Helping other business families develop and prosper to become the economic backbone and social fabric of their communities

Philippe and Nan-b de Gaspé Beaubien started this journey with a desire to help other business families address their challenges to better develop and prosper. It was one of the first times a group like ours was putting business families in the same room, whole families with whole families, discussing soft issues they had never discussed before and finding meaningful solutions to bring home. Soon, we were getting requests for assistance from many other families.

The lack of information on the subject of business family dynamics as well as the lack of resources was quickly evident. The few studies and University programs in management that existed did little to address the subject in a meaningful way to entrepreneurial families.  

It was then in 1990 that we decided to create the first not-for-profit philanthropic organization for families in business: The Montreal Institute for Family Enterprise, which later became The Business Families Foundation (BFF).