Being part of the next generation of a family business brings opportunities that few other careers can offer. But it can also bring expectations, responsibility and questions that people outside a family business don’t always understand.
These are the questions that shape every next generation journey.
There’s rarely a single moment of arrival, more a series of steps, each one building the confidence, knowledge and relationships you need for what comes next.
The Next Gen Leadership Group is one of those steps: a ten-month development journey bringing together a small peer group of emerging family business leaders to learn, share experiences and build the confidence, knowledge and connections they need for the journey ahead.
It’s an opportunity to learn from people who have already made the journey, hear the experiences of other next generation leaders, gain practical business knowledge, and develop alongside peers who understand the unique world of family business.
Because becoming a leader in a family business isn’t only about the theory. It’s about building real relationships and friendships, putting new knowledge into practice, growing in confidence, and learning how to have the more difficult conversations within your own family.
Meet current family business leaders and hear the real stories behind their journeys: how they entered the business, when they began to feel accepted as a leader, the mistakes they made, and how family relationships evolved along the way.
Alongside this lived experience, business experts bring practical knowledge across leadership, finance, governance, communication, innovation and business development.
Meet current family business leaders and hear the real stories behind their journeys: how they entered the business, when they began to feel accepted as a leader, the mistakes they made, and how family relationships evolved along the way.
Alongside this lived experience, business experts bring practical knowledge across leadership, finance, governance, communication, innovation and business development.
From your first conversation with the group to the leader you become by the end of it, here’s how the year unfolds.
The journey begins with a two-day residential designed to create the foundations for everything that follows. Participants get to know one another, explore their individual family business journeys, and begin thinking about the leader they want to become, together exploring the dynamics that make family businesses different: identity, expectations, relationships, responsibility, legacy, and finding your own voice within an established business.
Most importantly, this is where the group starts building the trust that allows for honest, meaningful conversation throughout the rest of the programme.
“Talking to people who are going through similar challenges really helped me.”
Learning doesn’t just happen in a classroom. Participants visit family businesses and spend time with the people leading them, experiencing different businesses, cultures and leadership styles, and asking the questions that rarely get answered in textbooks: What worked? What didn’t? How did one generation hand responsibility to another? It’s knowledge transfer through real experience.
“It was so interesting to listen and learn from people who had gone through the transition already.”
Practical learning sessions build both leadership capability and wider commercial understanding, connected directly to situations participants are experiencing in their own businesses, rather than taught as abstract theory. Areas explored include:
• Developing your own leadership style and identity
• Building confidence, credibility and influence
• Understanding financial information and commercial performance
• Understanding the role and responsibilities of a director
• Communicating across generations and personalities
• Managing upwards and working with existing family leaders
• Handling difficult conversations and conflict
• Leading teams and building relationships
• Innovation, change and challenging established thinking
• Protecting culture while allowing the business to evolve
• Family governance, succession and ownership responsibilities
• Setting goals and turning ideas into action
“Being part of Next Gen gave me the confidence to go back into my family business and put what I’d learned into practice.”
Family business leaders from different generations join the group throughout the journey to share their stories, not simply presentations about successful businesses, but the journey behind the success. The difficult conversations. The mistakes. The moments of doubt. The relationships that had to change. And the point at which they began to feel they had genuinely become a leader in their own right.
“It helped me realise my perspective has value and gave me the confidence to share my ideas and challenge myself.”
Every participant has their own ambitions, challenges and family circumstances. Confidential 1:1 coaching provides space away from the group to explore those issues personally, reflect on progress, and establish individual development goals, returning throughout the programme to one important question: what does becoming a successful leader look like for me?
“The Next Gen course has helped me think beyond my current role and understand the kind of career I want to build.”
You might already be managing a team, preparing to become a director or shareholder, or still working out where you fit.
Particularly relevant if you want to:
• Build confidence and establish your own leadership identity
• Develop greater credibility within the family and wider business
• Understand finance, governance and the responsibilities of ownership
• Become better equipped to lead and manage people
• Navigate relationships with parents, siblings and other family members
• Bring new ideas into an established family business
• Prepare for greater responsibility without needing all the answers today
• Meet other Next Gens experiencing similar opportunities and challenges
You don’t need to know exactly where your family business journey will take you. Part of the programme is helping you work that out.
Because becoming a leader in a family business isn’t only about the theory. It’s about building real relationships and friendships, putting new knowledge into practice, growing in confidence, and learning how to have the more difficult conversations within your own family.
By the end of the programme, participants leave with far more than additional business knowledge.
Greater confidence in the
contribution you can make to your family business, and a broader understanding of what it takes to lead a successful organisation.
Practical skills and ideas you can take straight back into your business, with a clearer view of the responsibilities and opportunities ahead.
Friendships forged through a shared experience with peers who understand what it means to be the next generation in a family business.
A trusted peer group you can keep turning to long after the ten months are over.
You might already be leading part of the business, preparing for greater responsibility, or still working out where you fit and what you want your future role to be.
The Next Gen Leadership Group gives you the space, knowledge, experiences and peer support to explore that journey alongside people who understand what it means to be part of a family business.
For next generation family members already working in the business, or early in a directorship, who are getting ready for the greater leadership responsibility ahead.
Yes. Much of the content still applies if you’re early in your directorship, and your own experience will add real value for the rest of the group too.
Absolutely. Siblings, cousins or other relatives are welcome to join together, and each still gets their own individual development focus within the group.
This programme is built for people preparing for future responsibility, not only those who’ve already reached senior leadership. If that’s the path you’re on, you belong here.
A minimum of nine days across the year: the two-day residential to start, followed by seven planned learning days.
We’ll share materials and information where we can, but individual sessions and business visits can’t be rerun, so we’d encourage prioritising attendance where possible.
Once confirmed, programme dates are fixed for the year.
We keep it light by design — think a short article, a video, a reflection exercise or a planning template, nothing that competes with your day job.
Yes — pay in full, or spread the cost across quarterly instalments.
Everything you need to take part fully: learning sessions, business visits, materials, a 1:1 coaching session, residential accommodation and meals, refreshments on learning days, digital resources, self-assessment tools, and access to the participant network.
Participants cover their own travel. Accommodation is included for the residential only.
Yes — our team will help arrange lifts or car-sharing wherever a venue is difficult to reach by public transport.
The initial deposit is non-refundable. If you withdraw, no refund is due on payments already made, though we won’t collect any future instalments.
Every part of it is built around family-business realities — credibility, family dynamics, succession, and what leadership actually looks like inside a family-owned business, not a generic corporate setting.
Yes — three visits, with direct, honest conversations with leaders who’ve lived through their own next-generation transition.
The programme is delivered by the Family Business Community team, who work with family businesses every day — this is their focus, not a side project.
It’s a confidential space to focus on your own development, apply what you’re learning, and get the most out of the rest of the programme.
Our team reviews it for suitability, confirms the outcome and, where it’s a good fit, welcomes you in and arranges the deposit.
We review every application to build a balanced group across industries, experience levels and personalities, so the peer learning works for everyone.
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