FAMILY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Professor of the Practice
A tax, trusts and estates attorney by training, Amy co-founded Withers Consulting Group LLC in 2013, and prior to opening her consulting practice, was a Partner at the international law firm Withers Bergman LLP, where she co-chaired the firm's Family Office Group. Amy comes from multi-generational businesses on both sides of her family. She succeeded her father and served as President of Ironrock, Inc.-a fifth-generation family-owned and managed producer of ceramic tile and thin brick located in Canton, Ohio-from 1990 to 2002. She remains closely involved with Ironrock as a director and officer. Her maternal grandfather founded Fisher Price Toys. Amy received her B.A. from Yale College, her J.D. from Harvard Law School, and her LL.M in Taxation from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Amy started teaching Family Business: Ownership and Governance with the Family Enterprise Center at UNC in 2019.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director
- Assistant Director of Student Engagement
Chesney Maniaci is the Assistant Director of Student Engagement for the Family Enterprise Center at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Chesney received her BA in Government and Religious Studies from the College of William and Mary. She has various family members who own and operate their own family businesses, so she was eager to join the team at the Family Enterprise Center. In addition to engaging with undergraduate students through the Family Business Club, Chesney connects with MBA students and alumni to create avenues for engagement between the student body and the family and private business communities.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Adjunct Assistant Professor
- Co - Founder of the Family Enterprise Center at the University of North Carolina 's Kenan - Flagler Business School
Cooper Biersach is the co-founder of the Family Enterprise Center at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. She teaches undergraduates and MBA students, facilitates roundtable peer groups, and delivers educational programming to multi-generational families. Since 2009, Cooper has worked with over 1,000 next generation leaders and their families. Drawing on her experience as a non-family executive, Cooper provides leadership coaching, succession planning, governance, and communication consulting to privately-held businesses and family enterprises.
Cooper served as the Senior VP, Worldwide Human Resources and a member of the Executive Committee of a family-owned company, Jack Morton Worldwide, a global brand experience and communications agency. In her role, she faced firsthand many of the challenges and opportunities of a family-run business - exponential growth, succession planning, leadership development, acquisitions, global pressures, and the transition of the business by sale to a publicly traded holding company (Interpublic Group). She is the founding director of the Carolinas Family Office Forum, a networking and educational peer group for top executives of family offices in North and South Carolina.
Job Titles:
- Business Leader in Residence
Job Titles:
- Kenan - Flagler Family Enterprise Executive Director
Job Titles:
- Outreach Program Assistant
Elizabeth received her BA in Speech Communications from UNC in 1993 graduating Phi Beta Kappa. After graduation, she received her Masters of Arts in Teaching from Salem College and taught elementary school in Winston-Salem, NC. She has been active in the community while raising four children, all of which are Tar Heels. She lives in Raleigh with her husband, Paul.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Associate Director of the Family Enterprise Center at the University of North Carolina 's Kenan - Flagler Business School
Lauren Willets is the Associate Director of the Family Enterprise Center at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. Lauren has worked in the Center since 2016.
Lauren received her BSBA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and her Masters in Higher Education and Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina. Lauren was previously the Director of Student Programming for the Minor in Entrepreneurship at UNC. Lauren grew up with family businesses on both sides and her father served as a non-family executive for a few family owned companies throughout her childhood, so the Family Enterprise Center was a natural fit for Lauren. In addition to providing resources to students, building community, and event planning for the Family Enterprise Center, she serves as the advisor to the Undergraduate Family Business Club.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Paige grew up in a family business. Her father owned and operated independent grocery stores across east Texas. Paige received her BS from Texas Christian University. After college, she worked for the buying department at Pier 1 Imports as a Merchandise Planner until she started her family. Paige then managed the rental property business she and her husband owned in Texas before relocating to North Carolina in 2016 with her husband and three children. Paige joined the Family Enterprise Center in 2019.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Professor of the Practice
Peter Begalla is a consultant to multi-generational family enterprises, the Conference Chairman for Family Business Magazine and Directors & Boards Magazine, a Professor of the Practice at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, and past-lecturer in Family Business at Stetson University.
As a consultant, Peter works directly with family enterprises on governance, board development & evaluation, leadership succession, family dynamics, and next gen development. Peter is the founder and president of JPB Consulting Group which has a national and international client footprint across multiple sectors: CPG, wood products, oil & gas, entertainment, single family offices, and commercial construction.
As the Conference Chairman for Family Business Magazine's Transitions Conference, Peter brings together multi-generational family enterprises so they can share their stories, learn from each other, and develop practices that will sustain the family enterprise for generations. Other conferences include Private Company Governance Summit, Family Business Generational Wealth, and Character of the Corporation.
Peter taught Family Business courses at Stetson University for over 13 years. Classes taught included Managerial Issues in Family Business: Harnessing the strategic value of family; Personal & Professional Leadership Development in the Family Business; Special Topics: Consulting to Family Firms.
In 2000, Peter founded an online continuing education company and ran it for 9 years in partnership with his father. The company built custom learning management systems, partnered with state and national associations, obtained multiple certifications to provide continuing ed, and sold hundreds of thousands online courses to licensed professionals.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Business Expert, Co - Founder of the Family Enterprise Center at UNC Kenan - Flagler
Steve Miller is a family business expert, co-founder of the Family Enterprise Center at UNC Kenan-Flagler, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior. His research focuses on next-generation leadership development in family-owned enterprises.
Steve works with family businesses and his students to help them create world-class, sustainable enterprises. His approach is to collaborate with family business leaders to develop and employ strategies designed to align business, family, and ownership goals. He draws on his 35 years of experience as the top non-family executive of the Vanderbilt/Cecil family-owned Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C., where he played a key role in making Biltmore the most visited historic home in the United States, with over one million visitors each year.
Steve also is president of GenSpan, Inc. in Asheville, NC. In that role, he consults on succession planning, leadership training, and strategy for The Biltmore Company and a number of other large family business clients. Steve has extensive board experience and currently serves as chairman of the board of Draper & Kramer, a family-owned real-estate development and management firm in Chicago and as a board member of Riverbend Malt House in Asheville, N.C., which malts grains for craft brewers and distillers.
Professor Miller earned his PhD in Management - Designing Sustainable Systems at Case Western Reserve University. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Undergraduate Business Program at UNC Kenan-Flagler and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board