IMD Global Family Business Award

Fabian Bonnier, winner of the 2003 IMD Global Family Business Award, is a seventh generation member of the Bonnier family and CTO at SF Anytime.

After graduating from The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, he started his career outside of the family company and in 2007 co-founded the internet advertising company VideoPlaza. After a year, Fabian moved away from the startup environment to work for the global telecom company Ericsson for three years as a sales manager in Sweden, Argentina, and Italy.

In early 2011, Bonnier left Ericsson and entered into the daily operation of the family businesses as a business developer at SF Consumer Entertainment (film distributor and chain of cinema theaters in the Nordics). Today, he holds the position of CTO at SF Anytime, the video-on-demand initiative from SF Consumer Entertainment (an internet streaming service in the Nordics and the Baltics).

Besides the daily work within the Group, Bonnier is active as a board member at the Swedish Family Business Network. He is also an active member within the Bonnier Family Foundation.

Ramia Marielle El Agamy is CEO and Co-Founder at Orbis Terra Media, a global content marketing agency and award-winning magazine publisher.

She began her entrepreneurial career in 2008 as the founder and editor-in-chief of Tharawat Magazine, a publication for family businesses and entrepreneurs. Together with her family, she grew the magazine into a globally renowned title that garners hundreds of thousands of readers.

In 2014, El Agamy helped found the content initiative Women in Family Business in response to the lack of diversity in the family enterprise conversation.

In 2016, she expanded Orbis Terra Media by adding content marketing services focused on enabling brands to strengthen their positioning through data-driven content strategies.

El Agamy also serves as strategic support to her family’s non-profit organisation, Tharawat Family Business Forum, a leading network and educational initiative promoting the sustainability of family enterprises in the Middle East and North Africa, and, in 2022, she joined the Board of Trustees at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, UK.

As host of the podcasts The Family Business Voice and Women in Family Business, El Agamy is dedicated to bringing the power of content and technology to individuals and organisations to unlock their growth.

She holds an MSc in International Business and Management from Alliance Manchester Business School (UK).

Judy Green is president of the Family Firm Institute (FFI), an international association of individuals and organizations who advise and study family enterprise.

She is a co-author of The Effects of Goal Orientation and Client Feedback on the Adaptive Behaviors of Family Enterprise Advisors (Family Business Review, September 2013), and her article “Four Aesthetic Models for Relevant Research in the Field of Family Enterprise” appeared in Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise (Emerald Books, August 2010).

A frequent commentator in the field, she was the technical editor of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Successful Family Business.

A recipient of the FFI Barbara Hollander Award, Judy holds a PhD in aesthetics and education from Marquette University as well as a CSS certificate from Harvard University.

Marie-Christine Jaeger-Firmenich is a third generation member of the Firmenich family, owners of Firmenich, the world’s largest privately-owned fragrance and taste company (and winner of the 2011 IMD Global Family Business Award).

Her professional career started outside of the firm at The Dow Chemical Company, where she was responsible for modernizing the procurement of information before the internet existed. She went on to join SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute) where she spent two years doing market research for the chemical and allied industries.

Then, together with her husband, she started IDONIS, a company that specialized in research, procurement, and information and library management services for the chemical and allied industries. She was also the Financial Times Online Division’s sole agent for Switzerland, where she successfully increased sales of FT’s online products by 25% for five consecutive years. She has also served on a number of boards, including GESREP SA and Sentarom.

Jaeger-Firmenich is a family board member. She also serves on the board at International Partners Limited and is president at ROBMAR, a foundation she created in memory of her parents, Robert E Firmenich and Marie-Louise Firmenich-Brand.

She enjoys swimming, tennis, skiing, reading, Asian art and has a special interest in animals.

She earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemistry at the University of Geneva.

Heinrich Jessen is chairman and principal partner at Jebsen & Jessen, a diversified ASEAN industrial group. He is also partner and director of the five independent business groups that make up the Jebsen & Jessen Family Enterprise, winner of the 2016 IMD Global Family Business Award.

Jessen started his career as a tropical biologist before joining the family enterprise in 1995. At Jebsen & Jessen Group he has worked as group director for environment, health & safety, general manager of two of the group’s packaging companies, and regional managing director of its material handling joint-venture MHE-Demag. He has been chairman of Jebsen & Jessen’s executive board since 2010.

He is a member of the Eastern Asia Review Commission at Air Liquide International and a member of the Steering Committee at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is also a member of the Managing Board at the Journal of Industrial Ecology (MIT Press) and sits on the Board of Governors at the United World College of South East Asia, Singapore.

Heinrich was educated at George Washington University and Yale University.

Andy Rubin is Chair at Pentland Brands Ltd, a director at the Pentland Group plc, and non-executive director at JD Sports Fashion Plc. He is the third generation to lead the family’s brand management business.

Pentland, winner of the 2017 IMD Global Family Business Award, is a UK based, private family-owned company operating in sports, outdoor, and fashion. The Group owns global brands Speedo, Canterbury, Berghaus, Ellesse, Endura, and Mitre and is the global footwear partner for Lacoste and Karen Millen and is the majority shareholder in JD Sports Fashion plc, an international multichannel retailer in sports, outdoor, and fashion operating 2,500 stores and numerous online businesses.

As well as the 2017 IMD Global Family Business Award, Pentland has won the following:

• 2017 – EY Best Family Business in the UK
• 2014 – Campden Best European Family Business
• 2008 – IFB Best Family Business in UK

Rubin is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and a Companion of the British Academy of Management. He is Vice President and Executive Board Member of the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry.

He is also Chair of the Dean’s Council at Lancaster University Management School and an Honorary Professor in the Department of Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation. In addition, he is a Family Advisory Council Member for the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford’s research programme examining the benefits of corporate purpose.

Rubin is involved in numerous charities and is a Trustee of In Kind Direct, the UK’s leading redistribution charity and an Ambassador for Leaders Quest.

He read Law at Trinity College, Cambridge University and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Risto Väyrynen is founder of The Impact Office and a fourth-generation entrepreneur currently serving as Chair at his family’s artisanal bakery business in Finland.

Väyrynen has co-founded several start-ups, is an avid impact investor in early stage companies, and has held C-suite and board level positions throughout his career. He also serves as an Ambassador for the Family Business Network International, where he is a passionate advocate of Family Business Sustainability, and he previously led the development of the international Next Generation community as Vice-President of the Next Generation Committee.

He graduated from Family Business Executive MBA program from EDHEC Business School in Lille.

John Ward is Clinical Professor of Family Enterprise and Co-director of the Center for Family Enterprises at Kellogg School of Management.

He teaches and studies family continuity planning, leadership, ownership, governance and philanthropy, and is the author or co-author of several leading books on family business. Over the years, has led courses at IMD, HKUST, WHU, ISB, IESE and other business schools.

Ward graduated from Northwestern University (BA) and Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA and PhD). Currently he serves on four boards in North America, China, Europe, and the Middle East.