

Now let’s dive in!

Cory: Welcome Anna! We’re excited to have you here today to share your wealth of knowledge and experiences with us. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Anna: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Cory.

Cory: Anna, imagine you’re delivering the commencement speech to the graduating class of 2024, and you have the chance to inspire them with your story.

How would you begin your speech to convey the incredible lessons and expertise that you’ve gained throughout your career?

Anna: That’s a tough question, Cory, but when I think about it, and I did think long and hard about it, I  identified three pivotal moments in my life and career, three stages in my life, from which I really took away some lessons, and those lessons are valuable for me today.

Ultimately, it comes down to understanding emotion and the importance of emotional dynamics, not only in the family enterprise (which is what we’re focusing on today) but in life in general.

I would start by saying things like don’t let emotions be your downfall but leverage emotion and its power in life and in your enterprising family. I can go into a little bit more detail on what I mean by that, but that’s where my head goes when you ask me that question.

Cory: Great. And the second part, then? 

Anna: Okay. If I think about the stages we all are familiar with, which continued to serve as lessons for me in childhood and youth, I really was absorbed by what I saw around me.

I had the privilege of growing up in an enterprising family. Many of my lived experiences really fueled my passion for entrepreneurship, and I have a couple of key takeaways from that period in my life.

As a young adult, I started my life together with my husband, whom I’ve been with for over 31 years in that young adult phase, and we were a young, dynamic couple.

We were starting businesses together. We had a common passion, and I had the chance during that phase to share my expertise as a lecturer and professional adjunct in the area of entrepreneurship for over 15 years.

But in that phase, I learned something else. Every phase is built on the previous one, and I’ll tell you a little about what I learned in those phases.

Just to bring you back to where I am today or where I was a couple of years ago, this is a point in my life, midlife, where I realized that I have an unrelenting desire to leverage my composite career, my versatile knowledge, and my love for family enterprise, and I wanted to do something more with that.

After having a conversation with a colleague piqued my interest in the FDA certification, at the time, I was doing family enterprise advisory on my own or as a compliment to other things that I was doing.

I often worked with entrepreneurs, but at some point last year, I decided that I wanted to do this full-time. I want to help not only the occasional client but also leverage all of that and help clients be really successful, not only in their enterprises but also in their families, and that’s where I joined Crysalia.

In terms of the takeaways, I just wanted to give you the background on those phases. But in terms of the takeaways in each of those phases, well, my parents really taught me that emotion, the emotional part of having a business.

You can’t ignore that. They were a small family-owned and operated business. They understood very early the importance of the people behind the business and the importance of contributing to the community. The business really became a backdrop for my life.

Whether I was helping out at the cash register or studying in the back room, the family business was there for me in many different ways and for many different people. At the time, we had something unique.

Again, I’m talking about being a young child, maybe early teens, and realizing, wow, this is amazing. What we have here is passion. I see the hard work. I see how they inspire others to do good, and that is unique.

And I said, okay. They must have the winning formula. I know what it is. I know what it is; is it love? I love what they did, what they did as a couple, what they did for clients and employees, and what we did for the community.

It was unique, and maybe it was unique in itself because, compared to other family businesses, we would hear horror stories of fighting and things like that. But I was really proud to say that I learned from them to leverage the emotional component and not let it hinder your advancement and your success.

I have to say; I actually learned that from my parents and continue to learn that from my in-laws as well. My husband and I have been together since I was an early teen. I saw them do the same thing in their family business.

It’s really important to understand that at the heart of it, it’s the people, and at the heart of the people, it’s the emotion and love that glues everything together. As I moved on, as I said, I went into having an entrepreneurial career path with my husband.

In that second phase, I learned that you need to make space for everyone, not just the rising generation. My husband was involved in taking over his father’s business and learning what that meant, how to navigate it, and how to make space for external people.

I was not a family member, but I was called in to be an adviser for their family, and bringing that external perspective was truly valuable. But even to a greater degree, I learned from being in business with my husband to really leverage our complementarity.

We were very different. He thought that I was too analytical, too structured, and too critical of his new ideas, and I always thought, well, he’s too creative or spends too much time networking.

There’s much work to do. Why is he doing that? But we started where the friction, the differences, created friction for us. Luckily, it took us only a short time to realize that we were better served by really leveraging each other’s value in terms of how we complemented each other.

From that point on, it’s a little similar to what you see in Tuckman’s team development model.

We did a little bit of storming and a little bit of norming, but eventually, we reached a point where we were a high-performing team in our family enterprise, which is real estate development.

From then on, we will leverage each other’s skill sets to create value for our business and add additional people to our team to achieve that high performance.

It really resonated with me, understanding that we don’t have to be the same to be great. In fact, we would probably be better if we were different, which was a key moment for me.

And then, it was like a couple of years ago when I was interested in pursuing the FIA certification that I was really trying to leverage.

How can I take all this passion and experience and help other families navigate some of those challenges and pitfalls? I can help them avoid some of that storming and norming phase and go straight to high performance by avoiding some of the things.

There are three key phases and three key lessons, and the third one is like alignment—channeling it in unison. If you can have alignment within a family, you will most likely succeed.

That’s where my angle with strategy comes in as well, where it’s okay. When planning strategically, you want to ensure you’re doing the right things, not the wrong ones.

Bringing that level of strategic advisory to families has been a takeaway from my experience, having lived it and saying okay. Well, now I can help others by applying this principle.

Cory: Awesome. Let’s dive into some of that because there are some great stories there and more great ones that we can uncover. I love the heart and emotion within your beginning experiences.

I had a very similar experience growing up, where I was at a very young age and not even able to walk. I was in the family business there as my mother and grandmother were running the business.

I completely understand studying in the backroom and whatnot. Tell me, that heart and emotion—where have you seen that beyond what your parents have? Because you talked about that, you thought that was the key.

In some cases, it is. If all businesses had that, the world would surely be a better place. Where have you seen that in some of the work that you’ve done, Anna?

Anna: I agree, and a lot of families probably have that. It might be articulated in different ways. What was different about my family was that they never let the business get in the way of the family.

Sometimes, what we see with families is that, again, this will vary depending on the size and nature of the business, and there are peaks and valleys in terms of intensity and dizziness and all of that.

But for my parents, and I would have to say my in-laws as well, family time was family time. Yes, we could technically talk about the business all the time, but we didn’t. Sunday night family dinners were for family time.

They were very good at separating the appropriate time to communicate and to talk about business from family time when it was about the older generations can appreciate that again, because of different life cycles; people are at different points in their lives.

Although they may be consumed by the business or where it’s going, they appreciate that the next generations or the rising generations have other things going on at the same time, and their business may not be as; I don’t know, as core to them necessarily as it was to the previous generation.

Just making space for other stuff. I think that’s where I see that love and that emotional component making space for it. Right, and those families that can do that effectively and sometimes with our help are able to really go a lot farther in terms of not only the business but the family.

Cory: Right. Anna, you mentioned the community and what that meant in the family business as you were growing up. And then you made a comment about your husband spending a lot of time networking.

It makes me question some of the social capital you’ve experienced in both enterprises. How do you apply that today?

Anna: Right. Well, I mean, at Crysalia, we’re all about helping build that human capital. Of course, capital goes beyond finances and includes social and then relationships and all of that.

I hate to admit that maybe I learned that a little bit too late in life when I was focused on achieving and on doing, making it make sure the business was successful that I would occasionally overlook or neglect the fact that, well, building relationships and networking and talking to as many people as you can, which is my husband’s strength and essential to success as well.

We definitely see it again today, not only in my enterprise, but you see a little bit more of that ability to do both to the degree that makes you comfortable.

I’ll do it to a certain degree, but not to the same degree as he will and again, because of that, we’re able to complement each other in families where you see that the various perspectives or the diverse perspectives, the diverse personalities, this is one of the areas where it might shine through, where we’re assessing or helping families understand other individual perspectives and understanding the why, but making sure that ultimately they have a shared why.

Our methods of getting there and what we need as our winning conditions may be slightly different, but ultimately, we’re forging ahead toward a common goal. And that’s where I see it today: it goes beyond practicality. It’s more about, okay. What are we striving for?

Cory:  Right, and balancing that strategy and the work that’s not very easy, but easier to quantify versus developing some of those nonfinancial capitals that support the strategy.

How do you balance those, know where you are, and move the needle on both?

Anna: A couple of things come to mind when you ask about that. When it comes to strategy again, I’ve worked the greater part of my career working with entrepreneurs, helping them to implement strategies for their businesses. 

That’s always been accepted. Well, of course, we need a strategy for our business. Everybody can accept that. But what I wanted to do was say okay.

Well, now we can have the business strategy, but we have three circles here. How about applying the strategy to the other circles? We’re seeing more and more families coming to us today, asking us to help start a family office or formalize your family office.

This is like starting a new business. It’s a new entity, and we can start from scratch and create a business plan for the family office or a strategic plan. But oftentimes, it’s important, and we say to them, listen, take a step back and let’s figure out the strategy for the family.

You’re going into an intangible circle. If you don’t have a clear path for the family’s vision, values, and guiding principles, how can you create a strategic plan for a family office?

My perspective was, yes, I’m structured, and yes, there’s always a place for structure in order to be successful. But at the same time, it has to marry well. It has to overlap in areas where strategy is not necessarily the first thing you think about when you think of the family circle. You don’t think of strategy. And in the office, we often say, well, strategic planning is like breathing.

We don’t need to be told how to breathe; we all do it. We know how to do it. Breathing is a physiological process that happens in our bodies, but we know that if we are mindful and intentional about the way we breathe, the benefits can be huge.

The same thing applies to strategic planning. We know that enterprising families do it probably as second nature, but if they are mindful about strategic planning, specifically in the family and the ownership circles, then the benefits and the impact can be much greater.

Cory: Absolutely, and some of that work; I want to go back to your comment about making space for the rising generation, as you mentioned, in your family situation, but making space for those others. When doing some of that work, how do you ensure that there’s space left, for that?

Anna: That’s a really good question. At the core of our approach is making sure that individual perspectives are heard. At the get-go, when we’re working with families, there needs to be that acceptance that, well, as part of this process, we will be hearing from everybody, to make sure that, a, there is alignment or to make sure that if there are tension points in conflict areas, we can resolve them.

But it’s not about formulating a plan for the whole unless people have already taken into consideration the individual perspectives to go back to your question, what was your question? 

Cory: About making space.

Anna: Yes. Exactly. I think from the get-go, if families appreciate that we are making space for individual perspectives in the approach, then there is more of an inclination to accept those perspectives.

If you’re starting from a point where,  and it happens, right, where families that could be the G1, G2, doesn’t matter, where there’s a very resistance to other to outsiders or resistance to even advisors.

How can we know how best to advise this family? We have never lived in it. How poor are we to do this?

But I think it’s reinforcing the value of perspectives, diversity of perspective, diversity of ages, and diversity of thought, which can only enrich a conversation and enrich what the outcome could be.

Sometimes, just the fact of having that neutral third party, the adviser, come in and share that there have been studies that have shown that you can know something for a long time, but if an adviser comes in or a third party comes in and tells you something, a different part of the brain is activated.

Different processes in the brain are at work; sometimes, a trigger can help us see something more clearly, accept something, and then act on it.

I guess it’s a combination of instilling in the families that we work with that diversity brings value and reinforcing that with, well, the credibility that the way that we do it is making sure that all are heard and that we’re not damaging any in the process. Is it only to improve the situation or to maintain if it’s supported if it’s already good?

Cory: Thinking about leveraging each other and leveraging the people within the family, how do you rebuild that into the strategic plan and make sure that there’s that ability for them to feel high performing as a family?

Anna: Often, it really starts by asking individuals what their desired future looks like. And it could be obvious at the business level what the future of the business should look like or could look like.

But when you bring it down to the individual level or even at what you would like to desire, what is the desired future for this family or for the wealth that we hold? The conversations become different.

It’s really about honing in and asking the right questions to get to the root of who the essence of this individual is and how that is going to be a component of the collective picture.

It’s just making sure that the conversations are candid, honest, and transparent and that they feel comfortable being open and honest.

Ultimately, if the strategic plan for the family, the family office, or even the business doesn’t really reflect what you’re truly feeling and thinking, then there are no guarantees that it will work.

Cory: How far out are we thinking as far as a vision if we’re talking about the family or the family office?

Anna: That’s a good question, and it will really depend. You’ve probably heard this answer before. It depends on the nature of the operation. There could be differences. For the family office, it really varies.

We’re seeing more and more of today a desire to formalize what already exists as a family office function, per se. In that formalization process, we’re seeing that they want to be able to chart out a vision five or ten years down the line.

Obviously, the operating strategy is a whole different story. But in terms of the vision, a 5-year or even 10-year outlook can work very well for a family office.

Cory: Right. And when it comes to adding people, I like it when you talk about the business. You’ve got a high-performing team, and now let’s make space for people. How about when it comes from the family or the family office?

Now we’re talking about generations. How do we adapt as as we go further into generations?

Anna: That’s probably new territory for most. Again, the openness to bringing outsiders has to be there before you can even start to consider what those roles might be.

And it’s hard to say, but we’re seeing more and more of it. They’re in that formalization process rather than bringing in professional managers who can manage the different aspects of the family office differently than the family may be able to.

Upskilling the family members so they can carry out the roles and responsibilities they want to have. Again, it goes back to having that individual perspective.

What we often do is do a family portrait to understand, well, okay, not only do we know what you’d like to do, but now we can assess what you’re capable of doing and where you may need some development to jump into a role that you may not be ready for today.

In terms of diversity, yes, it could be external, professional managers. It could be, again, bringing in generations that you wouldn’t think are quite ready but starting that learning and development early enough that they can jump in when the time is right.

Cory: Right. And now, I’m sure it depends on each family member and family, and the timing is dependent on them. But what would be some best practices, Anna, if we see we have this in our vision? 

Our strategic plan shows that maybe there will be a gap, and we’ll need some expertise in this area. How would thinking of a rising gen family member listen? How would they say I want to develop those skills? I can see that the family will need these skills. How would they go about doing that?

Anna: Well, I mean, it’s a couple of things. 1st, in our family portrait, we would be able to do a good assessment of not only desires but also skills and competencies to build that starting strategic plan or plan for the family office.

But then, it’s essential to refresh that strategy on an annual basis to see how things have shifted. Have things changed? Are individual capabilities different than they were maybe a year ago, or are desires different than they were a year ago?

It’s about being proactive about what you put out there as your objectives and goals for your family office if we’re talking about a family office or your family. Then make sure that you stay on top of that to make sure that it’s always current.

It’s an evolving plan. It’s not static. It’s dynamic, and you have to make sure that you’re adapting to whatever happens, not only externally but also internally. It’s a matter of being adaptive to the evolution of things.

Cory: Yes, and when it comes to the desires of the family members, their desires might be outside of the main concentration of the family. There might be other passions and something that’s guiding that family member away from the core of what’s what’s binding the family. How does the family support that to ensure that person thrives within their area?

Anna: And there, too, that’s an emerging area in terms of how to deal with it. I think it’s always existed. There’s always been a desire to maybe do something different, break away from what the family does, but I think we’re putting more structure around that.

We’ve heard the concepts of family banks, where there’d be an allocated pool of funds for entrepreneurial ventures or other types of activities that rising generations might be interested in. We’re seeing more and more of that being implemented.

But it can be as simple as the policies, governance, and investment policies that you have or the types of decisions that you make that can reinforce those aspirations or steer them in a different direction if they don’t fit what the family has decided is the way.

But again, if there is diversity or if there is an outlier that has to be addressed, the key thing is to make sure that perspective is heard. How you decide to incorporate it or not is a different story, but the essential part is really making sure that you’re aware.

Because sometimes they’re not even aware that there’s this desire to do something different. It’s scratching the surface and making sure you’re getting down to understanding the individual and the individuals that make up a family.

Cory: Right. Absolutely. If we think about bringing that back in and talking about alignment and what that looks like, if we’ve got many different family members, sometimes they’re not even geographically together, and now we’re talking about bringing them together.

What does it look like, or how would somebody feel if they said I feel like our family’s in alignment? Our ownership group may get to the point where we’re not as connected.

We’ve been working with some of these advisers, and these different people have come in to help, and now we feel like, what? This is aligned, and we’re feeling good about our family and ownership group.

Anna: You’ll see evidence of more harmonious relations as a whole, in general, and an overarching better feeling in the family.

But in terms of more specific things in terms of ownership, just a sense of clarity. The lack of alignment or the misalignment often comes from the fact that things are not necessarily clearly understood by all in the same way or are not interpreted by all in the same way.

Where we want to see the alignment is not only in terms of the direction that we’re going in but also in our understanding of the situation, of the status quo, the context of the options sense of, I would say, a sense of relief or a sense of satisfaction with your level of comfort or knowledge or appreciation for a certain context that your family is facing.

And to boot, then the better dynamics as a whole.

Cory: Right. And going back to the work you had done for 15 years and thinking about that business side. The family has that alignment; there’s that harmonious relationship between them.

The ownership group understands what’s going on. What does this mean? There could be an operating business, or there’s whatever sort of operations there are. But what can that do for the operations?

Anna: It can only position the operating business to do better, like being poised for more growth and more solidity.

Having that clarity and alignment outside of the business circle enables the family members who are working in the business to have a stronger sense of common goals and what they’re doing.

Often, you expect to see the opposite. You expect to see alignment in the business circle carry over into the other circles, but that’s not as easily done as the other way around.

If you have alignment, ownership, and family support, then alignment in the business becomes easier to achieve.

Not always. I’m generalizing, but in terms of my experience, we often want to start with the business circle when we have a business background and when we come into it with our business experience.

That’s a good place to start if the urgent and important issues are in the business, but what we’re seeing today with the clients that I see today is not much about the business anymore, and it’s more about the other circles. We see the ripple effects of the benefits in that business circle, but we’re really starting from a different point. 

Cory: Yes. I’m thinking about the business being in a good place, and they’ve, be it the nonfamily members there, been doing a great job.

Now, there’s time to focus on these other things because that’s what I heard from you: the business isn’t a great place, and maybe we don’t need to focus on it as much and now we have the ability to focus on other things.

How does that benefit the family units looking forward to? What can that freedom allow for the family?

Anna: I think, and you’re absolutely right. I don’t know if I said it or not, but it is often the case.

Typically, you would see that they’ll only start to think about these other issues when the business is in a good place. But there has been another type of trigger, an unexpected event, that forces you to look at those circles today where you weren’t planning to look at those circles until much later.

In terms of the benefit that it could have for the other circle, starting early is never a bad thing, and you can never start too early.

That’s the name of the game in terms of transition planning or incorporating the rising gens from a very early; we’re doing some work with some clients where, even though they’re minors, we’re setting up some learning and development for them, whether it means understanding what, the history of the family is or understanding, what it means to to to have wealth and the responsibility that comes with it, understanding philanthropy, understanding how they can provide, provide value to their family.

We can start that from a very young age. Don’t you have to get to the point where you can start to think about and have these conversations with the other circles only when the business is in a good place?

The best case scenario is to start even when your business is not in a great place because then you’re dealing with some of the difficult issues that can be enlightening even to a younger generation.

Because you see, as I said before, I saw my parents grow a business. I saw the good stuff and the bad stuff. 

There are difficult moments in there, and if you’re not privy to those moments, and you’re not involved in them indirectly, then you don’t have as much of an appreciation for what it took to have the success that came along with it.

I think I’m not sure if I’m answering your question, but I think what I’m trying to say is that the sooner you could integrate family, whether it’s in the business or the other circles, having the conversations, getting their perspectives, showing them that there is an important part of understanding where they’re coming from and where they’d like to go, then that can only really have ripple effects that are beneficial for all of the circles.

Cory: Right. There are some family biases that come around when talking about wealth with children.

Some people might think that focusing on philanthropy and what it means for the wealth that the family has with our minor children is not what we want to do.

Starting early is a great thing. Can you help just as far as what it means for the emotional well-being of that family member starting early and maybe even some of the identity? Can that strong sense of identity be formed by focusing earlier? Because there are some benefits there.

Anna: There are several benefits. I think for the early generation that’s being integrated, I mean, as you said, they can that sense of identity become more solidified by the fact that they know more or are engaged in some of the conversations that surround the enterprising family, but for the generation the in place where they’re bringing in the rising generation.

There’s a sense of satisfaction, which is rewarding to be able to say. I didn’t overlook that until it was time for me to do it.

I did it proactively. There’s a sense of satisfaction, happiness, and pride in the fact that you’re being proactive about integrating the next generation in preparation for future transitions, and that’s twofold.

It goes both ways, and it’s a win-win when, of course, there’s a desire. Depending on the age, there could be situations where there is a lack of interest or where there’s not much of a desire to be involved because of other circumstances.

But when there is a desire and when it’s mutual, then it’s really a win-win situation.

Cory: I love it. That is a great place to transition as we near the end of our conversation. Anna, there’s a few questions that I ask each guest before we wrap up. Are you ready for the tough ones?

Anna: Let’s go. Sure.

Cory: Alright. What is one key strategy you believe is most essential for building a successful family enterprise? 

Anna: Yeah. I think that I have to go down to my structure and my need for process and structure. I think governance is a strategy. I think, as a whole, having a governance that is appropriate for the business and that is in line with what the business or the family needs can evolve as the family evolves.

It just helps with making decisions more effectively, more clearly in a way, sharing information, more in a more aligned and proactive way. And then, of course, conflict resolution because we want to have families who are loving and all the time, but we know that in reality, that’s not always the case.

I think having governance in place that can help with conflict resolution and formal processes in place to help with conflict resolution are strategies that can only help a family. I don’t think the only time having governance is a bad thing for a family is if it’s too heavy to maintain or too demanding to carry out.

Right. However, if you have a simple governance structure that is clearly understood and communicated to all, it can only be beneficial as a strategy for a family.

Cory: Absolutely. And what is the most common challenge that you see family enterprises encountering when it comes to wealth transition and generational continuity?

Anna: I think we talked about it a little bit, but, for me, it’s really like the lack of preparedness or the fact that you’re not communicating everything that you could be communicating.

I want to say, but could be communicating from an earlier point. I think oftentimes, families are reactive, because of many other things that make it so that they’re not able to plan ahead and to communicate early.

But even in terms of transition as I said before, start as early as you can. There’s no there’s no too early there’s no too soon a time to integrate the NextGen. Involve all of the stakeholders that are involved, and that includes non family members who may be part of the transition some way or some in another.

Make sure that you’re, as I said earlier, dedicating the required training and mentorship when it’s desired and when it fits the profile of the individuals, to be able to  progress in a logical way.

That confidence, not only the skills, but the confidence to be able to jump into a role kinda comes with that as well. Communication is key, and starting early is key. 

Cory: Awesome. I love it, and lots of strategies there. That was great and in your experience, what are the top three key qualities that successful family enterprise leaders possess?

Anna: I mean, these may be ones you’ve heard other people say before, and it wouldn’t surprise me, but I did. I thought about this the other day because I had a feeling you would ask this question.

For me, I think of three things: visionary thinking, Not only visionary again in terms of the business because that’s usually where we start with that but a visionary enough to inspire others.

It’s not only about the vision but getting other people on board. I think that’s critical in the case of family enterprise, getting family on board. Emotional intelligence, for sure, includes things like empathy and the ability to manage relationships, which I talked a little bit about before. But all I think, to a greater extent, is self-awareness. Emotional intelligence means that I really know myself. If I really know myself, then I can endeavour to know others, and then I can endeavour to know the situation, and I can endeavour to do this.

And lastly, I think these are probably leaders, but I think anybody needs to be adaptable. I think the circumstances in business and families change. Being able to not only innovate but sometimes have to pivot altogether into completely different businesses or different ways of dealing with family dynamics issues, finding new solutions, and finding ways to achieve long-term success in different ways, I think adaptability is key as well.

Cory: Awesome. That’s great. Sometimes, we hear the same things, but I love that you elaborate a bit more, as some of those nuances are key. I think we can throw EQ out there and say it’s a thing, but really understanding.

Anna: What does that mean? And before we conclude our discussion. 

Cory: I’d like to highlight where our listeners can engage in more conversations that you’re having or conversations that you’re participating in that maybe thought leaders are, that you’re following?

Anna: Sure. I mean, in terms of our thought leadership, Crysalia puts out a regular blog, which I help to curate. We have our newsletter, which you can sign up for, crysalia.ca, and that’s open to our enterprising family community.

And then, of course, we are going to be participating in some panels and It’s a series of panels and conferences in the upcoming months. All of that is available on our website and in our newsletter.

You can see what we’re thinking, what we’re doing, by signing up and staying in tune with what’s new.

Cory: Perfect. And I wanted to make sure that we covered everything today. Is there anything else that you’d like to share with our audience that maybe we didn’t get a chance to touch on?

Anna: Let me take a moment to reflect on that. That’s pretty much it.

Cory: Alright. Awesome. Well, thank you, Anna. I appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise and years of experience with us today. Your insights have been incredibly valuable to me, and our listeners will find 1 or 2 good nuggets in our conversation. Thank you very much for contributing to our episode.

Anna: Thank you so much, Cory. It was a great pleasure to be with you today.

As we wrap up this episode, we invite you to reflect on Anna Giampà’s insights into family enterprise strategy and the value of an integrated approach to family alignment.

Whether you are part of a family enterprise or provide consulting to family enterprises, Anna’s experiences highlight how powerful it can be when we focus on open communication, diverse perspectives, and strategic planning across all family circles. 

Throughout our discussion with Anna, we explored key aspects of managing family enterprises. We talked about the importance of balancing business strategy with family dynamics and how crucial it is to plan strategically across all family circles. We also discussed the benefits of early engagement with younger generations and fostering open communication among family members. Anna emphasized that maintaining family alignment is just as vital as developing the enterprise itself. These insights offer a practical approach for families aiming to create harmony, build a strong identity, and navigate the unique challenges of sustaining a family enterprise across generations.

For those seeking additional guidance on navigating the complexities of family enterprise strategy and alignment, Anna Giampà and the team at Crysalia are ready to assist. You can reach out to her via Crysalia’s website, and we’ve included her contact information together with additional resources in the show notes to support you on your journey.

Disclaimer:

This program was prepared by Cory Gagnon who is a Senior Wealth Advisor with Beacon Family Office at Assante Financial Management Ltd. This is not an official program of Assante Financial Management, and the statements and opinions expressed during this podcast are not necessarily those of Assante Financial Management. This show is intended for general information only and may not apply to all listeners or investors; please obtain professional financial advice or contact us at [email protected] or visit BeaconFamilyOffice.com to discuss your particular circumstances before acting on the information presented.