Dennis Jaffe

Dennis helps large, global families manage personal and organizational issues that lead to successful and fulfilling transfer of businesses, wealth, values, commitments and legacies between generations.

As both an organizational consultant and clinical psychologist, he is one of the architects of the emerging field of family enterprise consulting. He is a family business fellow at the Cornell Johnson College of Business. He was recently cited by Family Wealth Report for special commendation as an individual thought leader. As a founding member of the Family Firm Institute, he has served on their board, written frequently for their journal Family Business Review, and was awarded the Richard Beckhard and International Awards for contributions to practice. In 2007 he was Thinker in Residence for S. Australia, helping the region design a strategic plan for the future of their entrepreneurial and family businesses.

Dennis is the author of the new book Borrowed from Your Grandchildren: The Evolution of 100-Year Family Enterprises; as well as Cross-Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations; and Stewardship of Your Family Enterprise: Developing Responsible Leadership Across Generations, and more than 15 other management books, including Getting Your Organization to Change, Rekindling Commitment, Take This Job and Love it! and From Burnout to Balance. He is the co-creator of the Family Enterprise Assessment Tool (FEAT, The Values Edge, the Transition Curve, and other tools for assessment of family enterprise success.

In 1984 he founded Changeworks Global, a consulting firm in San Francisco, which works with organizations for long-term change to build competitive advantage by unleashing the power of their employees. He was a founder of MemeStreams, which pioneered the use of on-line executive development tools. In 1990-92 he served as Deputy Director of Research for the Macarthur Foundation Network on Healthy Companies. He is emeritus professor of Organizational Systems and Psychology at Saybrook University in San Francisco.

Specialties: Family business consultation, family dynamics in relation to family wealth advising, family business governance, succession and transition, family philanthropy and social entrepreneurship