Celebrating excellence in family, business, ownership, and society
IMD Global Family Business Award
Celebrating excellence in family, business, ownership, and society
Distinguishing prestigious family businesses around the world since 1996
This annual award provides a unique opportunity to promote the indispensable role family businesses play in the global economy and serves as a platform for family businesses to exchange best practices and analyze the economic backdrop.
The Award cannot exist without your active contribution to identifying exceptional companies worthy of recognition. Anyone can nominate a family business, and businesses can also nominate themselves. Call for nominations for 2023 is closed. Contact us if you wish to nominate a company for 2024.
Criteria & process
The award recognizes family businesses with excellence on the following dimensions: family, business, ownership, and society.
Eligibility criteria are:
- Multigenerational (of at least third generation)
- Large (with an annual turnover of at least USD 0.5 billion)
- International
In selecting the award winner, a panel of independent jury experts examines further aspects of the family business.
Careful consideration is given to the values of the people who run the business, including the way in which they unite their family and business interests and combine tradition and innovation while demonstrating a clear commitment to their communities.
Award process
Anyone is welcome to nominate or self-nominate. There are no costs associated with entry. IMD solicits applications from the nominated family enterprises that fit the award criteria. Families need to sign off on the application before it is considered by the award evaluation committee.
Based on the award criteria, finalists are identified by the evaluation committee composed of representatives from the IMD Global Family Business Center and FBN.
Advanced research and interviews are conducted with key family members from the finalist family businesses. An extensive report is prepared and submitted to the jury.
The award jury votes individually and anonymously. The jury is composed of members of globally leading family businesses, former Award winners, and senior expert academics within the field of family business.
The winner is contacted, and a full teaching case study accompanied by a video is developed in preparation for the Award Ceremony.
The announcement of the winner, the award ceremony, and the session with the winner takes place at the FBN Global Summit.
Award Prizes
A trophy crafted by Chopard and complimentary seats on our IMD Family Business Programs are awarded to the winner (two free seats) and finalists (one free seat). A case study and articles about the winning family business are published by IMD’s Award Director Professor Peter Vogel and the award research team.
The award trophy is crafted by Chopard, a family-run business and expert in watches and jewelry. Held between two glass plates fixed in a rock crystal base, and housed in an elegant pear wood case, the trophy features a representation of a tree, providing a powerful metaphor of the family business spirit that draws its strength from tradition to grow and develop.
Through its roots firmly planted in the ground and its branches reaching towards the sky, the tree symbolizes the stability of the family, its links to the past, present, and future, and the continuity of generations.
Jury 2022
The jury is composed of minimum six and maximum 10 members of globally leading family businesses, former award winners and senior expert academics within the field of family business.
Responsibility, authority and compensation
- Full confidentiality applies at all times for all Award activities and communications.
- Jury members receive an extensive report on finalists which they are asked to read to prepare for the annual jury meeting and anonymous online vote.
- There is no compensation for time or other expenses.
Get to know the voting members of the jury, displayed in alphabetical order
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.
Discover our non-voting members, presented in alphabetical order
CEO at The Family Business Network (FBN)
Alexis du Roy de Blicquy is the CEO of The Family Business Network (FBN), the world’s leading network run by family businesses, for family businesses, together across generations.
FBN is the world’s leading family business organization. ‘By family businesses’ and ‘for family businesses’’, FBN is a safe, shared-learning space for enterprising families to flourish across generations, through the exchange of excellent, innovative and impactful practices.
A vibrant community founded in 1989, it is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland and brings together over 4,000 business owning families – 17,000 individual members including 6,400 Next-Generation members – in 32 chapters covering 65 countries. Every year, FBN organizes 1,500+ online and face-to-face activities in its chapters, internationally, regionally or locally.
Prior to FBN, du Roy de Blicquy held senior positions in various family businesses, including at Lhoist, Verlinvest, Armonea, also at IFC (World Bank Group). For six years, he was Chairman of the Board at ToolBox, a non-profit organisation that aims to support and develop NGOs by offering professional consultancy.
He is member of the Board at Trusted Family, the leading governance platform for family offices and boards, the Advisory Council at the AITIA Institute in Singapore, and at various cultural and charitable organizations. In 2020, he was recognized as one of Family Capital’s Top 100 Family Influencers.
He holds a Master’s in management science from Solvay Business School and is an INSEAD IEP and IMD HPL graduate.
Award winners
The independent award jury of family business experts and previous award winners praised Thermax for the level of engagement with its employees, as well as its ability to navigate the delicate balance between family values and shareholders’ interests.
- 2021: Grundfos
- 2020: Brown-Forman
- 2019: Dachser
- 2018: De Agostini
- 2017: Pentland Group plc
- 2016: Jebsen & Jessen Family Enterprise
- 2015: Bavaria
- 2013: J.M. Huber Corporation
- 2012: Bel Group
- 2011: Firmenich
- 2009: The Merck Group
- 2008: Roca Corporacion Empresarial
- 2007: Yazaki Corporation
- 2006: Fundació Lluis Carulla, Ivey Foundation and Lopez Group Foundation
- 2005: Votorantim Group
- 2004: The Barilla Group
- 2003: The Bonnier Group
- 2002: The Samuel C. Johnson Family Enterprises
- 2001: The Murugappa Group
- 2000: The Zegna Group
- 1999: The Henkel Group
- 1998: Corporacion Puig
- 1997: Hermès SA
- 1996: The LEGO Group
The IMD Global Family Business Award is one of the oldest and most highly recognized family business honors in the world. For over a quarter of a century we identify and recognize outstanding enterprising families and their businesses who serve as a role model for families around the world..
We are very glad we took part in the IMD Global Family Business Award process, since some of the questions in the application form pushed us as a family to think through.
2020 was a challenging year for so many of us. And so, winning an award like this is timely encouragement to us to continue to nourish our culture, brands, people, environment, shareholders and stakeholders, for their long-term health into the next generation, and the coming decades.
Being recognized by IMD encourages us to keep building a lasting family-owned company in the direction that we have been following since its foundation. It also makes us very proud of our progress and conscious about the challenges we must face and overcome as a family in the upcoming years. As a family, we feel united by this award.
With sincere thanks to our partners
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Would you like to know more about our activities? Get in touch with our team at the IMD Global Family Business Center.