Generational Transitions for Ownership and Management

We strongly recommend attending with at least two (2) family members.

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 first hand family business experience and more than a decade teaching family enterprise at Stetson University.

Why attend?

• Concrete tools you can use right away, including role definitions, succession frameworks, and an emergency transition template
• Real stories and case examples from other family businesses, not just theory
• A clearer path toward proactive planning, helping your family avoid the added cost, stress, and strain on relationships that often comes with handling these issues reactively during a crisis

Day 1: Foundational sessions on owning versus operating, real succession case studies, generation specific tracks, and guided family discussion time. 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

Meet our facilitator: Peter Begalla – JPB Consulting Group

Peter Begalla is a consultant to multigenerational family enterprises, the Conference Chairman for Family Business Magazine and Directors & Boards Magazine, a Professor of the Practice at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, and a past lecturer in Family Business at Stetson University.

As a consultant, Peter works directly with family enterprises on governance, board development and evaluation, leadership succession, family dynamics, and next gen development. He is the founder and president of JPB Consulting Group, which has a national and international client footprint across sectors including CPG, wood products, oil and gas, entertainment, single family offices, and commercial construction.

Through Family Business Magazine’s Transitions Conference, Peter brings together multigenerational family enterprises to share their stories, learn from each other, and develop practices that sustain the family enterprise for generations. He also chairs other conferences, including the Private Company Governance Summit, Family Business Generational Wealth, and Character of the Corporation.

Peter taught Family Business courses at Stetson University for more than 13 years, covering 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.

Breakout option 1: Passing the Torch: A Conversation on Succession in Progress with Michelle Ake and Titus Tanuvasa – Malu Productions

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 utilized to make decisions around professional development and change. We invite you to hear how one family is laying the groundwork before their succession journey truly begins, not as a blueprint to follow, but as one experience worth considering as you think about preparing for your own path. Please bring your questions, and feel free to share your own experience to add to the conversation!

Learn more about Michelle here    |  Press release for Titus Tanuvasa promotion

Breakout option 2: Putting It in Writing: Creating Guidelines for Your Family Business

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.

Celine Casamina, Senior Consultant – Business Consulting Resources, Inc.

Other panelists to be announced soon!

Breakout option 3: From Risk to Readiness: A Family Business Guide to Risk and Coverage

You cannot insure your way out of every risk in a family business, but you can build a practical process for identifying what could disrupt continuity and knowing how to respond. Using a real scenario, this session explores how financial exposure lands differently across operators, ownership, and leadership, and what should have been in place beforehand. You’ll learn how to prioritize risk, understand who is responsible for addressing it, and weigh the full range of ways to respond, with insurance treated as one option rather than the default. A short case example ties it together, giving attendees a starting point for exploring coverage with their own broker.

Breakout option 4: Pitch, Solve, Hire — How to Leverage PACE Students for Your Business Challenges with Jeff Hui – PACE Entrepreneur in Residence/Lecturer

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.

Learn more about Jeff here   |  UH News article on past participants

Breakout option 5: Name the Problem Before Seeking the Solution: People, Process, or Technology? with Donnel Nunes – Aspen Family Business Group (501c3)

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.

Check out Donnel’s Bio here