The Family Business Executive Forum™ Presents
How Family Business Owners Can Address Succession Avoidance
As the New Fiscal Year Begins — With Aging Family Members
Tuesday, February 17th, 2025
12pm - 1pm EST
Save Your Spot for February 17th, 12pm ET, Live via Zoom
Why This Forum Exist?
In multi-generation family enterprises, succession avoidance rarely looks like a problem — until it is.
As family members age, what feels like preservation can quietly turn into risk.
Decisions drift from intention to circumstance.
Clarity is delayed until it’s forced by health events, conflict, or time.
This forum exists for family business owners who recognize that waiting may feel safer — but often costs more in the long run, emotionally, relationally, and structurally.
The Pattern Many Families Are Living Inside
Across family enterprises, the same dynamic shows up again and again:
- One family member feels increasing urgency about the future
- Others feel protective of the present, ambivalent, or exhausted by the topic
- Siblings may be unclear, misaligned, or quietly anxious
- Everyone senses something needs to be addressed
- No one wants to be the one to start the conversation
Years pass.
Resentment grows quietly.
Risk compounds invisibly.
Avoidance doesn’t eliminate uncertainty — it concentrates it.
Why “Waiting Until Later” Is Riskier Than It Appears
Avoidance doesn’t stay neutral.
Unspoken futures often lead to:
- Assumptions instead of shared understanding
- Side conversations instead of alignment
- Emotional debt instead of trust
- Legal and ownership decisions made under pressure, not intention
Most families don’t choose chaos.
They default into it by not choosing clarity early.
What This Forum Is — and Is Not
This is not:
- A succession planning workshop
- A legal, tax, or financial session
- A decision-forcing conversation
This is:
- A structured executive forum designed to slow the moment down
- A space to name what’s already present without pressure
- A way to reduce uncertainty before circumstances remove options
- A forum that acknowledges the emotional and relational realities families face
What You’ll Learn
Participants leave with:
- Clearer language for conversations that feel too loaded to start
- A shared framing that lowers defensiveness across generations
- Less pressure on any one person to carry the future alone
- Greater confidence that avoidance is no longer silently setting the agenda
Learn From Industry Experts
Meet our host and guest speaker.
Host
Chris Yonker, CFBA
Chris Yonker works with family business owners navigating succession readiness, leadership transition, and long-term ownership continuity. His work focuses on the human dynamics beneath strategy—unspoken expectations, emotional readiness, and the risks created by avoidance. Chris helps families slow critical moments down, strengthen communication, and create the shared clarity needed to make intentional decisions about the future.
Guest Speaker
Heidi Engel
Heidi Engel brings over 20 years of experience in emotional systems and group dynamics, supporting individuals and family enterprises through moments of uncertainty and transition. Drawing from Internal Family Systems–informed work, she helps translate emotional signals into language that can be heard, allowing families to engage in difficult conversations with less defensiveness and greater trust.
Together, Chris and Heidi create a structured, psychologically safe forum where family business owners can explore the future without forcing answers — and without continuing to defer the cost of avoidance.
Who Should Attend?
This forum is designed specifically for family business owners who:
- Are navigating aging family members
- Sense rising uncertainty around future leadership or ownership
- Want to reduce risk without triggering conflict
- Feel the cost of avoidance but don’t want to escalate tension
The Family Business Executive Forum
The Family Business Executive Forum is a series of exclusive virtual gatherings designed specifically for family business leaders and their advisors. These forums serve as a platform to bring together the best expert advisors from around the world to share their insights on the most important topics in family business leadership. Addressing family business challenges requires a different approach. We recognize that without addressing the human dynamics within family businesses, it's nearly impossible to touch the strategic side effectively.
Confidentiality and Anonymity
We understand that matters pertaining to family and business can be especially sensitive. Hence, we host these forums as a webinar so that no one in attendance outside of our team has access to the name of any other attendees and there is no option for attendees cameras to be seen. We will open the question box for questions at various times throughout the forum, and no one outside of our team can see or access the questions. We are committed to the privacy and confidentiality of our attendees.