Press release
25 Oct 2022 

EY US and Wharton Global Family Alliance announce a three-year collaboration to propel family business growth

Press contact

Victoria Kasper

Assistant Director, Ernst & Young LLP

  • Address key issues faced by family businesses and offices globally
  • Provide actionable guidance on business governance, transitioning wealth and other priorities
  • Support ongoing research and education

Ernst & Young LLP (EY) and the Wharton Global Family Alliance (Wharton GFA), a world-leading research forum created by the Wharton School and the CCC Alliance, today announced a three-year collaboration to advance knowledge on issues and trends impacting multigenerational family businesses and their offices. 

The Wharton GFA is a unique academic-family business partnership established to create and disseminate actionable knowledge that is helpful, timely and important to substantial families and to their businesses through thought leadership, knowledge transfer, and sharing of ideas and best practices among influential global families. The CCC Alliance is a group of families and individuals that collaborates regularly on family office matters. This commitment from EY and the Wharton School will support the Wharton GFA’s mission and activities, including research yielding actionable insight that family businesses can use to address topics such as business and family governance, wealth transitions, philanthropy, scaling resources and adapting for generational change.

“I am thrilled for EY to support the Wharton GFA and partner to ensure families globally can expand their capabilities and modernize resources while preserving their vision and legacies,” says Bobby Stover, EY Americas Family Enterprise and Family Office Leader. “This collaboration will harness Wharton GFA’s data-informed insights for wealth management and the legacy preservation that EY delivers, producing effective and actionable best practices for family offices and high-net-worth individuals.”

The significance of family enterprises to the US and worldwide economy is profound, but the unique issues faced by families and the businesses they control are often not well understood. More than half of the private sector worldwide works for family firms. In Asia and in Latin America, over 70% of the companies are family firms; in the US, 35% of the Fortune 500 are family-controlled firms.¹

“The collaboration between EY and the Wharton GFA will continue to drive essential research and insight around multigenerational families and their businesses. We appreciate EY’s support and look forward to working together to identify solutions for the family businesses, in turn supporting the greater good and creating economic opportunity for all,” says Erika James, Dean of the Wharton School.

“We are so grateful for this collaboration with EY, which will elevate the degree to which we can identify and address key issues that substantial multigenerational families are faced with and offer solutions to support the harmony and prosperity of families and their businesses,” says Raffi Amit, the Marie and Joseph Melone Professor at the Wharton School and founder and leader of the Wharton GFA.

For more information, visit https://www.ey.com/en_us/private-business.

About EY

EY exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets.

Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate.

Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available via ey.com/privacy. EY member firms do not practice law where prohibited by local laws. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

Ernst & Young LLP is a client-serving member firm of Ernst & Young Global Limited operating in the US.

About EY Family Enterprise

As trusted advisors to ambitious business-owning families, including more than 90% of the world’s top 500 family enterprises, EY teams have the experience and know-how to support the entire family enterprise — family members, their family business and their family office.

The EY approach to working with family enterprises is anchored in the EY Family Enterprise DNA Model. This model supports both the personal and business performance agendas of family enterprise leaders by pinpointing four key areas of focus to achieve their ambitions: family, values, business and assets. We combine our understanding of these focus areas with decades of experience working with the world’s most entrepreneurial families to create a framework for guided conversations on topics that matter most to family enterprise owners. 

EY Family Enterprise professionals can support you in identifying and optimizing the drivers that impact family businesses’ growth and longevity, preserve wealth and culture, and solidify intergenerational legacies. ey.com/familyenterprise

About the Wharton Global Family Alliance (Wharton GFA)

The Wharton Global Family Alliance is a Wharton initiative that centers on a broad set of issues faced by global families that control substantial enterprises and resources.  The Wharton GFA is globally recognized as the leading institution for the creation and dissemination of knowledge and practices of multi-generational families and their businesses.
The Wharton GFA seeks to foster the longevity, harmony, and prosperity of multi-generational, multi-branch families and their businesses. The Wharton GFA transcends boundaries to enable collaboration and effective communication between researchers and families for mutual benefit and for the benefit of society at large; it enables thought leadership, knowledge transfer, and sharing of ideas and best practices among influential families; it publishes in a range of leading academic and practitioners’ outlets cutting-edge theoretical, empirical and field research on key issues affecting families and their businesses; and it initiates, manages and participates in global forums and conferences.

¹ “Importance of Family Enterprises,” Wharton Global Family Alliance,  https://wgfa.wharton.upenn.edu/, accessed October 1, 2022. 

 
  • Address key issues faced by family businesses and offices globally
  • Provide actionable guidance on business governance, transitioning wealth and other priorities
  • Support ongoing research and education

Ernst & Young LLP (EY) and the Wharton Global Family Alliance (Wharton GFA), a world-leading research forum created by the Wharton School and the CCC Alliance, today announced a three-year collaboration to advance knowledge on issues and trends impacting multigenerational family businesses and their offices. 

The Wharton GFA is a unique academic-family business partnership established to create and disseminate actionable knowledge that is helpful, timely and important to substantial families and to their businesses through thought leadership, knowledge transfer, and sharing of ideas and best practices among influential global families. The CCC Alliance is a group of families and individuals that collaborates regularly on family office matters. This commitment from EY and the Wharton School will support the Wharton GFA’s mission and activities, including research yielding actionable insight that family businesses can use to address topics such as business and family governance, wealth transitions, philanthropy, scaling resources and adapting for generational change.

“I am thrilled for EY to support the Wharton GFA and partner to ensure families globally can expand their capabilities and modernize resources while preserving their vision and legacies,” says Bobby Stover, EY Americas Family Enterprise and Family Office Leader. “This collaboration will harness Wharton GFA’s data-informed insights for wealth management and the legacy preservation that EY delivers, producing effective and actionable best practices for family offices and high-net-worth individuals.”

The significance of family enterprises to the US and worldwide economy is profound, but the unique issues faced by families and the businesses they control are often not well understood. More than half of the private sector worldwide works for family firms. In Asia and in Latin America, over 70% of the companies are family firms; in the US, 35% of the Fortune 500 are family-controlled firms.¹

“The collaboration between EY and the Wharton GFA will continue to drive essential research and insight around multigenerational families and their businesses. We appreciate EY’s support and look forward to working together to identify solutions for the family businesses, in turn supporting the greater good and creating economic opportunity for all,” says Erika James, Dean of the Wharton School.

“We are so grateful for this collaboration with EY, which will elevate the degree to which we can identify and address key issues that substantial multigenerational families are faced with and offer solutions to support the harmony and prosperity of families and their businesses,” says Raffi Amit, the Marie and Joseph Melone Professor at the Wharton School and founder and leader of the Wharton GFA.

For more information, visit https://www.ey.com/en_us/private-business.

About EY

EY exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets.

Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate.

Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available via ey.com/privacy. EY member firms do not practice law where prohibited by local laws. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

Ernst & Young LLP is a client-serving member firm of Ernst & Young Global Limited operating in the US.

About EY Family Enterprise

As trusted advisors to ambitious business-owning families, including more than 90% of the world’s top 500 family enterprises, EY teams have the experience and know-how to support the entire family enterprise — family members, their family business and their family office.

The EY approach to working with family enterprises is anchored in the EY Family Enterprise DNA Model. This model supports both the personal and business performance agendas of family enterprise leaders by pinpointing four key areas of focus to achieve their ambitions: family, values, business and assets. We combine our understanding of these focus areas with decades of experience working with the world’s most entrepreneurial families to create a framework for guided conversations on topics that matter most to family enterprise owners. 

EY Family Enterprise professionals can support you in identifying and optimizing the drivers that impact family businesses’ growth and longevity, preserve wealth and culture, and solidify intergenerational legacies. ey.com/familyenterprise

About the Wharton Global Family Alliance (Wharton GFA)

The Wharton Global Family Alliance is a Wharton initiative that centers on a broad set of issues faced by global families that control substantial enterprises and resources.  The Wharton GFA is globally recognized as the leading institution for the creation and dissemination of knowledge and practices of multi-generational families and their businesses.
The Wharton GFA seeks to foster the longevity, harmony, and prosperity of multi-generational, multi-branch families and their businesses. The Wharton GFA transcends boundaries to enable collaboration and effective communication between researchers and families for mutual benefit and for the benefit of society at large; it enables thought leadership, knowledge transfer, and sharing of ideas and best practices among influential families; it publishes in a range of leading academic and practitioners’ outlets cutting-edge theoretical, empirical and field research on key issues affecting families and their businesses; and it initiates, manages and participates in global forums and conferences.

¹ “Importance of Family Enterprises,” Wharton Global Family Alliance,  https://wgfa.wharton.upenn.edu/, accessed October 1, 2022. 

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.