Owning a family business is not just a privilege. It carries obligations, too. You do not inherit just a business. You also inherit the entrepreneurial responsibility that goes along with it. We help you to exercise this responsibility in an optimal way. We work with you to develop the right concepts and solutions. We also assist you with their implementation. Competently. Expertly. Independently. And on the basis of a superior methodology.

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Be a successful business owner

All family business owners want to be successful and do the right thing, no matter the role or situation in which they find themselves. By developing the INTES Principle a full 20 years ago, Peter May has created a concept with which you can optimize your own business achievements while suitably balancing the four major spheres of activity of any family business owner – company, family, assets and yourself. We would be pleased to work with you on your individual owner strategy.

With our skilled and experienced support, we also help you to take all practical steps to improve your personal business achievements – whether through coaching and training, as your right hand for key decisions and negotiations or by preparing you in stages for a new role.

More about the INTES Principle

Successful Succession

Succession is the supreme discipline for a family business. It is difficult, complex and highly emotional. With the help of our succession strategy based on the INTES Principle, we work with you to develop the right succession concept …

… and accompany you during important stages in its implementation, such as

• Preparing successors for their business tasks in a targeted manner
• Preparing seniors for a change in role
• Creating and implementing emergency plans (powers of attorney, etc.)
• Dealing with executor mandates
• Ensuring what is intended is optimally implemented in terms of the legal and tax implications (through our legal colleagues)

The right Owner Strategy and Good Governance

The right owner strategy and good governance are key to family businesses that create value for generations. Peter May is considered a pioneer and inventor within these disciplines. He was the first to come up with family constitutions and laid the theoretical foundations for their professional elaboration with the Inhaberstrategiehaus® (owner strategy house) and Governance Code for Family Businesses. We use these as the basis for developing with you the owner strategies, family constitutions and governance concepts that work for your family and business.

We support you during all of the key implementation steps, such as

• Establishing and implementing shareholder qualification programs
• Finding the right structure and people for the necessary governance bodies (e.g. advisory boards, shareholder committees, family management)
• Assuming advisory board and other governance mandates
• Supporting staff selection decisions (e.g. for management or advisory board positions)
• Preparation for and familiarization with new roles (e.g. as a family or non-family managing director, advisory board chairperson, etc.)
• Taking all of the steps needed for a legally correct implementation (e.g. contracts, internal regulations, etc.) with the support of our legal colleagues.

Peaceful Conflict Resolution

When family and business are combined, disputes can arise. How much economic and emotional value is then destroyed depends to a large extent upon how well conflict is managed within the respective family and the expertise of the professionals that support this.

Our experienced mediators are masters of peaceful dispute resolution – without media or court attention, ensuring everybody saves face so that harmony can be restored. If you are not interested in winning or destruction, then you have come to the right place.

Prof. Dr. Peter May

Peter May is considered a trailblazing pioneer in owner strategy within family businesses. With his call for an independent approach to business administration for family businesses and his development of a comprehensive consulting methodology, along with his groundbreaking initiatives, countless publications, lectures and training activities at home and abroad and well over one hundred successful consulting projects with leading family businesses, he has acquired a reputation for being the “man who understands families” (Handelsblatt) and “Germany’s number one family business consultant” (Family Capital).

Dr. Karin Ebel

Karin Ebel has been working with Peter May since 2000. Her practical experience with owner strategy, governance and succession processes is almost second to none. As a lawyer and tax consultant, she often helps to guide these processes through to their legal implementation. This successful consultant embodies the perfect symbiosis of theory and practice: as a member of a business family with family businesses and a family office, she has first-hand experience of practically all matters of interest to her clients.

Dr. Arno Lehmann-Tolkmitt

Arno Lehmann-Tolkmitt, an experienced owner strategy consultant and mediator, is the prototype of a family advisor. He uses his very personal blend of expertise, experience and intuition to establish a link with all stakeholders. By clearly explaining factual issues and facilitating discussion around conflict, he produces good outcomes from even complex setups. His preferred activities include engaging in stimulating owner strategy processes, preparing the next generation for their future responsibilities and providing long-term support to owner families. His actions are always guided by the motto: “Anticipate, don’t procrastinate, and clarify, don’t quarrel.”

Dr. Matthias Händle

Matthias Händle is the business owner within the PETER MAY Family Business Consulting team. After many successful years at the helm of his in-laws’ family business, he decided after its sale that he would like to pass on the skills and experience he had acquired to other family business owners in the future. As a sparring partner, coach and advisory board member, Matthias Händle knows exactly what he’s talking about, from finding the right owner strategy to preparing for or adapting to a new role.

Dr. Dominik von Au

Dominik von Au is considered one of the leading experts on family businesses and the “top advisor to the succession generation in our country” (Manager Magazin 10/20). For more than fifteen years, he has assisted entrepreneurial families in drafting family constitutions and succession paths, among other things, as well as in advising on strategic issues from the shareholder perspective. In addition, he often ensures implementation as an active member of the advisory board in family businesses and family offices and is a sought-after sparring partner for the “NextGen” of family entrepreneurs.

Karin May

With her multiple professional qualifications – as a lawyer, mediator and systemic coach – Karin May is particularly successful in the area of conflict prevention and resolution, as a coach in difficult decision-making situations (especially for female successors) and as a project manager in owner strategy, governance and succession processes. It is often she who names the “elephant in the room” and actively contributes to positive treatment of it.

Dieter Jeschke

Dieter Jeschke’s career to date boasts an unusual combination of complementary expertise and experience gained initially as the eponymous partner in a renowned boutique law and tax firm for family businesses, then as the CEO of a listed investment holding company in family ownership, and finally as an owner strategy consultant and mediator for difficult cases. With his unique blend of intellectual brilliance, human touch and personal restraint, he finds solutions even where others have long since stopped looking.

Martina Reischmann

As a member of the sixth generation of a traditional family-run business from southern Germany, Martina Reischmann is familiar with the dynamics at play in owner families and the various aspects of succession from a personal perspective. Martina Reischmann translates her experience from her own family-run business, as a manager in the field of human resources and as a business coach, as well as her academic background as an Executive Master for Family Entrepreneurship, into providing guidance and support in succession processes.

Amelie Eichblatt

Amelie Eichblatt’s work focuses on supporting family businesses in succession and conflict situations. To implement sustainable changes, she develops owner strategies and family constitutions with entrepreneurial families. The certified business mediator started working with entrepreneurial families at the private bank Berenberg in Hamburg, where she headed the Competence Centre for Entrepreneurs and the Next Generation until the end of 2018. Afterwards, she became a sparring partner for the Next Generation of numerous family businesses as a Family Governance Consultant at PwC. Amelie Eichblatt joined PETER MAY Family Business Consulting as a junior partner in January 2022.

Dr. Katja Portz

In her work with entrepreneurial families, owner strategy consultant and business mediator Katja Portz combines a structured approach with a high degree of empathy and thus creates a basis of trust in a short time, which helps to tackle even difficult issues at the root. In addition to optimising management and control systems, she accompanies family businesses in succession and conflict situations and develops owner strategy processes and family constitutions together with them. Katja Portz challenges by posing key questions and thereby creating new perspectives and opportunities. Her intuition for the dynamics within shareholder groups helps her to promote an open and trusting cooperation amongst family members addressing difficult issues.

Benedikt Kastrup

Benedikt Kastrup is a partner at the Bielefeld-based auditing firm HLB Stückmann and, as a network partner, contributes his expertise to consulting mandates of PETER MAY Family Business Consulting. He is a certified public accountant and tax adviser and has been supporting family businesses and their shareholders on tax, accounting and business management matters for more than 25 years. His work as a systemic process consultant, mediator, moderator and coach complements his expertise in tax and business management. He thus combines the best of both worlds and can offer owner families comprehensive support – from tailor-made tax and business management solutions through to advice on change and succession processes, corporate crises and personal development.

Dr. Joke Bahadir

Joke Bahadir supports our partners in owner strategy, governance and succession processes, but she is particularly passionate about teaching. As a lecturer on shareholder qualification programs, the part-time university lecturer is truly in her element. She had already acquired the tools needed two decades ago – as an assistant in the lectures given by Peter May.

Regine Wieland

Regine Wieland supports our partners in owner strategy and succession processes. With her natural ability to quickly build individual trust, she can reach all stakeholders at an emotional level. Through her genuine interest in people, the lawyer manages to bring to light hidden issues essential to the process and integrate them appropriately. As a mediator and systemic coach with many years of risk management experience, she combines a structured approach with a high degree of empathy.

Ursula Merckle

Ursula Merckle complements our team structures as a psychologist and member of a crisis-proven business family. Accordingly, she approaches the demanding and often emotionally charged issues and conflicts within business families in a professional, solution-oriented and empathetic manner. Within interwoven family-company-shareholder systems, she maintains a psychological view of the risks and opportunities and asks the appropriate questions. She uses her background experience to guide business families, family businesses and individual family members towards the right solutions together.