Neil Arnold C. Montesclaros (L) CFBA executive director and Jonathan A. Ramos, CEO, Premier Family Business Consulting
discuss the 2018 Family Enterprise Excellence Conference at a press conference in Marco Polo Plaza Hotel. CDN photo/ Junjie Mendoza
CEBU will once again host the biggest national family business conference which aims to equip attendees with global trends and local expertise in running family businesses.
Now on its fifth edition, the Family Enterprise Excellence Conference (FEEC) is expecting around 500 family business owners, shareholders, and consultants from different parts of the country to attend the conference slated on September 28 and 29 at Marco Polo Plaza Cebu.
“Our value difference is the content of the conference which is getting more global perspectives, not only from consultants but from the experience of owners of family businesses that have been there for generations,” said Jonathan Ramos, founder and CEO of Premier Family Business Consulting (PFBC).
The two-day event is organized by PFBC, a multi-disciplinary Philippine family business consulting group that originated in Cebu.
In a press conference yesterday (Tuesday), Ramos explained that the FEEC aimed to help family businesses through sharing of best practices especially since a lot of family businesses could not get past the second generation.
Neil Montesclaros, PFBC executive director, said that around 86 percent of the listed companies in the Philippines are family owned.
On the other hand, around 76 percent of workers in the country are employed by family businesses.
Among the speakers of this year’s FEEC is Borja Raventos, a family business advisor in Europe who is a 16th generation family business shareholder of one of the oldest family businesses in Spain; Toshio Goto, one of the leading and pioneering family business consultants in Japan that is home to many centuries-old family
businesses in Asia.
Other speakers include Roger King from Harvard University who is the founder of the Center for Asian Family Business and Entrepreneurship Studies; Jeremy Cheng, a transgenerational entrepreneurship expert from Hong Kong; and Jonathan Yabut, a Filipino motivational and leadership expert who has been leading millennials in family
businesses.
Locally, Cebu’s Espina-Garcia cousins from the century-old power generation business and Architect Felino “Jun” Palafox who owns the top Filipino family-owned architectural firm in the world will also be speaking during the FEEC.
“It’s going to be a rare opportunity to gather all these experts under one roof in two days so we hope that families in business would come and join us in the conference,” Ramos said.