HEC Paris Center for Family Business joins the Family & Business Forum 2025 as Academic Partner
Cross-European Perspectives on Family Businesses at the Family & Business Forum Paris 2025
On December 9, 2025, the Family & Business Forum brought together leaders, shareholders and experts from family businesses at the Salons de l’Hôtel des Arts et Métiers in Paris. For the first time, the HEC Paris – Dieter Schwarz Center for Family Business served as the academic partner of the event, contributing to the public debate and providing an academic perspective on the key challenges facing family businesses.
On this occasion, Cécile de Lisle, Executive Director of HEC Paris’s Center for Family Business, presented the Center’s purpose and its three strategic pillars dedicated to supporting family businesses.
A roundtable on European family business challenges (replay)
The Center for Family Business also contributed to the Forum’s content through a roundtable entitled “Across our borders, the same challenges for family businesses?”, moderated by Pierrick Merlet (La Tribune).
The panel brought together Alain Bloch, Emeritus Professor at HEC Paris; Louis de Schorlemer, Member of the Supervisory Board of Villeroy & Boch; and Hervé Coppens d’Eeckenbrugge, former non-executive director of Solvay.
The discussions provided a comparative perspective on the challenges faced by family businesses across Europe. Speakers compared transmission frameworks in different European countries and emphasized that governance structures can professionalize while preserving a family DNA and long-term shareholder stability. Alain Bloch highlighted a key point: beyond taxation issues, the current wave of business transmissions in Europe also calls for stronger efforts in training and in promoting business succession, citing Québec as a source of inspiration.
A first collaboration set to continue
By partnering for the first time with the Family & Business Forum Paris, HEC Paris’s Center for Family Business is strengthening its ties with the French and European family business ecosystem, fostering dialogue between research, education and real-world practice.
Review all the presentations from the Family & Business Forum, 2025 edition