Enterprise Board keeps it in the Family

‘Keeping it in the family’ was a half day series of workshops and lectures organised by Waterford City Enterprise Board on the topic of succession planning for family businesses in Waterford City.

The morning opened with Bertie Rogers, Chairman of Waterford City Enterprise Board, welcoming the group and emphasising the importance of succession planning in modern Ireland. The rest of the morning included individual psychometric testing, a talk on ‘Change Management’ by Conor Morris of Evolve Training and Insights from Louis Grubb of Cashel Blue Cheese, a successful family business, on how they executed the transition process from generation to generation.

The range of businesses which attended the event was extremely diverse, from retail to manufacturing, child care to export, auto industry to food production which made for interesting debate during the workshops.

Tony Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald’s Menswear found the event motivating, “I have attended events like this before but none like this. The personality testing was an inspired idea and the intimacy of the group made the morning very productive.”

The event also featured the legal & financial implications of succession with talks from Clare Ryan of Peter O’Connor Solictors and Ann Grant from Ernst & Young.

Finally Ciaran Cullen CEO of Waterford City Enterprise Board explained how the Board can help those who wish to start the succession process via training and funding.

Mr. Cullen was pleased with the event and the feedback from its participants, “This is the first succession event we have organised in years and we are delighted with the change in format. As this topic is highly personal we decided to make it an intimate workshop style event. The feedback from the clients has been very positive. It is part of a five year process where we will assist the participants with funds, training and mentoring where required.”