LGA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Chairman of the Board of the National Center for Family Philanthropy
- Governance Consultant
Ashley works with philanthropic families to help them define a shared vision for their family's philanthropy, and the structures and operations to realize that vision.
Ashley is a seasoned governance consultant with particular expertise in family philanthropy. She works with families to define a collective vision for their philanthropy, and then build the structures and programs to support that vision. She typically engages with families during periods of transition, when questions of next generation engagement and succession come to the fore. Ashley helps families define their vision for social impact and family engagement, clarify their values, and develop the governance, program and operating strategies necessary to realize their vision.
Ashley is the Chair of the Board of the National Center for Family Philanthropy and a fourth generation family trustee and Vice Chair of the Hill-Snowdon Foundation. That experience serves as a constant reminder of the privilege of family philanthropy and keeps her grounded in the realities of family governance!
Ashley is a graduate of Stanford University and the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, where she completed her Master's Degree in Public Policy. She lives in New York City with her husband and children and loves the bustle of city life-and also escaping it. She makes great use of Central Park and wishes she went to the theater more often.
Basma has been a leader within her family enterprise, Saudi Arabia's Zamil Group, and advises enterprising families throughout the middle east.
Basma Al Zamil hails from a well-renowned family enterprise, the Zamil Group based in Saudi Arabia. She has the distinct privilege of being one of the first female family members to work in the family enterprise, and through her various accomplishments, has risen to become one of the new generation of leaders within the group. She is regarded both in her family and the country as an expert in family enterprise transitions through governance, succession planning, leadership development, and technology. She advises leading families in the region supporting them to navigate complex issues while maintaining a harmonious family dynamic. She is deeply committed to empowering women and promoting gender diversity, and has been instrumental in championing these causes.
Basma started her professional journey at Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University as a Student Affairs Coordinator. Then, worked for Michael Baker International in the United States, before joining Zamil Group in Human Resources, bringing structure and change well ahead of her years, which led to her assuming the role of General Manager for Corporate Human Resources. She later held the position of Head of Corporate Social Responsibility where, driven by her belief in the positive impact that businesses can have on society, she spearheaded the development and implementation of various social initiatives. In addition, she works on preparing the family members to create the best future for them and designing a comprehensive plan for a smooth transition of leadership, ownership and governance.
Basma is currently an active member of several government and nonprofit organizations, serving on their boards and committees. She is currently a member of the local city council in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and on the Board of Trustees at Royal University of Women in Bahrain. She is a prolific speaker and contributor to regional conferences and forums on all areas of family enterprise.
Basma holds a Master's degree in Adult and Community Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and a Doctorate degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University. Her dissertation focused on Conflict Dynamics and Opportunities for Second-Generation Family Business Women in Saudi Arabia, and highlighted recommendations to manage conflict, enhance family dynamics and improve outcomes for women in family enterprises.
Expertise
Family Office Governance Governance Assessment Governance Team Development Strategic Alignment Strategic Family Wealth Planning Succession Planning
Bob has decades of experience as a global advisor, predominantly in the Middle East and South Asia, with a focus on strategic planning and governance.
Bob Kohli has almost two decades of experience as a global advisor and consultant, nine of them advising family enterprises across the world, predominantly in the Middle East and South Asia. He currently serves as a Board Director for a Saudi-based family conglomerate and as a board advisor for several family businesses in the region. His specializations include long-term strategic planning, family enterprise governance, conflict resolution, next generation development, and succession planning.
A "third culture person" with international work experience, Bob has a keen awareness and sensitivity of the cultural nuances of increasingly global families, which help him to engage and connect with families from various backgrounds and to support them in finding the right balance between traditions and transitions. He enables multigenerational alignment by creating a psychologically safe environment in which family leaders can openly discuss, debate, and decide on the future of their legacy.
In advising leading G2 and G3 families, Bob supports the design and launch of foundational governance structures like councils, constitutions, and boards to stabilize, sustain, and grow their family enterprise. He has extensive experience working with leadership teams consisting of family and non-family executives, and driving an analytical and performance-based leadership rooted in accountability, transparency, and collaboration. Bob also works with next generation family members to help them develop an owner mindset and prepare for collaborative stewardship. He firmly believes that sustainability in family enterprises is achieved by nurturing transgenerational entrepreneurship, which enables the growth of both the enterprise and the family leadership team.
Earlier in his career, while at a leading strategy consulting firm, Bob led several projects in strategy (investment, growth, turnaround) and change management for Fortune 100 clients. His sector experience includes pharmaceuticals & healthcare, oil & gas, tech, private equity, venture capital, and consumer and luxury goods across verticals of retail, trade, manufacturing, supply chain & logistics, and services.
Bob holds an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York, a combined Bachelors and Masters in Computer Science from Loyola University Chicago, and Advanced Certificates in Family Business Advisory (ACFBA) and Family Wealth Advisory (ACFWA) from the renowned Family Firm Institute in Boston. Bob is also an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, an accredited Belbin Team Roles Coach, and an accredited Advanced Practitioner of Enneagram Personality Types.
Bob is married with a teenage daughter. He is a family man and spends his free time being a doting father, spending quality time with his retired parents, and keeping up with global affairs and family enterprise literature.
Expertise
Board Development Communication & Conflict Management Contingency Planning Family Office Governance Governance Assessment Governance Team Development Owner Development Program Risk & Crisis Management Strategic Alignment Succession Planning
Catalina works with partners and senior associates of the firm supporting client families to ensure the continuity of the family businesses.
Catalina Arango supports client-families in the design and implementation of plans to ensure the continuity of the family businesses throughout generational transitions. Focused on Latin America, Catalina has experience in the design and implementation of corporate and family governance structures and the development of family policies and agreements in regard to the family business.
Graduated from the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia, with a degree in Business Administration, Catalina has a Master's degree in Family Advisory in non-clinical environments and an MBA degree from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid.
Catalina is Colombian and speaks English fluently. She currently lives in Cali, Colombia with her husband and her baby
Expertise
Continuity Audit Continuity Workshop Family Council Development Policy Development
Christopher has over a decade of professional experience working at the intersection of education and practice.
Devin has been advising and teaching for over a decade and specializes in the financial, organizational, and strategic aspects of complex family enterprises.
Dimitris specializes in helping family enterprises and family offices navigate complex geopolitical, financial, and macroeconomic challenges.
Fernanda is a partner working primarily in Central and South America. Fernanda has extensive experience supporting families in transition.
Fernanda Jaramillo is a Partner focused primarily on Central and South America, and has specialized in supporting families during generational transitions, including the design of corporate and family governance, development of family and shareholder agreements, design of the leadership transition process and design of education plans to prepare the next generation.
Prior to joining LGA, Fernanda led a radical change initiative in a major retail family business, including designing the transition from family management to a professional management team, establishing a formal board of directors with independent members, and prior to her departure, she transitioned leadership to a family member of the next generation.
Previously, Fernanda worked at a New York-based investment bank, where she provided strategic and financial advice to many family-owned businesses in Latin America. Her projects involved strategic planning activities, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, and negotiation of shareholders agreements, among others. From that stage, she made a
hobby of conducting company valuations, which she often does for "friends and family."
In addition to her consulting work at LGA, Fernanda currently serves on two boards of directors in the United States and Colombia as an independent member. She holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering, an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, and a master's degree in family advisory from Javeriana University in Cali. She has also been a member of YPO International since 2008.
Fernanda is Colombian and speaks Spanish, English and Portuguese. She is currently based in Cali, Colombia, but has a permanent alternate base in other cities in Latin America and the United States.
Francisco specializes in research and consulting for complex family enterprises. His duties included doing economic analysis and family business education.
Galit is a strategic financial coach and a trusted advisor to ultra-high-net-worth families and family businesses.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Partner at Lansberg
Gustavo is a partner who advises family enterprises throughout Latin America on complex corporate governance matters.
Gustavo is a partner at Lansberg, Gersick Advisors (LGA), advising family enterprises throughout Latin America on complex corporate governance matters. Gustavo is also actively involved at LGA in helping the Chair, directors, and executives of family enterprises realize the Board's full potential. Gustavo has extensive experience participating in many families and non-family Corporate Boards.
Gustavo is presently in the Board of Directors of CARVAJAL S.A., where he served as its Chairman for six years, a family business founded over 115 years ago, where he also worked for more than 30 years in several Latin American countries, including Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil. At his family company, he has also participated for over twenty years in the family council and has counseled several Latin-American families in the subject of the family business. He is the Chairman of the Board of the CARVAJAL Foundation, and member of the board of ICESI University, and BOLIVAR Group (Financial Group), all of them in Colombia.
Gustavo was Ambassador of COLOMBIA in FRANCE and UNESCO in Paris. As ambassador, he was instrumental in the acceptance of the accession process of COLOMBIA to the OECD. At UNESCO, participated as President of the Committee of the World Heritage Session in Cambodia in June 2013. He was also concurrent Ambassador of Colombia to MONACO and ALGERIA.
Holly is a trusted advisor to multi-generational families who appreciate her deep technical expertise, particularly around family office strategy and estate planning.
Ivan is a Founding Partner and consults with complex family businesses in the USA, Canada, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Ivan is a frequent speaker at family business programs organized by universities and industry groups. He is on the faculty of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He and his wife Margarita live in Guilford, CT, have two sons, and are the proud grandparents of twin granddaughters.
Jeff is a seasoned consultant known for his inventive approach to meeting business challenges and opportunities with a bold strategy.
Jeff Melanson is a seasoned consultant known for his inventive approach to meeting business challenges and opportunities with bold strategy, thoughtful leadership, and practical vision. Jeff's advisory work with enterprising families often involves innovative approaches to shareholder education, articulation of vision and core values, strategic planning, family philanthropy and effective leadership.
Jeff has a proven track record transforming struggling organizations into industry leaders as a CEO, an advisor and an entrepreneur. He has both led and advised organizations as they navigated periods of transformational change. Jeff offers unique and insightful perspectives for enterprising families on organizational structure, leadership, growth and renewal in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors.
Jeff holds an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University and a B.Mus from the University of Manitoba in Canada. He is also a frequent guest panelist and lecturer on disruptive innovation, design thinking, creative economies, city building, and creative entrepreneurship across North America and around the world. Jeff is also a columnist for innovation and business strategy at HuffPost. He was appointed one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 for 2009 and is a recipient of a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Jeff's professional experience includes serving as President & CEO of The Banff Centre, Executive Director of Canada's National Ballet School, Dean of The Royal Conservatory of Music, Mayor's Advisor - City of Toronto, President of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Principal of Creative Change Management Consulting.
In addition to his work with families at LGA, Jeff is an owner and Partner at The Stratagem Group, a group of creative companies that operates film studios, production services, and other content related companies in the film, gaming, animation and live entertainment sectors.
Outside of work, I love spending time with my family and enjoying the wonders of nature. I am a big believer in human potential and I spend my free time learning about other areas of interest. I enjoy helping others and I often serve as a mentor and coach to people from many different backgrounds, countries and sectors. I love learning more about ideas that exist beyond my lived experience. I gain tremendously from travel and new experiences and challenges.
Expertise
Contingency Planning Continuity Audit Continuity Workshop Family Council Development Innovation & Growth Strategic Alignment
Katherine has advised families for over 25 years, focusing on continuity planning, governance design, leadership development, executive coaching, and team building.
Katherine is a Senior Advisor at LGA and a family business consultant for over 25 years. Her work with the firm focuses on continuity planning, governance design, leadership development, and team building. She also lectures and publishes on continuity planning, leadership, career development, leadership, personality differences, team building, and family dynamics.
Katherine was a faculty member and Associate Clinical Professor at Yale University for thirty years, involved in teaching, service, and research related to families and organization development. She was also a faculty member and coach for twenty years for the Center for Creative Leadership's Development Program conducted by Rensselaer at Hartford and an executive coach with the Kellogg Center for Family Enterprises at Northwestern.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Senior Advisor
Kelin is a Co-founder and Senior Advisor at LGA with over 30 years of experience consulting and teaching around the world.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Advisor, Strategist
Lisa is a trusted advisor, strategist, facilitator, and executive coach who applies an equity lens to help families take action.
Lisa is a trusted advisor, strategist, facilitator, and executive coach. Applying an equity lens, she helps families take actions that lead to more inclusive interpersonal, organizational, and systemic outcomes. Lisa guides leaders in making decisions that align their goals and philanthropic investments to achieve targeted results. Integrating adaptive leadership into her approach, she advises leading families and their foundations on team and strategy development and on designing roadmaps to drive sustainable change. She combines strategic advising and coaching to support individual family members in a process of introspection, learning, and understanding, which lead to transformative actions that yield productive changes for individuals, teams, and the broader family system.
Lisa graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, holds a Master in Elementary Education from Lesley University, and earned her Master in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Lisa, her daughter, and their wonderful au pair live in Lisa's hometown of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Committed to social justice, Lisa serves on the Equity Advisory and Action Team for her local school district and serves as an ad hoc advisor to a variety of organizations on issues of equity, inclusion, leadership, and management. She enjoys hiking and lifting weights, and she always appreciates a good pun.
Maria has over 20 years of finance and governance experience within family businesses and actively serves on several Boards.
Maria Cecilia Escallón has worked in finance for over 20 years. Before becoming a Senior Advisor at LGA, she was Vice-President of the Treasury at a multinational company. During her professional career, she has worked on family business financing, raising capital, mergers and acquisitions, financial restructuring, dividend policies and stock ownership programs.
Maria Cecilia is based in Bogotá and speaks Spanish and English.
Expertise
Communication & Conflict Management Continuity Audit Continuity Workshop Family Council Development
Matt's expertise is in the area of family learning, family entrepreneurship and the development of the next generation
Matt Allen is an Advisor with LGA and an Associate Professor in the Entrepreneurship Division and Faculty Director of the Family Entrepreneurship Amplifier Program at Babson College. His expertise is in the area of family learning, family entrepreneurship and the development of the next generation. Professor Allen teaches entrepreneurship and family entrepreneurship courses at the undergraduate, graduate and executive levels. His teaching approach has earned him numerous awards and invitations including the Poets and Quants Best Undergraduate Business Professors for 2020. At the executive level, Professor Allen has worked with audiences across the globe with a special interest in Middle Eastern, Asian and Latin American markets. Fluent in Spanish, Professor Allen is comfortable teaching in both English and Spanish.
As a youth and young adult after college, Professor Allen worked for his own family's business so the issues family businesses face are personal and relevant to him. His research addresses how families learn, how to prepare the next generation for their individual roles in the family business, and how family members can be more entrepreneurial individually and as a family. This research is creating a fundamental shift in our understanding of how families learn and how business families are taught in university and executive programs. Professor Allen is a leader in the field of family entrepreneurship and his research has been published in top academic and practitioner outlets including the Harvard Business Review, Personnel Psychology and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. In addition, he has played a significant role both at Babson and in the broader academic family business community. He was the founding Faculty Director of the Institute for Family Entrepreneurship at Babson College and the Academic Director of the Global STEP Project for four years.
Professor Allen is active as a consultant to family businesses around the world and in addition to his independent consulting work has done work in partnership with various global family business consultancies. In addition to the experience gained working for his family's business, he worked as a financial analyst at both IBM and Hewlett Packard before entering academia. Professor Allen earned his B.A. in accounting from the University of Utah, M.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Expertise
Innovation & Growth Leadership Development On-Campus Programs Owner Development Program
Mika advises family businesses on intergenerational transfer, strategy formulation, corporate governance, human capital development, and navigating complex changes
Nathan Hamilton is an experienced Family Business Advisor specializing in working with multi generational families as they manage transitions from one generation to the next. Nate's deep understanding of the intangibles within each unique family complements his areas of expertise. His years of experience, and the trust given to him by so many families, have led to expertise in continuity planning, governance design, shareholder agreements, and leadership and coaching.
Before joining LGA, Nate served for seven years as the Vice President of Strategy for a real estate development company. In this role, he worked closely with family businesses on projects emphasizing growth and governance and developed tools to help family businesses address issues of continuity, governance, and leadership.
Neus has 20 years of expertise in corporate and family business governance specializing in large Latin American and European.
Nicolas specializes in governance design and succession planning for family enterprises around the world.
Sarah Cox joins LGA with 25 years of family business experience working within L.L. Bean. As the Chief Human Resources Officer at LL Bean reporting to the CEO and the Family Leaders, she was their internal person facilitating the development of their family governance, heading their shareholder office, helping to manage succession, and coaching family leaders and the next generation. Her education background includes a MA degree from the Harvard University Divinity School with a focus on organizational ethics, a BA degree from the University of Rochester, and post-graduate education from the Wharton Business School the Kellogg School of Management's Family Enterprise program At LGA, Sarah provides consultation to multi-generation family businesses regarding governance, shareholder development, and leadership development.
Sarah also serves as a Leadership Coach for the women participating in the U.N. and International Committee of the Red Cross Humanitarian Leadership learning program. She lives in Portland, Maine with her husband, Russ, and enjoys frequent visits from their three adult children, Eleanor, Grace, and Ben.
Expertise
Communication & Conflict Management Governance Team Development Leadership Development Owner Development Program
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Executive Coach for the Ivey School of Business
- Member of the Institute for Corporate Directors
In addition to her work at LGA, Sharon is the lead advising executive coach for the Ivey School of Business executive education at Western University in Canada. She is a co-founder of BREW™ Leadership Retreats for young men in business and is the creator of Purpose + Flow™, a process for understanding the neuroscience of intrinsic purpose in leadership. She has also held adjunct and associate faculty positions at the David Eccles School of Business in Utah and the Ashridge Management Institute in the United Kingdom.
Sharon is a member of the Institute for Corporate Directors and holds Independent Director status (ICD.d). She is a Master Executive Coach (American School of Professional Psychology), certified mediator (Ut) and Family Enterprise Advisor (UBC-Sauder). She has an undergraduate degree in Geomorphology (UBC) and has completed post-graduate training in Organizational Leadership and Neuroscience.
Sharon has been consulting and coaching internationally to privately held and family-owned enterprises for over 25 years. She brings deep knowledge and insight to executives, owners and family members on issues such as succession and leadership transitions, governance, philanthropy and ownership structures and processes.
Simran supports family members in building financial acumen, systems, process and structure to complex family enterprises so they can focus on sharing, collaboration, and harmony.
Simran is a trusted advisor and strategist. She advises family businesses, family offices and wealthy families in building governance, financial acumen, and generational transitions. She helps families define their goals, establish structures, and improve communication to achieve generational legacies.
Simran is a CA, CPA graduated from the University of Alberta. She has a decade of experience advising UHNW families and their family-owned enterprises at PwC, where she was a trusted advisor to inter-generational members of many prominent families.
Tim Kelly led three family offices over the last three decades and now helps families solve the multi-faceted challenges of managing generational wealth.
Tim Yeung brings valuable knowledge from his ten years of experience working in his family's successful commercial real estate business: Peterson Group. His transition to ...
Wendy is a partner that has over 15 years of consulting and counseling experience in individual, group, and organizational assessment and leadership development.