Engaging Leaders

The Strategic Owner: Beyond building tools for effective management, business owners must navigate strategic ownership of an asset for the long term. Our program addresses issues faced by owners and senior leaders of multi-generational family businesses to build strategic ownership competence and capability. Across the course of a year, The Strategic Owner program participants work alongside peer owners of closely -held businesses in sequential learning experiences in the classroom, interim coaching/networking sessions and experiential offerings in the field. All this is to build a more strategic approach to ownership for their entity.

In the fall of 2023, the center launched a bespoke executive education program on strategic philanthropy. PhilanthropyForward is a partnership with WashU’s Chancellor’s office and the guidance of Initiative Director, Margaret Schnuck Rogers. The program marries together insights from distinct fields of philanthropy—measurement-focused models like effective altruism to trust-based philanthropy—and brings the resources of WashU to support individuals and families seeking to amplify their impact on the world. We hope it becomes a model of how places like Washington University can shape the world in new and distinct ways—a new way of being a university committed to impact.

These executive education courses combine the intimacy of the cohort with the rigors and precision of the business school classroom, and Olin’s approach to Family Enterprise research.

Enduring Enterprise: Strategic Ownership for the Private Enterprise: This in-person St. Louis program empowers enterprise owners and senior leaders to think beyond the day-to-day, tackling the more profound strategic questions of vision, purpose, governance, and legacy. Held between September 10th, 2025, and January 30th, 2026, this six-day program invites participants to connect big-picture thinking with practical tools for action. Click here to register.

We delve into topics that impact family businesses through special events, symposiums and seminars, including larger audience symposiums and smaller, more intimate engagements. Our immersive events include our annual Family Enterprise Symposium, now in its ninth year.

Highlights of past themes and speakers include:

• Continental Grain Company and the Innovation of Food Building and Evolving a Strategic Family Enterprise with Paul Fribourg, Chairman and CEO, and Jordana Fribourg, Chief Talent Officer of Conti, plus Conti Executive Team Dave Peacock, Chief Operating Officer; Bob Golden, Chief Strategy Officer; Ari Gendason, Chief Investment Officer
• Culture and Family Business with S. Ramadorai, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and Lisanne Cape Dorian, Bacardi Ltd.
• Family Enterprise in Capital Markets with Bryon Trott, BDT Capital (Investment Banker); Chrissy Taylor, COO, Enterprise Holdings (3rd gen); John Kemper, President, Commerce Bank (6th gen); Todd Schnuck, President, Schnucks Markets (2nd gen)

• Public health and private equity: What the Walgreens buyout could mean for the future of pharmacy care (The Conversation)
• Why St. Louis businesses should prepare for the “silver tsunami” (St. Louis Magazine)
• As Centene Corp. lays off 2,000 employees, Molina Health Care, which took some of its business, to hire 550 in California - St. Louis Business Journal (BizJournals.com)
• A Festus rolled ice cream shop, Tanglefoot Creamery, is run by an 18-year-old with big plans (STLToday.com)
• Charter is offering 100% tuition for workers. It's not the only one paying for school. (STLToday.com)
• The Class of 2023 Faces a Jittery Job Market: ‘The World Seems to Have Flipped on Its Head.’ - WSJ
• ‘Succession’: Would Logan Roy’s Death Really Tank Waystar’s Stock? - WSJ
• Retailers Continue To Adjust To Survive During A Pandemic | STLPR