Training students in family business challenges through practice: a look back at the FBC’s first Academy
Raising students’ awareness of the specific challenges faced by family businesses and their transmission is a core ambition of the HEC Paris – Dieter Schwarz Center for Family Business. In January 2026, the Center launched the first edition of the Family Business Strategy & Advisory Academy, an intensive and practice-oriented programme.
Launched in January 2026 with the support of the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, the Family Business Strategy & Advisory Academy represents a first structuring milestone in the rollout of the Family Business Center’s educational initiatives.
Designed as an intensive three-week programme, the Academy brought together nearly 40 students from the Grande École programme (M1 level), representing 17 nationalities, to explore the key challenges specific to family businesses: governance, transmission, strategy, and long-term value creation.
The Academy stands out for its strongly practice-oriented approach, combining academic input, case studies, immersive workshops, and on-the-ground engagements.
Students were thus exposed to the realities of family business through direct exchanges with leaders of family-owned companies, notably within the groupe SNEF, with Isabelle Dréau and Olivier Jouven, as well as at Domaine Leflaive with Brice de la Morandière, providing concrete insights into issues of governance, growth and transmission that had previously been examined in the classroom.
This immersion within family-owned companies was complemented by visits to key players in the family business ecosystem, engaged in supporting business families at critical stages of their development. Students were notably welcomed by Lombard Odier, Mirabaud, Deloitte, la Fondation Apprentis d’Auteuil, as well as Baum Notaires and For Talents.
The programme also included a two-day learning expedition in London, designed in collaboration with HEC UK House, offering an international perspective on investment, governance and advisory practices in an Anglo-Saxon context, notably through insights shared by trusted third parties and family business advisors at institutions such as Morgan Stanley, UBP, UBS,...
The impact of this approach was widely highlighted by students. As one of them summarized: “Getting an insight in all the different areas that are touched by family businesses was very interesting, the class was structured incredibly well, I especially enjoyed the company visits in Paris and in London.”
Supervised by Cécile de Lisle, Executive Director of the Center, and Philippe Pelé-Clamour, Professor of Strategy and Family Business at HEC Paris, this first Family Business Academy illustrates the ambition of the Family Business Center: to raise awareness among all HEC Paris students of the specific challenges faced by family businesses, while helping to prepare the next generation for the major transmission challenges ahead.
Learn more about the HEC Paris Family Business Center
