This week, I’m honored to welcome Guglielmo Notarbartolo di Villarosa, Head of Private Equity & Venture Capital at PFC, the family office of his branch of the Marzotto Family, one of Italy’s most significant enterprise families, whose history in the textile and fashion industry extends back over 250 years. Guglielmo is a G7 family member of the Marzotto Family and a G3 member of his family branch. Over the past 5 years, he has worked with his siblings and cousins to evolve the family enterprise and family office structure, refocusing it on creating a shared purpose and positive impact.
As a rising-gen family leader who is carrying forward the legacy of a nearly 300-year-old family, Guglielmo shares the story of his family and the fascinating recent intergenerational transition within his own family branch. This latest transition process, which passed control of the family enterprise from Guglielmo’s grandfather (G1) to the current generation (G3) of family leaders, was a remarkable success story. Not only was the succession smooth and conflict-free, but the G3 family members emerged highly motivated, aligned, and fulfilled by the exercise.
A fundamental part of the transition process was the joint work the family did to draft and formalize a family constitution. Guglielmo offers his views on how important a family constitution is and how critical it is for the family to undergo an intentional, high-quality process to create and agree to one. The family constitution process resulted in fundamental changes to how the family operates and the way family members regard the purpose of the family wealth. Guglielmo explains how the family governance structures and behaviors evolved and the changes that drove to their collective definition of what “impact” and “value creation” means to them as a family.
Guglielmo provides practical tips and lessons learned from the family constitution process – especially since it was a very positive experience for all family members and unified the current generation behind a shared value system and purpose. He goes over the choices and decisions they made as a family, which ultimately resulted in greater unity and happiness among the family. He also offers his insights into the practical steps that led to one of the most important outcomes for the family – aligning behind a shared vision and purpose, which is centered around delivering measurable positive impact on local communities and alleviating negative economic externalities.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to hear directly from the G7 family member of a remarkable enterprise family with nearly 3-century-long history of success and impact. First-hand family case studies like this one are scarce and are a wonderful benefit of being a member of the FOX community.
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