ABSTRACT
This chapter is the result of conversations with an experienced Chair of Boards, Eivind Reiten, in Norway. It focuses on two family companies for which he has served as Chair. Both families are significant business owners, each with several different companies held within one structure. We will show how a Chair of a family-owned business has to manage the overlap of two systems, family and business, and respect and work with the owners’ wishes, including succession, and the social identity invested in the business. A task managing this system overlap, shapes the role as Chair and is in addition to the over-arching duties of ensuring the business is profitable and has recruited the right people. As such a Chair can contribute to the health of the business and family dynamics. A non-family executive or Chair has to accept this context, and help strategize when they operate on the boundary between the family and the business. We will discuss the concept of socio-emotional wealth, describing factors other than the financial profit of the company that the family will take into account. Further we discuss some findings and suggestions for governance in family firms.
