Latest News
- Category: Latest News
Throughout 2022 and 2023, the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute (FELI) at the Telfer School of Management and the Family Business Network (FBN) are partnering to deliver the NxG Legacy Forums — a series of eight panel discussions addressing the key questions for next generation members of business families. Topic questions for the forums have been selected from a new book, Enabling Next Generation Legacies: 35 Questions that Next Generation Members in Enterprising Families Ask, by Telfer professors Peter Jaskiewicz and Sabine Rau.
In career planning, it is important to know where you ultimately want to go, and the steps for how to get there – in essence, figuring out how to set yourself up for success. For next generation members who want to join the family business, however, this path is not always so clear. Every family business is different and has their own rules and processes – although sometimes these haven’t been well defined. This can lead to the question: “How can next-generation members prepare themselves in the long run before joining the family business as a manager?”
This topic was the basis for discussion at the third of eight events in the NxG Legacy Forum series. The event was moderated by Telfer’s Peter Jaskiewicz and Sabine Rau, with panellists Alexandra Heraeus of Heraeus Holding and Vincent Chian of Fairview International School, both members of enterprising families.
Starting at a Young Age
For Alexandra Heraeus, preparing to become an active member of the shareholder family started at a young age. She found herself lucky that her father involved the children in the business in different ways. “Additionally to the opportunity of doing internships, he talked about the business (at home) …and would occasionally take me for business trips to see operations in China and India,” Heraeus explained, adding that it gave her a great view especially on the values of the company.
Another key way Heraeus prepared for building her knowledge around the family business was simply through showing up. For Heraeus, this meant attending anything the shareholders had scheduled, including events and shareholder meetings. She recalled an interesting event from her past, when she was 12-years old and was disappointed to miss a friend’s party because of a shareholder meeting. But over the years, she has found it valuable to nurture a mindset of these meetings not being something to think about going to, but instead to just go. “Being there and showing the commitment,” she said, adding, “it’s the base for everything.”
An important way Vincent Chian and his siblings have prepared themselves to be leaders in the family business has been through first learning to follow. “One thing my father always said was to be a good leader, you need to be a good follower first,” he explained. One of the ways this wisdom has imparted on him and his siblings was through the family business rule that everyone joining the business starts at the bottom. For Chian, this meant starting out as a biology teacher, despite the significant psychiatry training he already had. “We all started out being teachers, no short cuts,” he said. “Everyone needs to spend a few years on the ground.”
Other family processes that helped Chian prepare for joining the family business include a policy that all members have to complete an MBA and participate in the Family Business Network (FBN). Listening was also an important element in preparation, with Chian sitting in on all leadership meetings to observe and listen. “You don’t understand how important these sessions are until 7 or 8 years later,” he added.
Learning one step at a time
As a large family business, with 200 members as shareholders, Heraeus’ family have many next generation members to potentially involve in the company. Heraeus explained that to nurture the interest and intensify family bonds, the family has developed different events and activities each with their own focus. For example, for members aged 14-25, there is a yearly event schedule for younger members which helps them better understand the inner workings of the company and what it means to be a shareholder. This involves having sessions on explaining the basics of the company in more detail, going through the technicalities of a shareholder meeting, and helping develop useful and relevant skills, such as public speaking.
In Chian’s family, the learning process for new entries to the business involved several different stages, which included being part of a small group who would work on every aspect of the company, building important management competencies. The group of seven would, “get deployed all over and thrown into the deep end on many areas,” he explained, gaining such skills as operations, finance, marketing and sales.
Another stage was being given a project to lead, however as Chian put it, “with a lot of rope.” His father would always be close to advise and give suggestions. “You could mess up,” he said. “This was where you learned about your leadership style. It prepared us to lead well.”
The art of being muddled…and other insights
Other valuable lessons and tips from both panellists were shared, such as, for Chian, having professionalism, mastering a craft, and also developing networking skills. He also added that the Mandarin saying nande hutu – or ‘the art of being muddled’ – has saved him many times. As he explained, although there is no direct English translation, it is an idea rooted in having tact and humility.
Heraeus found that breaking complex shareholder problems into smaller pieces was a great help and maintaining a belief that even the most difficult concepts can be understood through taking time to learn and ask the right questions. “You need to believe in yourself that you will tackle it,” she added.
Upcoming NxG Legacy Forums
The next NxG Legacy Forum will take place in September 2022. In the meantime, catch up with discussions from previous NxG Legacy Forums!
NxG Legacy Forum #1: “How can my siblings and I assess whether we could work constructively in the business one day?” Read more here.
To find out other ways Telfer is helping empower the next generation of business leaders, discover the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute and sign up for the Institute's newsletter.
- Category: Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Answers are important, but asking good questions can be even more so. In our increasingly divisive world, the right questions can truly demonstrate our willingness to understand the needs of the other side.
For the younger generation in business families – Next Gens – the right questions haven’t previously been posed nor answered. Too often a lack of understanding prevails between the wishes of the senior generations and the concerns and needs of Next Gens. To compound this, much academic research has typically focused on the parents’ generation because they are the ones in power. These realities led Telfer Professors Peter Jaskiewicz and Sabine Rau to ask: what do Next Gens really need and want?
To answer this question, Jaskiewicz and Rau went straight to the source, asking Next Gens for their views, perspectives and concerns. The result: newly released book Enabling Next Generation Legacies: 35 Questions that Next Generation Members in Enterprising Families Ask, which is now available in hardcover. The book brings together the thirty-five most pressing questions faced by Next Gen members around the world, with responses from leading academics and enterprising families.
The book was recently the topic of an online article in Family Firm Institute’s publication, FFI Practitioner. The article explains how the book came together, starting with a research process of formal and informal interviews over several years with senior and Next Gen members of more than 100 business families. From these interviews, it quickly became obvious how much the challenges of senior generations differed from those of the Next Gen. Realizing there was a need to consider the Next Gens’ perspective more actively, Jaskiewicz and Rau systematically collected their questions, asked for feedback, then established a final list of thirty-five questions.
With the intention of encouraging discussion and dialogue instead of pushing static solutions, each question provides a thoughtful response from a leading academic or practitioner, followed by commentaries from Next Gens themselves. This unique format offers a fresh perspective on the topic of family business, equally relevant to academics, practitioners and businesses, bringing together the global community to answer the next generation’s call.
As members of Telfer’s new Family Enterprise Legacy Institute (FELI), Jaskiewicz and Rau will be using research findings like those from Enabling Next Generation Legacies to help bridge the gap between differing generations in family businesses. Specialised programs such as the Certificate in Responsible Ownership tackle the intergenerational disconnect and help prepare the next generation, leading to healthy, sustainable relationships within the family and business.
To learn more about how Telfer is shaping the conversation about the future of family enterprise – and working to ask the right questions – visit the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute and subscribe to our newsletter .
- Category: Innovation and Entrepreneurship
In the coming months, The Telfer Knowledge Hub will be featuring select parts from Enabling Next Generation Legacies: 35 Questions That Next Generation Members in Enterprising Families Ask.
The result of years of international research and practical experience, Enabling Next Generation Legacies delves into the unique challenges that confront family businesses.
Telfer professors Peter Jaskiewicz and Sabine Rau have brought together the world’s leading academics, practitioners, and enterprising families to answer the most pressing questions faced by Next Generation members in a short and concise, yet meaningful way.
The book consists of best practices, real-life examples, and additional critical questions for reflection from nearly 100 contributors from 27 different countries. Expert commentaries come from members of the world’s leading family businesses including Auchan (France), Saputo (Canada), and Sabra (Israel), as well as from various academic experts from business schools around the globe like Kellogg, IMD, and INSEAD.
Below, read the response to a pressing question asked by family enterprises, followed by commentary from a Next Generation member of an enterprising family.
How Can I Prepare Myself to Work Effectively With My Fellow Family Owners?
Response by Peter Jaskiewicz and Elizabeth Tetzlaff, Canada
A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 956 Next Gens in 2019 from sixty countries and territories found that Next Gens have big plans.[i] With 70 percent of these Next Gens actively engaged in the family business, by 2025; 41 percent expect to be executive directors (i.e., owner-managers); 29 percent anticipate being majority shareholders; 15 percent plan on being involved in business governance, and the other 15 percent expect to become non-executive directors. In other words, 85 percent share the ambition of becoming owners of their families’ businesses.
As Marvel’s Uncle Ben reminds Peter Parker, “with great power comes great responsibility.”[ii] Ambition, like power, has its own counterweight—obstacles. So, it could be said, “with great ambition come great obstacles.” Despite their ambition, 52 percent of Next Gens have yet to be given the responsibility of a special project, and despite being “deeply engaged” in the family business, 64 percent of them admit that they are not being used as a sounding board. Worse still, 10 percent of these Next Gens feel unheard: “I make suggestions, but they are hardly ever listened to.” These statistics echo the sentiment that Next Gens shared with us: We are ambitious and want to work effectively as owners, but how can we prepare for that ourselves?
Ambition, Abilities, Approach, and Acceptance
In our experience, effective Next Gens have their “A game,” which includes four As—ambition, abilities, approach, and acceptance.[iii]
Ambition. To have ambition is to have determination and a strong desire to achieve or see something to completion.[iv] For Next Gens, this desire could speak not only to their desire to succeed as the successor, but also their determination to improve upon the advancements made in the family firm. Indeed, on one hand, we have met Next Gens who lacked ambition, stating: “I will never be as good as the incumbent.” On the other hand, we have met ambitious Next Gens who were keen to learn how to accelerate their own development and were eager to leave their mark. For instance, they talked about projects to reduce carbon emissions of the family firm, unify the family before spinning off outdated business units, or implement plans in the family office to sell investments that do not comply with environmental and social standards. Without their ambition, these behaviors might not take place. Ambition is thus the first necessary quality that Next Gens need to possess. However, in order for it to be beneficial and not destructive, ambition, like energy, needs a value-oriented direction.
Abilities. Abilities help to harness ambition and give it direction. Abilities are commonly equated with accounting degrees or strategy MBAs. However, the abilities that make effective family owners are much broader and include having good people skills, being able to motivate others on the team, having healthy coping mechanisms to deal with stress, and being able to approach conflict constructively. In his biography, Charles Bronfman—the second-generation former co-leader of Seagram—describes many effective decisions that he and his brother Edgar made, but Charles also discloses that his biggest mistake was to suppress his thoughts when his brother and his brother’s son brought forward proposals that were driven by their personal interests rather than business sense.[v] Charles says that he saw the problems of the family’s investment ideas but admitted that he did not use his veto right because he felt pressured to comply and wan ted to avoid conflicts. From Charles’s story, we learn how important it is for family owners to have an encompassing range of soft skills. We can also see that ambitions that are not properly guided can ruin the family business.
Approach. Having the right abilities equips the owner with a foundation onto which they can add an effective approach to decision-making processes in family business. In our experience, as long as all parties involved feel that their voices are heard and accounted for, family owners are able to make controversial decisions (e.g., How do we deal with an underperforming family manager?)—even if they do not fully agree with each other to start with. Otherwise stated, Next Gens need to understand what constitutes a fair process, communicate, and then implement such processes.[vi] We have witnessed, firsthand, good decisions failing because the family did not use an approach that allowed those involved to feel that they were all on equal footing in the decision-making process.
Acceptance. Finally, having the ambition and the ability together with the right approach leads Next Gens to the door, but in order to open it, a key is necessary: acceptance. It is not uncommon to experience the disheartening feeling of meeting everyone, having them congratulate you on the new board appointment, and then ignore you for the rest of the meeting (or the next five-to-ten years). This does not mean that the Next Gen will not be accepted, it simply means that Next Gens will need to accept that it is necessary to prove themselves in order to be recognized. Learning about ownership can look like attending family council meetings, being a board observer (visitor) in board meetings, and assuming formal roles in student groups, local not-for-profits, or regional family business associations. Rather than passively waiting for acceptance, Next Gens need to proactively work tow ard it. In other words, if Next Gens are able to commit to proving themselves outside and inside of the family business, then they will be more likely accepted as Next Gen leaders.
In summary, Next Gen owners’ effectiveness is an outcome of their ambition, abilities, approach, and acceptance. If the senior generation does not share influence and does not treat Next Gens as owners, the latter will be less effective. Similarly, fellow Next Gen owners can be destructive. If they are poorly prepared and immature, they can torpedo processes and push away effective Next Gens. Therefore, families and Next Gens need to do their part to ensure that none of the future owners become the Achilles heel of the family and the bottleneck of their enterprise(s). Families whose Next Gens bring their “A game” are more likely to make a difference for their families, enterprises, and communities.
Peter Jaskiewicz is the inaugural director of the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute (FELI) and co-author of Enabling Next Generation Legacies: 35 Questions that Next Generation Members in Enterprising Families Ask. He is a full professor of family business at the Telfer School of Management, where he holds a university research chair in enduring entrepreneurship.
Elizabeth Tetzlaff is a PhD candidate at the Telfer School of Management. Her research centers around exploring the impact of mental health on both the functioning of the business family as well as on the health and vitality of the family business. In addition to her research, Elizabeth is working on SSHRC-funded research study to understand how differences among families influence the longevity and success of their family businesses.
The ebook for Enabling Next Generation Legacies: 35 Questions That Next Generation Members in Enterprising Families Ask is now available. Learn more at www.35questions.com. Print copies available February 2022.
To learn more, visit the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on how Telfer is shaping the conversation about the future of family enterprise.
References
[i]“Agents of change: Earning your licence to operate,” PwC’s Global NextGen Survey (Germany: PwC, 2019), 1-26.
[ii] Spider-Man, directed by Sam Raimi (2002; Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment), DVD.
[iii] Mira Bloemen-Bekx, “Enriching the Early Phases of the Succession Process: An Explanation of the Role of Social Mechanisms in Business Families” (PhD diss., Hasselt University, 2019). Authors’ note: Mira Bloemen-Bekx speaks of ambition, abilities, and acceptance.
[iv] Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. (2001), s.v. “ambition.”
[v] Charles Bronfman and Howard Green, Distilled: A Memoir of Family, Seagram, Baseball, and Philanthropy (New York: HarperCollins, 2017).
[vi] Ludo Van der Heyden, Christine Blondel and Randel S. Carlock, “Fair Process: Striving for Justice in Family Business,” Family Business Review 18, no. 1 (March 2005):1-21.
- Category: Innovation and Entrepreneurship
In the coming months, The Telfer Knowledge Hub will be featuring select parts from Enabling Next Generation Legacies: 35 Questions That Next Generation Members in Enterprising Families Ask.
The result of years of international research and practical experience, Enabling Next Generation Legacies delves into the unique challenges that confront family businesses.
Telfer professors Peter Jaskiewicz and Sabine Rau have brought together the world’s leading academics, practitioners, and enterprising families to answer the most pressing questions faced by Next Generation members in a short and concise, yet meaningful way.
The book consists of best practices, real-life examples, and additional critical questions for reflection from nearly 100 contributors from 27 different countries. Expert commentaries come from members of the world’s leading family businesses including Auchan (France), Saputo (Canada), and Sabra (Israel), as well as from various academic experts from business schools around the globe like Kellogg, IMD, and INSEAD.
Below, read the response to a pressing question asked by family enterprises, followed by commentary from a Next Generation member of an enterprising family.
Who Is Considered Part of the Family?
Response by Gibb Dyer, US
The question “who is considered part of the family” is important for both academics and consultants who study and work with family businesses as well as family business owners and managers themselves. For academics and consultants, identifying who is considered family is key to determining a family’s impact on a business (and the business on the family) while those families who own and manage a business often need to decide if those who are considered family will have an opportunity to be involved in the ownership or management of the business.
Definition of “Family”
To identify who makes up a family we need to understand what people commonly consider a family to be. The definition of family is problematic today given the various types of families that exist. For our purposes, a family will be defined as “individuals who identify themselves as a family unit, are recognized by others as part of a family, and share a common biological, genealogical, and/or social history.”[i]
Families come in all shapes and sizes. Common family types include the nuclear family (father, mother, and often children), extended family (one or more children living with a parent and a related nonparent adult, often a grandparent), blended family (one or more children living with a parent and a stepparent), cohabiting family (one or more children living with a parent and an unrelated adult), a single adult/parent family, and a polygamous family (typically one or more children living with a father who has multiple wives).
Family as a Social Construction and Legal Entity
These different family configurations raise interesting questions concerning who is considered family. For example, should a child consider an unrelated adult cohabiting with her mother a family member? Or should a child consider the children of a stepparent members of his family? While there are legal determinations of what constitutes a family, very often family is a social or cultural construction created by family members. For example, while a stepparent might legally adopt a child, that child may not recognize or relate to the stepparent as her father or mother. In other situations, there are parents who “disown” their biological children—the parents may be biologically related to a child, but they do not recognize that child as a member of their family, often due to what the parents consider bad behavior on the part of the child. However, when it comes to inheritance, unless a family member is explicitly denied an inheritance in a family member’s will, they might still have a claim on that family member’s assets—particularly if that person is a blood relative or a spouse —and those assets might include the family firm.
Family Roles in the Family Firm
We see families who own and manage family businesses having family members take on a variety of roles in the business. Ownership and management roles in the business typically consist of family members who are central to the business and have the most power. Other family members may have management roles but are not involved in ownership. Often Next Gens fill this role but hope to eventually be owners when succession occurs. Conflicts may occur when certain family members own the business but are not managers in the business. Family members who are in the business typically benefit from their salary and other perquisites that managers receive and are generally interested in putting profits back into the business to help it grow. However, family members who are owners and not managers typically want the profits from the business to end up in their pockets so they can benefit from the business’ success. This creates natural conflicts between family members who are owners and family members who are managers in the business (and may be owners as well). During succession, family members who haven’t been either owners or managers may want to lay claim to the firm’s assets increasing the likelihood that family conflicts will occur. Even if a family member hasn’t been involved in owning or managing the business, she may lay claim to the firm’s assets based on inheritance or some other criteria. For that reason, it is important for a family to determine not only who is currently considered family but who in the family may have a legal claim to the family’s business assets.
Family Membership and Succession Planning
Family conflicts and lawsuits are often the result of ambiguity regarding “who is the family.” With that in mind, it is important for families who own businesses to identify all individuals in the family who currently or may in the future be involved in family business ownership and management, take those family members into account when making decisions regarding the firm, and make provisions for those family members who will likely not be owners or managers. The rule of thumb is for parents (or other senior family members) to leave other assets in their wills (money, property, etc.), not family business ownership, to such heirs to avoid conflicts.
These issues are also important to consultants who want to help family firms.[ii] Research shows that before succession takes place the family should put together a clear succession plan, specifying which family members will be owners and managers in the business. It is important to share that plan with the family before succession takes place. To do this, the family needs to identify who is legally considered a member of the family and thus may have legal claims to the firm’s assets as well as those who may not be considered legal claimants but are viewed to be family members with many of the privileges of legal family members. To plan for such a change, research by Ivan Lansberg and others encourages family members to have common goals or a “shared dream” along with creating ownership structures and processes to resolve these potential conflicts.[iii]
W. Gibb Dyer (PhD MIT) is the O. Leslie and Dorothy Stone Professor in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University. He has been a visiting faculty member at IESE in Barcelona, Spain, and a visiting scholar at the University of Bath. He has published nine books and over fifty articles and his research has been featured in Fortune, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company. His recent book, The Family Edge, focuses on how “family capital” supports business growth. He has been ranked as one of the top ten scholars in the world in the field of family business.
Commentary by Marcelo De Rada Ocampo, Bolivia
My family’s business is an international insurance brokerage in Bolivia. After a decade of experience working for both U.S. and Bolivian insurance companies, my father started the business in 1995 and grew it to become the largest brokerage in Bolivia in terms of revenue, clients, and number of sales agents with presence in all cities in Bolivia. In 2009, he and two partners from Ecuador and Venezuela developed a strategic alliance that made them the third-largest MGA (managing general agent) in LATAM, partnering with ten different international insurers, managing hundreds of distributors, and operating twelve offices across seven different countries.
I am the oldest of three from my father’s second marriage. My half-sister is thirty-seven and lives in Florida, while my younger brother (twenty-five years old) is in San Diego, and my younger sister (twenty-two years old) lives in Miami. After studying in the U.S. and working at start-ups in San Francisco for two-and-a-half years, I returned to Bolivia to help my father in the family business. I worked as a sales operations manager, splitting my time between empowering sales agents with training and new digital tools, and the insurance partners negotiating new policy coverages, premium increases, and sales incentives. Now, while I am doing my MBA at INSEAD, I continue to support my father as an advisor, holding weekly to biweekly calls with him to discuss the strategic and operational challenges of the business.
The article is a good starting point in understanding why it is important to define who is considered part of the family in a family business. I agree with Prof. Gibb Dyer that having a clear definition is essential in helping the first generation build a fair process with regards to the ownership and ownership of the business. This can be critical when future generations start getting involved in the business and don’t have the same understanding of who is considered part of the family and its impact on the business. Even just as a second generation, I frequently found myself between my two parents in discussions about the fairness of financially supporting struggling family members in each of their extended families. There were efforts of providing employment to extended family members, which ended up creating more harm than good, probably caused by the lack of clarity regarding the roles of each family member in the family firm. From my experience without clarity about the rights and responsibilities of owners and managers, succession planning has been difficult to push forward. An owner must understand and allow the manager to operate the business successfully, while the manager must also provide the owner with enough transparency on the strategic alignment and execution of the business in order to put to best use the business assets.
The ebook for Enabling Next Generation Legacies: 35 Questions That Next Generation Members in Enterprising Families Ask is now available. Learn more at www.35questions.com. Print copies available February 8th, 2022.
To learn more, visit the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on how Telfer is shaping the conversation about the future of family enterprise.
References:
[i] Gibb Dyer, The Family Edge: How your biggest competitive advantage in business isn’t what you’ve been taught—It’s your family (Sanger: Familius, 2019), 15.
[ii] Jane Hilburt-Davis and William Gibb Dyer, Consulting to family businesses: Contracting, assessment, and implementation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2003).
[iii]Ivan Lansberg, Succeeding generations: Realizing the dream of families in business (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999).
- Category: Community Engagement
The MBA Student Association (MBASA) at Telfer School of Management came up with an event that is the first of its kind – a small and medium-sized (SME) Consult-a-thon focusing on providing fast-paced, strategic solutions to businesses in the local community.
Over the course of the weekend from July 17th to 18th, 46 participants including students, business representatives, Telfer faculty and experts, put in a total of more than 170 hours of case-cracking to help these businesses prosper and give back to the community. “It truly represents what the Telfer School of Management is all about - bringing together the creative energy and expertise of students, local businesses leaders, and industry experts to focus on a business challenge faced by local organizations,” said Professor Catherine Elliott, Director of the Telfer MBA program.
Revisiting Case Competitions Framework
The event has completely redesigned the usual case competition framework, with an emphasis on collaboration, community value, and social good. “When we came up with this framework, we believed the emphasis should be on quick solutions and community value rather than competitiveness.”, stated, Karthik Chivakula Venkata, one of the 6 organizing members of the event and a Telfer MBA student. He added: “We also believed that this would provide participants with a sneak peek at real-world business challenges as well as an opportunity to put their course learnings and talents to the test.”
Developing the Right Challenge
Due to the pervasive pandemic, today's SME enterprises confront some very genuine and severe issues that require innovative solutions. To be successful, both businesses and students require assistance and direction from local business community supporters.
With many local businesses showing interest in being part of the Consult-a-thon, the MBASA organizing team had to interact with each of the business owners to understand the cases better. Following a thorough brief, the team collaborated closely with the business owners and members of the MBASA’s executive team to co-create case documents that showed extensive, accurate, and up-to-date market information.
Intensive Case-Cracking
The Consult-a-thon included 4 teams composed of 4 students that would come to know of the businesses and the cases only during the event. The team then had to work on the cases provided by each participating business at different time during the event.
The most anticipated part of each business case was the case cracking. Each team had 4 hours to tackle the business document. In the first hour, the teams got to discuss their questions and ideas with the business owners and consulting experts for a proper understanding of the situation and problem statement. By the end of the allotted time, the teams had to share their final ideas and solutions to the business owners and expert panelists.
At the end their presentations, the panelists will provide feedback on the teams' presentations and insights on how to implement their ideas better.
For its first edition, the Telfer MBA students had the chance to work with dynamic local start-ups such as:
- Shyne Eyewear, a small Ottawa social enterprise run by Enactus uOttawa which manufactures and sells sunglasses and blue-light glasses created from 100% recycled materials;
- Ekidna Sensing, a biotech startup located in Ottawa that builds technology solutions for the legal Cannabis industry;
- Empower'em is a grassroots social enterprise focused on providing a community and support to women of colour in order to help them develop their leadership skills, build confidence and achieve their personal and professional goals.
All in for local businesses
Since it was not a traditional case competition, the panellists evaluated the ideas qualitatively, not quantitatively. The rubric focused on the clarity of identification and articulation of challenges, level of thorough analysis, creativity and feasibility to provide feedback, and recommendations to the participants.
The real winners of the Consult-a-thon were – the local businesses, of course! Students gained valuable experience and received feedback on their ideas and presentation skills, but the businesses were the real winners, leaving the event with new insight and actionable solutions for their business challenges. Professor Elliott added: “It was a winning partnership for all, bringing innovative and practical solutions to these local businesses. Congratulations to the MBASA and the participating students! I was so impressed with the students’ initiative in launching this first-ever Telfer SME Consult-a-thon.”
A Successful Event
The event also got praises from the principal beneficiaries. “We needed a strategic direction and these presentations provided us with new creative ideas on how to tackle this problem. The recommendations the students provided were actionable and we are happy and excited about the entire event,” said Alexander Parsan, Project Manager at Shyne Eyewear, and Telfer BCom Accounting student.
Nicolas Boileau, CEO of Ekidna Sensing, also appreciated the outside expert view that the Telfer MBA students brought in. He looks forward to the next 6 months to one year to see where the company will move towards with the new ideas and strategy he collected over the weekend.
The committee is already planning the next edition of the event, which will take place in 2022 in a much bigger scale with even more local organizations. Any local businesses and students from all horizons with an interest in being part of this incredible initiative are invited to contact the MBA Student Association to discuss possible participation in next year’s competition via
Make Change: A Message That Resonates at the 6th Annual MBA Diversity and Inclusion Case Competition
- Category: Latest News
This year’s 6th Annual Diversity and Inclusion MBA Case Competition hosted at the Telfer School came to a close on March 5th, where 10 teams competed against one another. Held in close partnership with Export Development Canada (EDC), Deloitte and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the competition lasted over the course of 2 weeks, where participants had to examine emerging challenges and propose solutions pertaining to an assigned case on this year’s theme: Systemic Anti-Black Racism in the Canadian Workplace.
Throughout these two weeks, participants were periodically invited to attend interactive sessions with the competition founding The Deloitte Greenhouse team kicked off the opening day of the competition with an Interactive Live Session, adapted to the case topic, to engage participants intellectually, emotionally and physically and set them up for success in cracking this year’s case.
A week later and after submitting each of their executive summaries on the case subject, the teams were invited to a Diversity Experts Session hosted by EDC, an organization that leads by example when it comes to fostering an inclusive culture.
It was then showtime as the second phase of the competition took place when participants had to put together a video presentation. Each presentation would present the teams’ innovative ideas to tackle this important challenge of inclusivity in the workplace, in hopes to convince the expert panel of judges on the creativity, feasibility and pertinence of their solutions on:
How Canadian corporations can create an environment in which employees can thrive and reach the following targets:
• 3.5% of executive and board roles being held by Black leaders by 2025; and,
• at least 5% of new hires being from the Black community by 2025.
A Message of Fostering Change
As the case competition neared the end for another year, the closing remarks resonated with the attendees during the heartfelt speeches from this year’s year’s special guests from the The BlackNorth Initiative: the Executive Director, Dahabo Ahmed-Omer, and the Executive Chairman and Founder, Dr. Wesley J. Hall. The case question was directly inspired by The BlackNorth Initative pledge to end anti-black systematic racism.
“Bring us to a place where Black Canadian can prosper and are given an equality of chances,” said Ahmed-Omer, hopeful that a competition like the Diversity and Inclusion MBA Case Competition can help shape the roles of our future leaders.
Ahmed-Omer added her thoughts on systemic anti-black racism in the Canadian workplace: “In order for us to see the problem, we need to acknowledge it, for all of us to act on it."
From virtual to international
In the midst of the current pandemic, the sixth edition of the competition went online, opening the gates to yet another first for the competition: the world. This year’s case competition welcomed 10 MBA teams, including 8 teams from across Canada and 2 international teams: FIA Business School from Brazil and Barna Management School from the Dominican Republic. Even though the case portrayed a Canadian reality, all could agree issues around anti-black racism in the workplace are global and the judges all agreed on the overall quality of the strategies and presentations offered by all participating schools. Our Telfer Nation representatives, Sinatrio Raharjo, Krishna Venkatasubramanian, Roxy Lu and Sushant Garg, better known by their collective pseudonym Awesome Possum during the competition, was led by Coach Sylvie Albert, Lead of Internationalization and New Initiatives at the University of Ottawa.
At the end, Beedie School of Business of Simon Fraser University (Team InCahoots) brought home first place with a solution that was described by the judges as a compelling case for an important issue: “They showed a willingness to take a step ahead in developing a solution to restrict current gaps in the workplace, while presenting a strategy not just based on subsidies solutions, but filled with bold ideas.” stated Justine Hendricks, Senior Vice President of Sustainable Business & Enablement at EDC. Hendricks presented a shared $5,000 prize to Team InCahoots composed of Bessie Chow, Kelly Woo, Viksit Jain, Raymond So and Coach Shelley Graham.
1st Place - $5,000 | Beedie School of Business - Simon Fraser University |
2nd Place - $2,500 | John Molson School of Business - Concordia University |
3rd Place - $1,250 | DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University |
The steering committee is already planning the 7th edition of the event, which will take place in early 2022. Any organization with an interest in diversity and inclusion issues and topics is invited to contact the Telfer Graduate Programs Office to discuss possible participation in next year’s competition at:
- Category: Telfer Announcements
Looking for a fresh perspective on a new or special business project or simply interested in working with highly motivated and qualified MBA students? The Telfer School is seeking organizations to engage our MBA talent in hands-on business challenges.
Telfer's MBA students are equipped with an average of 6-7 years of full-time work experience. This ensures a quality base of theory and technical skills that our students can utilize for success in an internship. All of our MBA students are supervised by a faculty member, and they have access to cutting-edge data to resolve even the most complex of problems that your organization may encounter.
There is no doubt that the experience will be valuable for both your organization and our students. The MBA Internship Program provides businesses with the chance to find qualified individuals and evaluate potential fit within your workplace without going through the traditional lengthy hiring process.
The MBA Internship Program Experience
In previous years, our business partners who have hired MBA students on their team have been pleased with what they were able to gain.
“The MBA internship program helped successfully fulfill a niche project role in our Finance department. Ultimately, we hired our intern into a full-time role, which speaks volumes on the quality of the program and the students” - Paul Richards, Director of Business Development and Commercial at The Ottawa Hospital.
"Happy Goat Coffee Company is a big fan of Telfer's "MBA Consulting Project"! The project helps us to find answers to questions and solutions to problems that we usually don't have the time or staff - or both - to deal with. The high qualification of the participants and the quality of the results of the projects carried out so far is self-evident. Happy Goat Coffee Company can do nothing but highly recommend this project!" - Dr. Hans-Juergen Langenbahn, Head Roaster at Happy Goat Coffee Company.
"I would like to offer my entire support for the internship program offered by the Telfer School. It is a tremendous opportunity for students to obtain knowledge of a more practical nature that will assist in their job search. The organization itself also benefits, not only from a mentorship perspective, but also in acquiring additional expert advice and counsel." - Elizabeth Kingston, President of the Canadian International Council, National Capital Branch.
Here’s how you can benefit from our program:
What constitutes an acceptable internship?
A challenging project that provides meaningful results for you. For example, current internships include market development, process improvement, and strategy process review.
How many hours can interns work?
There are two delivery options: part-time or full-time internships. The part-time internship represents 15 to 20 hours per week for a period of 6 months, starting in January. The full-time internship consists of 40 hours per week of work from September to December. The exact number of hours depends on whether the internship is sponsored by Mitacs* or OCE** or if the internship is directly funded by the organization.
What will it cost my organization?
The average hourly salary paid to the MBA intern ranges from $20 to $25 per hour. The total salary paid depends on whether the internship is supported by Mitacs or OCE or if it is paid directly by your organization. It is possible to offer an unpaid internship opportunity, but offering a salary increases your chances of a student ultimately selecting your organization for their internship.
What do I have to provide to the intern?
- A motivating and challenging project.
- Organizational and technical orientation as required.
- Time to discuss issues with the student, and to provide feedback on progress reports.
Find the Right Telfer MBA Intern For Your Organization
Contact the Telfer Academic Success and Student Experience Team:
Telfer MBA Internship Program
Phone: (613) 562-5884
Email:
Visit the MBA Internship Program page on our website.
* Mitacs is a not-for-profit organization that provides matching funding to companies that hire full-time student interns.
** The Ontario Centres of Excellence Talent Edge program provides matching funding for companies who hire graduate students.
- Category: Student Announcements
Telfer School of Management Bachelor of Commerce students Joy Xu, Leah Salzman, Lina Salama and Madison Woo, better known by their collective pseudonym “Employees of the Month” at the competition, brought recognition to the program by winning 1st place at the 5th annual Diversity and Inclusion Case Competition. In all five years since the competition’s founding, a Telfer team has won first place each time, with “Employees of the Month” representing Telfer at the fifth edition. The competition took place last Saturday, February 29th, at Export Development Canada (EDC), one of the founding partners of the event.
The group’s ideas, which the judges found to be refreshing and grounded in the reality of today’s world, earned them a shared $5,000 prize that was presented at the evening awards gala. This was the first year that the competition was open to not only MBA students, but also to third and fourth-year undergraduate students. The latter showed they were up for the task, as two of the four finalist teams came from undergraduate programs.
A new edition this year in the spirit of renewal and innovation, this fifth edition of the competition started on Friday evening, February 28th, at a networking launch event at Bayview Yards. An interactive activity hosted by second founding partner, Deloitte, was definitely the highlight of the evening, according to many participants. The Deloitte Greenhouse team offered the students who were present an opportunity to attend four workshops that were each as useful as the next. Participants were invited to discuss real diversity and inclusion issues both in the workplace and in everyday life.
For this year's competition, which could count on the support of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) for the first time, the participants received the case analysis two weeks in advance, which marked a new direction for the case competition. Twelve teams from 10 different universities across Canada had to develop a strategy to recruit, retain, and develop employees of visible minority groups working for the Bank of Canada (the official author of the case study) by highlighting barriers to equal access.
According to Professor Catherine Elliott, Director of the Telfer MBA program, this new format enabled the teams to bring more depth in their analyses and increase the quality of the cases in the first round of presentations. “The bar keeps getting higher!” said Catherine; “Diversity and inclusion is now part of CEOs’ vocabulary, and is receiving more and more visibility as a topic in businesses. We can expect to host more teams and businesses involved in this subject, as a result, for the years to come.
The Competition
The purpose of the first part of this case analysis, which was presented before an audience for the first time this year, was to select four teams for the final round. This is where Joy Xu’s team stood out from the crowd, and this time the finalists had only 75 minutes to prepare before tackling a new problem posed by the Bank of Canada regarding employment equity data.
“Everything we learned in case resolution was really helpful to us, and each of us was able to put our own resources to work for the team, to determine exactly what employees needed”, Joy told us in the moments following the “Employees of the Month” victory. There was also the fact that two team members had to join the team just a few weeks before the start of the competition, and so the four of them were particularly pleased with this excellent outcome.
Another Telfer team, composed of Aditya Bhatkal, Allison Caverly, Camille Sigouin and Lisa Filter, all four MBA students, also performed well on the first round, but were unable to qualify for the final. The classmates were still happy to have had the experience and pleased with their presentation to the judges.
Competition Winners:
1st Place: Telfer School of Management, uOttawa, BCom
2nd Place: Schulich School of Business, York University, MBA
Tied for 3rd Place:
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Undergraduate; and
DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, MBA
The steering committee is already planning the 6th edition of the event, which will take place in early 2021. Any organization with an interest in diversity and inclusion issues and topics is invited to contact the Telfer Graduate Programs Office to discuss possible participation in next year’s competition at:
Subcategories
Student Voices
The following article was written by a member of our student community. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Telfer School of Management. For more information or to flag inappropriate content, please