PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES

Our Owner Director Programme aims to provide you with general management perspectives, systematic management knowledge, frameworks for strategic thinking and hands-on business leadership and management tools.
 
Our Owner Director Programme will provide an opportunity for you to:

• Expand your perspectives on strategic issues within your industry and beyond
• Learn skills and strategies from relevant cases to aid decision-making in scaling and diversification
• Share your experiences for the benefit of others
•  Forge strong relationships with your counterparts across transnational and multicultural channels
•  Acquire the key resources to guide continuous learning, improvement and corporate performance
• Test your business and strategy ideas and gather feedback in a friendly, intellectually stimulating yet challenging environment
• Conceptualize and understand how to implement the most appropriate approach to governance and succession planning

 These opportunities will equip you to learn, implement and share your new knowledge.

PROGRAMME BENEFITS

This programme is designed to help owners, stewards and directors of fast-growing and established family enterprises rethink the key business leadership, governance and management challenges they are facing, set up modern and agile management systems, and lay a solid foundation for scaling their business growth in a dynamic business landscape. It will challenge you to reach your full potential. You will gain confidence, feel reinvigorated and be ready to improve the performance and sustainability of your business.
 
By the end of the programme, participants will be able to:

1. Evaluate knowledge of human resources, organisational behaviour, marketing, finance and accounting; formulate and implement strategies pertaining to business leadership and management
2. Analyse the dynamics, challenges, and opportunities unique to African family businesses.
3. Gain a deeper understanding of the particular role of CEOs, stewards and directors, and establish constructive work relationships with employees and external stakeholders, build stewardship mindsets, and effectively engage them through negotiation, coaching and communication
4. Apply governance structures for boards, family council processes, and ownership group customs and procedures.
5. Manage succession and leadership transitions effectively.
6. Evaluate the enterprise’s readiness for continuity using diagnostic tools.
7. Balance legacy objectives with innovation, diversification, and transformation.
8. Develop a personalised Family Business Continuity Plan
9. Gain membership in the prestigious CEIBS Global Alumni Association and benefit from the international network available to members within and outside Africa

The content and curriculum of our Owner Director Programme are organised as an integrated and immersive learning process that enables you – the owner, steward or director – to engage systematically with complex strategic issues through the following 6 modules delivered across 3 cities:

PROGRAMME CONTENT

The following are 4 core areas of programming with modules that will be delivered or explored through engaging sessions, simulations & role-plays, cases, frameworks, toolkits, audits, assessments and company visits: 

1. The African Family Enterprise Landscape:  Ownership & Business Systems

• Economic significance and typologies of African family firms across regions and over time
• Informal vs. formalised family businesses, cases across multiple regions 
• Cultural influences: kinship systems, customary norms, and decision-making in business generally on the continent and in family enterprises in particular. 
• Why African family firms fail: lessons from case studies across the continent and compared to family enterprises in other parts of the world
• Roles of heirs, directors, cousins and stewards: concepts and cases 
• The Three-Circle Model and its application in African contexts
• The developmental model in the African context (from owner manager to a corporation)
• Ownership rights and responsibilities of different family enterprise stakeholders
• Gen 1–3 transitions (founder’s shadow, sibling partnerships, cousin consortia)

2. Governance, Boards, Succession Planning & Leadership Transitions

• Family constitutions and governance charters; cases and examples
• Governance structures: Family Council, Board of Directors, Advisory Boards; cases and examples 
• Role of independent directors in Africa, in contrast with the role in other regions of the world
• Director duties & fiduciary responsibilities, considering local legislation in a few regions 
• Performance management in family firms considering various roles 
• Gender dynamics and empowering next-gen daughters; cases and examples 
• Leadership pipelines for heirs and next gens; cases and examples 
• Founder succession challenges in Africa, mapping the causal factors and effects 
• Preparing heirs professionally and emotionally; assessments and coaching 
• Stewardship vs. birthright leadership for effective governance 
• Managing conflict, power, and retirement of founders, workshops and panels 

3. Strategy, Growth & Transformation and Returns - Wealth, Finance & Ownership Structures

• Competitive strategy for family enterprises: strategic thinking and strategic development, new product development 
• Diversification and professionalization in scaling family enterprises 
• Digital transformation in African companies and new opportunities for innovation 
• Scaling regionally and globally; opportunities global value chains 
• Risk management, resilience, and crisis response to disruptions 
• Family wealth management: preserving wealth across generations
• Holding companies, trusts, and legal structures in Africa compared to other strategic locations 
• Valuation of family firms to explore investment options and opportunities 
• Dividend, compensation, and liquidity policies
• Funding growth without losing family control

4. Intergenerational Relationships & Psychology of Family Firms, Stewardship, Legacy & Impact

• Trust, communication, and emotional intelligence 
• Managing conflict and difficult conversations across stakeholder groups 
• Sibling rivalry, cousin dynamics: lessons from cases across the centuries 
• Creating psychological safety in family governance
• Stewardship vs. ownership in building ian ntergenerational legacy 
• Purpose, values, and legacy narratives; cases and examples 
• Philanthropy and family impact investing: cases and examples 
• Building a multi-generational culture: cases and examples 

Europe Immersion
Arguably, there are more older family businesses in Europe than elsewhere. Hence, since CEIBS has a European presence, we leverage that to host a Europe immersion to world-class, centuries-old examples of multigenerational family enterprises of various sizes that exemplify the case studies and concepts treated in the program. Examples of family enterprises identified for visits include Ferragamo and Barilla Family enterprises in Italy, as well as The Rothschild family enterprise and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, both in France. During these trips, the class will participate in strategy and governance roundtables with family boards, intergenerational leadership workshops, facility and estate tours, and other activities. 

Executive Business Coaching
One-on-one engagement sessions with participants will focus on their personal and business growth and the sustainability of their businesses. The coaches will guide participants through professional development goals established based on assessments administered at the beginning of the program. 

Family Business Continuity Blueprint: Capestone Project 
The family business continuity blueprint provides an opportunity for companies to develop a legacy strategy document, which will allow assumptions to be tested periodically over time. Validation of these assumptions will then drive the direction of the enterprise. 
Additional Sessions
Additional experiential sessions will focus on areas of critical specialisation, such as user-centric new product development design sprints, competitive strategy simulations, negotiation role-plays, ESG workshops, and team-building exercises, among others.     
 
Expositional Session on Doing Business in China
This session will focus on insights into doing business in China to be followed by an open enrollment study trip to China the following year.

CEIBS DIFFERENTIATOR

Before, during and after the 6 modules, we have designed and arranged a series of extra-curricular activities that demonstrate the practice-orientation of the programme in line with the executive education ideas of the International Master in Practising Management (IMPM). These include:

• Company Visits – Immerse yourself in businesses that address your key challenges
• Alumni Dinners – Network with our prestigious alumni and shape your next deal
• Learning through Reflection - Break away from your entrenched position and mindset through questioning, analyzing, discussing and sharing
• Learning Log – Use an effective way of systematic thinking and discovery
• Reflection Paper - Synthesize the knowledge gained from the programme to create a workable action plan that will be implemented in your business after the programme ends
• One-on-one executive business coaching

ADMISSION PROCEDURE

Africa Family Business Summit (AFBS)
AFBS will support marketing and recruitment through its network. AFBS will advise on feasible targets

Admissions 

• Interview: After receiving the Application Form, we will contact the applicant as soon as possible for an interview
• For those who pass the interview, the CEIBS Admissions Office will send them a Letter of Provisional Acceptance and a Payment Notice
• Priority for the Letter of Acceptance shall be determined by the date of receipt of payment

Given space limitations, CEIBS reserves the right to stop accepting applications or transfer applications to the next cohort of the same programme. Generally, the application must be completed at least 20 days prior to the programme start date. All application forms are examined in order of submission, and the seats will be confirmed based on the Letter of Acceptance. Applications received less than 20 days prior to the programme start date will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Post Programme Engagement with Partner 
Our partner, Ravens Consulting, will manage the Family Enterprise Assessment Tool and report results to CEIBS for participant development. It will also support the participants’ post-graduation on a consulting basis without the participation of CEIBS.

ODP 2026 SCHEDULE

PROGRAMME FEES 

The programme fee is US$6,000 (excluding the post programme China immersion module) and is payable in installments.

Your programme fee includes tuition, course materials, case licensing fees, certificate, accommodation when outside your country of residence, breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks. The fee does not cover your flights.

Cost of post programme China immersion module to be confirmed later.

CANCELLATIONS

Any cancellation made 15 days or more prior to the programme start date is eligible for a full refund of programme fees paid. However, the expenses arising therefrom shall be on the account of the applicant or his/her employer. Any cancellation made less than 15 days prior to the programme start date shall be subject to a fee of 20 percent of the total programme fee. After the programme starts, no fees shall be refunded for participants who withdraw from the programme for any reason.

NEXT STEPS

To take your place in the Owner Director Programme, here are a number of things you can do:

• Complete and send in the application form
• Reserve a Place by emailing your name, mobile number and country of residence to africaprogram@ceibs.edu.cn
• Call any of the following numbers:
  +233 54 431 5238 / +233 54 012 0402 (Ghana)
  +234 810 917 1190 / +234 706 810 5054 (Nigeria)