Professor, Centre for Family Enterprise and Ownership, Jönköping International Business School, Sweden

Sessions: Day 1, Planery 1 Introduction to conference theme

Leif Melin is the Director of CeFEO – Centre for Family Enterprise and Ownership, and Professor of Strategy and Organization at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS). The academic year 2000/2001 he was the Dean and Managing Director of JIBS. From 1995, till 2000, he was the Head of Department of Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Management as well as the Director of the PhD programme at JIBS.

Before joining JIBS in 1994, he was Professor of Strategic Management at Linköping University, where he also was the founding director of the Strategic Change Research Group, 1987-1994. He got a PhD in Industrial Marketing at Linköping Institute of Technology, Linköping University in 1977 and a Master of Political Science at Lund University.

He has been a Visiting Professor at three leading French business schools, EDHEC, Nice (2002); Groupe ESSEC, Paris (1995); Ecole de Management, Lyon (1995); and Visiting Research Fellow at Stern School of Business, New York University (1991); Warwick University Business School (1988); and Faculty of Administrative Studies, York University, Toronto (1984).

In 2003 he received the ÅF Major Award for successful development and dissemination of research based knowledge about family businesses. In September 2005 he, and co-authors Ethel Brundin and Emilia Florin Samuelsson, got the Best Paper Award at the FBN-Ifera Academic Forum at the International Family Business Network 16th World Conference for the paper ”Family Ownership Logic – Core Characteristics of Family Controlled Businesses”.

His research interest includes several areas related to strategizing and strategic change. Empirically his research has a focus on family businesses, and especially issues around, ownership, strategic development, corporate governance and strategic leadership in family businesses. Before the start of CeFEO, he was the leader of the research program Family Business Dynamics at JIBS, since 1996. Another major research area is about strategizing, organizing and entrepreneurial activities in continuously growing business firms. Important themes in his earlier research have been the interplay between industrial wisdom, organizational culture and top managers’ way-of-thinking in strategy processes, as well as innovative forms of organizing.

He has published his research in many international book volumes, such as The Family Business Research Handbook, Innovative Forms of Organizing: An International Perspective and Understanding the Small Family Business; in academic journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Family Business Review, Journal of Management Studies, Long Range Planning, and Journal of World Business and in book periodicals, such as Advances in Strategic Management and Advances in International Marketing.

Leif Melin is currently serving on the editorial board for seven international academic journals: Organization Studies, Strategic Organization, European Management Review, Journal of World Business, Long Range Planning, British Journal of Management, and Organization.

Leif Melin teaches at undergraduate, graduate and executive levels. He has been the main tutor for 14 doctoral candidates reaching their PhD degree. He is been an invited speaker at numerous universities and conferences, and to companies, including many family firms, and governments.

Chairman, MELLERIO dits MELLER, France

Sessions: Day 1, Track A Tax and law issues in ownership transfers: Critical tax issues, The situation in France for transfer of ownership in family companies

Olivier Mellerio was graduated from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Paris and is a Master in Business administration (MBA) from Columbia University ( 1972).

Olivier Mellerio is currently the chairman of MELLERIO dits MELLER, a high jewellery family company established in 1515 in Paris.

Member of the Board, he has been the chairman of COMITE COLBERT (2003 – 2006), the association of the 72 most prestigious luxury brands in France.

He is a director of the French chapter of the Family Business Network, director of the French jewellery Federation, of the Henokiens Club for Companies which have more than 200 years in the same family.

Since 1976, Olivier Mellerio, has been a partner of INTERFINEXA, an international Mergers and acquisitions Company based in Geneva and Paris. He has completed more than one hundred international transactions in the Midcap market.

Olivier Mellerio was the founder of Institut Aspen France (IAF) in 1983. He has been the chairman of IAF for twenty years and, with the support of Raymond Barre, former Prime Minister of France and Mayor of Lyon, he has established the Institute both in Paris and in Lyon.

He has served on the Board of the Aspen Institute USA since 1983 and was recently elected a lifetime trustee.
Member of Aspen Berlin until 2006, he is a member of the Board of Aspen Italia.

Olivier MELLERIO is married to Laure Mellerio, former CEO of the France China Committee (MEDEF) and presently CEO of the Victor Segalen Foundation strengthening cultural relations between France and China. They have four children.

Dr, Lawyer, Moldován & Co, Hungary

Sessions: Day 2, Track A Tax and law issues in ownership transfer: European experiences from a business law perspective

Studies and practice:
Dr. András Moldován graduated from the Law Faculty of Eötvös Loránd University in 1980. He has been a member of the Budapest Bar Association since 1981.
His primary area of activity relates to providing advice on investments of foreign natural and legal persons in Hungary, privatization processes, corporate and commercial law, and public procurement law. He regularly practices in environmental and property law, and deals with pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, and also civil and commercial contracts.

Associate Professor, Jönköping International Business School, Sweden

Sessions: Day 2, Track D Consequences of ownership transfer for the business firm: Growth implications

Mattias Nordqvist is Associate Professor and Co-Director of Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership at Jönköping International Business School in Sweden. He is also a Visiting Scholar at Babson College, USA where he previously also served as Co-Director of the Global STEP Project. Nordqvist’s research concentrates in entrepreneurial and strategic processes in different types of organizations. He has a particularly strong interest in family businesses. His research has been published in several leading international journals, and edited books. Nordqvist is a founding associate editor of Journal of Family Business Strategy (Elsevier)

Managing Director, Confidentum Ltd, Finland

Sessions: Day 2, Track C Next generation and ownership transfer: Competence development for new owners/managers

Advisor in family business transfer issues for European family companies and for private and public business development organisations in their business transfer projects since 1999

Advisor in National Project for coordination and development of business transfer services organized by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy

Finnish representative in European Commission Expert Group on Fostering Uniform Transparent Marketplaces for the Transfer of Business

Advisor in REINO project (Renewal and Innovation to Business Transfer of Micro Companies) The two-year long project partners were Denmark, Greece, Finland, and Italy. Participants mapped out and tested the implementation of support services in different stages of the business transfer process.

The Finnish Business Transfer Society, founder and the first chairman.

President, American Family Institute, US

Sessions: Day 1, Track A Tax and law issues in ownership transfers: Critical tax issues, ”The importance of family businesses in the US and the death tax.”

Dick Patten comes from a multi-generation family business background and he is the Executive Director of the American Family Business Institute, a nation-wide organization of family business owners devoted to the permanent repeal of the Federal Estate Tax (also known as the “Death Tax”). Under his leadership the AFBI has gained a dominant role in the Death Tax repeal battle in US.

Ph.D, Instituto Technologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterray, Mexico

Sessions: Day 2, Plenary 3 Success factors in ownership transfer, ”Transfer of ownership in family businesses and the abolition of taxes”

Paul-Chr. Rieber, President, Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), Norway

Sessions: Day 1, Plenary 2 Influence of taxes on ownership transfers, ”The discussion on transfer of ownership in Norway”

Born in 1958; Mr Rieber has a Master of Business Degree from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH), and obtained an MBA from the International Management Institute (IMI), in Geneva, Switzerland in 1986. Mr Rieber has held executive positions, both at Carino Co. Ltd Canada and Nevi Finans BV Nederland in the Netherlands, among others. He has chaired the NHO’s Forum for Family-owned Businesses and Active Ownership and played an active role on the Bergen Council of Commerce and Industry. Since 1990 Paul-Chr. Rieber has been the CEO of the family-owned enterprise GC Rieber AS, and serves as chairman of the board of a number of companies within the GC Rieber Group. Mr Rieber became president of the NHO in June 2008.

Lawyer, Castrén & Snellman, Finland

Sessions: Day 2, Track A Tax and law issues in ownership transfer: European experiences from a business law perspective

Ph.D, University of Urbino, Italy

Sessions: Day 1, Track C Next generation and ownership transfer: Social and psychological space for the next generation, ”Gender in the next generation: Does it matter? Some Italian empirical evidence on daughters’ pathways in family firms.”

Degree in Economics, University of Urbino (Italy), 2001.
PhD in Business Administration, University of Macerata (Italy), 2008.

BIOGRAPHY
Annalisa Sentuti is a contract professor of Business Administration at the University of Urbino (Faculty of Foreigner Languages and Literatures) and a lecturer in Business Administration at the same College (Faculty of Economics).
She defended her doctoral thesis entitled “Family Business Continuity: the Role of Gender in the Succession Process” on 18 March 2008 at University of Macerata (Italy). For her doctoral dissertation, she was awarded the Sidrea Award (Società Italiana dei Docenti di Ragioneria e di Economia Aziendale – Italian Society of Teachers in Accounting and Business Administration) for Outstanding Italian Doctoral Thesis in Business Administration (2008).
She is a member of the Italian Family Enterprise Research Academy – ITFERA.
Annalisa has taught entrepreneurship, organizational theory and balance sheet analysis at undergraduate, master and executive levels since 2001. Currently, she teaches courses in Business Administration and Family Business.

RESEARCH INTERESTS
• Small and Medium Family-Owned Business: strategy of internationalization; generational transition processes; competence of next generation and growth strategies; women’s pathways to participation and leadership in the family firms. In particular Annalisa’s research focuses on the “female succession process” that is the specific characteristics of succession when women take part – as founders or successors – in the transfer of ownership and leadership.
• Female Entrepreneurship: start-up of women-owned businesses; women and bank relationship (expectations, perceptions, problems); continuity of women-owned businesses.