Strategic Partners
In addition to the resources and support of the university, the FBC is proud to have five sponsor-partners who help underwrite its mission. These organizations all exhibit a high level of commitment to family-owned businesses, not only from the support they provide the FBC, but also through the services their firms offer to family-owned and other closely-held businesses. Our sponsors are:
Blackman Kallick Bartelstein, LLP
Contact Names: Dan Fensin & Barry Cain
10 South Riverside Plaza
Suite 900
Chicago, IL 60606
Telephone: (312) 207-1040
www.blackmankallick.com
Chicago’s ninth largest accounting and consulting firm with a special focus on family-owned businesses. Through the firm’s Blackman Kallick Family Business Center, more than 250 of its professionals work to integrate the breadth and depth of the firm’s family business expertise into all of the services provided to family-owned businesses, identifying and confronting business and family-related opportunities and issues, and developing strategies and solutions to meet them.
Chase
Contact Name: Douglas P. Boersma
10 South Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60603
Telephone: (312) 732-7247
www.chase.com
Based in New York and Chicago, Chase is a proven leader in middle market banking. Chase combines relationship banking for family-owned and other businesses with custom-crafted solutions to a company's credit, treasury management, investment, international, and capital market needs.
KIARA
Contact Name: Mary Deibert
435 Pennsylvania Avenue
Suite 100
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137
Telephone: (630) 534-4600
www.kiara.com
Kiara's people services are unlike any others. Kiara's recruitment process helps family businesses hire quality, high performance people who have great morale and are enjoyable to work with. Kiara® also helps businesses manage their staff through value-driven performance reviews and goal setting processes. In addition, Kiara® offers one-on-one executive and staff personal coaching. All of Kiara's services implement the principles found in extremely successful companies. These principles are described in Jim Collins' best selling book, Good to Great. In other words, Kiara® improves the bottom line of the companies that it supports.
MassMutual Financial Group - Pearre and Associates, Ltd.
Contact Name: Allen Schiefelbein
300 South Wacker Drive
Suite 800
Chicago, IL 60606
Telephone: (312) 347-1660
www.massmutual.com
MassMutual is one of the oldest, largest, and most highly rated life insurance firms in the country. The company and its agencies, such as Pearre and Associates, Ltd., sponsor more than 50 university-based family business centers and forums nationwide. They have produced a variety of educational guides, workbooks, videos, and an interactive CD-ROM on family business succession. In addition, MassMutual has sponsored the annual National Family Business of the Year Award, the Family Firm Institute, and the Family Business Specialist Certificate Program at The American College, as well as four national surveys on family businesses.
Reed Smith
Contact Name: Michael LoVallo & Matthew Petersen
10 South Wacker Drive
40th Floor
Chicago, IL 60606
Telephone: (312) 207-1000
www.reedsmith.com
Reed Smith’s Family Business Consulting team specializes in the issues facing closely held businesses. Team members are experienced in areas such as succession planning, estate planning, stock transfers and corporate structure. They are also skilled in helping families realize the importance of communication about goals, expectations, and other often unspoken agendas. Reed Smith is an international law firm that works to design customized solutions to fit a specific family business.
