Roots & Impact – Family Business Succession Program

Succession is one of the most critical moments in the life of a family business. Yet while significant attention is paid to legal, financial, and governance aspects, the human dimension of family business succession often remains overlooked.

Roots & Impact is a six-month transformational learning journey built on a simple but powerful premise: the best way to prepare for a family business succession is to go through it. NextGen leaders and senior entrepreneurs join the program either as a team or as individuals, work on a shared entrepreneurial challenge, and return to their family business with a deeper mutual understanding of who they are as leaders and how they lead together.

Through action learning, executive coaching, and real entrepreneurship, both generations gain clarity about their leadership identity, their role in the transition, and their shared vision for the future of their enterprise.

The centerpiece of the program is the co-creation of a social enterprise in an emerging market, a genuinely new venture, built under real conditions, that challenges both generations equally and creates an experience no classroom can replicate.

Imagine a succession program in which you do not only discuss leadership transition, but also experience it through real entrepreneurial responsibility.

The program combines leadership development, coaching, peer exchange, and action learning across 3 connected modules. You begin by exploring your personal journey, values, motivations, and role within the family enterprise and examine how family dynamics, expectations, and established patterns influence leadership and succession.

You then work with a diverse group to create a real social enterprise. Using design thinking and entrepreneurial methods, you identify an opportunity, develop a viable solution, make decisions as a team, and prepare your venture for an investor pitch. This experience allows you to test new leadership behaviors outside the familiar dynamics of your own business and family.

In the final phase, you translate the experience back into your family business context. Through coaching, structured reflection, and peer feedback, you define your future contribution, strengthen intergenerational collaboration, and develop a clear action plan for the next stage of succession.

Participants take responsibility for creating tangible impact and pitch their venture to experienced investors.

Roots & Impact is designed for members of entrepreneurial families who want to navigate succession with greater clarity, confidence, and mutual understanding.

The program is especially suitable for:

Participants can attend on their own or together with a family business partner.

Admissions requirements

Roots & Impact helps you approach succession not only as a business process, but as a shared leadership journey.

You will:

The program enables you to return to your family business with a clearer sense of direction, stronger succession readiness, and the practical confidence to contribute to its next chapter.

Your company’s benefits

Certificate

Upon completion, you will be awarded a WHU Executive Education Certificate, a recognized mark of your commitment to growth, leadership, and lifelong learning, issued by one of Europe’s top business schools.

You will receive 9 ECTS credits after successfully completing the program and the exams. For ECTS credits to be granted, a proof of a Bachelor or equivalent first degree is necessary. Please find the Certificate Regulations here.