I am the third-generation leader of Burger Specialty Foods, with origins going back over 95 years. I wrote an article for Tugboat Institute®’s Evergreen Journal in 2019, where I shared initiatives that our Family Council had undertaken since it was established in the early 1990’s. Our renewed effort to strengthen family/owner governance structures is based on the understanding that, in a multi-generational family business with an ever-expanding family like ours, policies and guidelines need to be carefully thought through and established – not once, but periodically in order to keep them relevant over time. At the time, my objectives were to preserve family harmony, provide a meaningful way for future family members who did not work in the business to become involved, and ensure that a structure was in place that would be effective and efficient in governing all areas of family involvement. Now, four years later, as I plan to pass the CEO torch in a little over a year, my objectives remain the same, but our focus has shifted.

For background, in 2019 the Family Council launched the Family Board consisting of six non-working family members representing each major family branch because the Family Council, representing all direct descendants, their spouses, and children over the age of 14 (totaling 45 people at last count), had gotten too big to be an effective decision-making body. The Family Board has accomplished a lot. It serves as a great forum to inform and educate. They updated our family entry guidelines, are currently working on family exit guidelines, and will be working on a Family Purpose Statement with the help of Peter Boumgarden, a professor at the WashU Olin School of Business. They also organize and set the agenda for the annual Family Council meeting, our biggest, collective family celebration each year. In the future, the Family Board may assemble a Family Constitution to keep track of our governing documents.