Generational Transitions for Ownership and Management: Two days of practical, real world dialogue for family business owners, successors, and others navigating generational transition
We’re excited to welcome back Peter Begalla, Founder and President of JPB Consulting Group, who brings firsthand family business experience and more than a decade teaching family enterprise at Stetson University. Two days of practical, real world dialogue for family business owners, successors, and others navigating generational transition. Attendees leave with practical tools, real family stories, and a clearer path forward for their own business. Day 1: Foundational sessions on owning versus operating, real succession case studies, generation specific tracks, and guided family discussion time. You’ll walk away with practical guidance on consequential decisions, including what truly belongs to the next generation and where moral authority fits, plus dedicated time built around where you are today, whether that means stepping back and pacing yourself or building your own pathway into leadership, and a succession plan template to start filling out as a family. Day 2: Keynote interview followed by breakout sessions on family development, importance of family employment policies and governance, family business risk management and emerging risks, and innovation and strategy – working with UH students to create solutions to business problems and how to identify problem areas, ending with a group debrief and action plan
As a consultant, Peter works directly with family enterprises on governance, board development & evaluation, leadership succession, family dynamics, and next gen development. Peter is the founder and president of JPB Consulting Group which has a national and international client footprint across multiple sectors: CPG, wood products, oil & gas, entertainment, single family offices, and commercial construction.
As the Conference Chairman for Family Business Magazine’s Transitions Conference, Peter brings together multi-generational family enterprises so they can share their stories, learn from each other, and develop practices that will sustain the family enterprise for generations. Other conferences include Private Company Governance Summit, Family Business Generational Wealth, and Character of the Corporation.
Peter taught Family Business courses at Stetson University for over 13 years, covering topics such as strategic leadership in family firms, personal development, and consulting to family enterprises. In 2000, he co-founded a continuing education company with his father, building custom learning platforms and delivering certified online courses to licensed professionals nationwide.Passing the Torch: A Conversation on Succession in Progress
Join Michelle Ake, CEO of Malu Productions, and her nephew Titus Tanuvasa, Director of Operations, for an open forum conversation about their active succession journey. They will share the philosophies and vision guiding their approach, how they are navigating the generational gap, and the tools and assessments they use to make decisions around professional development and change. This isn’t meant to be a template for how succession should look, it’s simply one family’s real experience, offered as a starting point for ideas you can adapt to your own. The session closes with open audience Q&A.
Putting It in Writing: Creating Guidelines for Your Family Business
Moderated by Marjan Houshmand
What does it take to put a family’s shared values into writing? This panel brings together a family who has built governance guidelines from the ground up and a family business advisor who studies their impact. The family will share their firsthand experience creating guidelines that define what it means to be part of the business, from how the process started to what they would do differently. The advisor will speak to the broader impact of having these policies in place, where to start if your family hasn’t yet, key things to consider along the way, and research that backs it up. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for building or strengthening their own family’s guidelines.Meet Our Panelists
Guy Kamitaki
Treasurer, Maui Varieties
Guy Kamitaki is a third generation Hawaii business leader who, alongside his siblings and cousin, co-owns and runs multiple retail businesses such as Ace Hardware, Ben Franklin Crafts, and Daiso. What began as a small dry goods shop founded by his grandmother in Kahului, Maui in 1934 has since expanded and was also inducted into the Hawaiʻi Small Business Hall of Fame. The Kamitaki family, including Guy, has also given back to many non profit organizations and also established the Tadami and Kimei Kamitaki Endowed Memorial Scholarship at UH Mānoa’s Shidler College of Business, in honor of their parents.
Kim Kamitaki
Manager, Ben Franklin Crafts
Senior Consultant, Business Consulting Resources, Inc.
Celine was born and raised in Hawaii, and grew up with a strong tie to family values – as well as the family business founded by her parents. The Casamina family started the mortgage company, House of Finance, with the goal of helping families reach their dreams of owning a home. Casamina spent summers with her siblings helping at the family business – starting at the copy machine, and working her way up to interacting with clients – and very early on was inspired by the entrepreneurial mindset and work ethic of her parents.
Casamina began her own business career in the startup economy, with her early experience leading the business development efforts of a freshly-launched software app which was accepted into the cohort of a premier startup incubator. Casamina was actively involved in the launch of one of Hawaii’s first co-working spaces, leading the Hawaii division of a larger Southern California based operation. Through this role she gained extensive experience in property and project management, sales and marketing, business operations, detailed tracking of performance metrics, and the ability to work with an extremely diverse clientele base.
Casamina uses her expertise at BCR to work with clients in their Strategic Planning, Leadership Succession and Development, Team Development, and Operational efforts, including Process Improvements and Change Management efforts. She is particularly involved in BCR’s family business practice and supports families with Succession Planning, Leadership Development, Family Dynamics, Family Governance and Constitution development, and Coaching.
Casamina has studied at the University of San Francisco, and the American Business School of Paris, and holds a degree in Marketing and Management from the Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Casamina is the Vice President of Women Leaders in Family Enterprises (WLife), and currently serves on the board of Hawaii Women in Filmmaking, and the advisory board of the Loyola Marymount University Family Business Entrepreneurship Program.
Covered, or Exposed? Rethinking Risk in Family Business – Postponed
Insurance and family governance are rarely discussed in the same room, but they should be. This session looks at where business risk and family business risk collide, from what happens to key person coverage during a leadership transition to how outdated governance documents can quietly create liability exposure. Expect a practical look at coverage, claims, and emerging risks through the lens of succession and governance, along with a framework for auditing both together. Attendees will leave with questions worth bringing back to their own advisor.Pitch, Solve, Hire — How to Leverage PACE Students for Your Business Challenges
Struggling with a business challenge that needs a fresh perspective? Discover how partnering with PACE allows you to pitch real-world problems to a diverse pool of 30 to 40 motivated students ready to prototype, research, and solve them. These aren’t just academic exercises, past partners have actively implemented these student solutions to drive real-world business results. You can also choose to hire student teams as interns, so this is a great way to vet talent. In this session, you’ll walk away with a clear roadmap of how to partner with PACE to get students solving your business challenges.
Name the Problem Before Seeking the Solution: People, Process, or Technology?
Before choosing another AI tool, engaging outside support, or investing in a packaged solution, it is important to clearly define the problem you are actually trying to solve. What appears to be an efficiency issue may instead involve unclear roles, poor delegation, or a lack of accountability and follow through. In this interactive session, we will explore a simple framework for looking beyond symptoms, clarifying the underlying challenge and considering whether the best path forward involves people, process, technology, or some combination of the three.