BFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. Founder and CEO of the FBN Ecuador chapter from 2013-2019. During this same period of time Cristina was Director of Fundación Corazones Valientes where she played a key role helping children from low-income families with cancer to not abandon their oncological treatment. She is a member of the 4th generation of a family business currently in its 6th generation and has been a member of the Carvajal Family Council for over a decade, currently serving as President of the Family Council since 2020

Kimberly A. Eddleston is the Schulze Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University. She is also a Research Fellow at Cornell University’s Smith Family Business Initiative. Professor Eddleston has been recognized as one of the world’s leading family business and entrepreneurship scholars, as noted in Small Business Economics (2024), the European Journal of Family Business (2021), and the Journal of Family Business Strategy (2022).

Her research focuses on family businesses and the careers of entrepreneurs. She is particularly known for her research exploring how the family can be a resource or a constraint to the family business and how family businesses can remain innovative across generations. Professor Eddleston has served as Associated Editor of the Journal of Business Venturing and the Journal of Family Business Strategy.

She is a Senior Editor for the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Exchange (eix.org) and the Founding Editor of FamilyBusiness.org, which has become the leading global platform dedicated to supporting family businesses. At Northeastern University, she teaches a family business course for next-generation family members and an Honors Course titled Examining Family Business Through Film.

She is also an instructor for RSM and Cornell University’s Family Office Institute, and routinely leads workshops on multigenerational communication and conflict, sustaining innovation, and the Fredo Effect. In addition, she has had varying levels of involvement in several of her family’s businesses across the real estate, construction, business services, and hospitality industries.

She is a fellow of the Family Firm Institute and the U.S. Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Her research has accumulated over 22,000 citations to date, ranking her among the world’s top 2% of scientists by Stanford University. Family Capital also recognizes her as one of the world’s top 25 family enterprise academics.

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).

Salvador de Mello is Chief Executive Officer of the José de Mello Group, a Portuguese family-owned business group with a long-standing presence in sectors such as healthcare, mobility infrastructure, chemicals and water treatment, and emerging energy-transition activities.

A member of the fifth generation of the founding family, Salvador de Mello combines a strong commitment to long-term value creation with an active ownership approach focused on professional governance, sustainability, and innovation. Under his leadership, the Group has reinforced its core businesses, pursued selective international expansion, and developed new platforms aligned with structural trends such as demographic change and the energy transition.

Salvador de Mello holds a degree in Business Administration and has built his professional career within the Group, working closely with management teams across its portfolio companies. He has played a central role in shaping the Group’s strategic direction, capital allocation discipline, and ESG agenda, while also contributing to the evolution of the family’s governance framework and the engagement of the next generation of shareholders.

He is actively involved in several business and civic initiatives in Portugal, promoting responsible entrepreneurship, ethical leadership, and the role of family enterprises in sustainable economic development.

Meher Pudumjee Chairs the Board of her family business Thermax Ltd – an innovative engineering manufacturing company in clean air, clean energy and clean water, based out of Pune, India. She is a philanthropist, loves Western classical music, sings in a choir, enjoys spending time with her family and her dog, exercises regularly and has a zest for life!!

A Masters in Chemical Engineering from the Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, Meher joined the business as a trainee engineer in 1990. Two years into the role, she and her husband Pheroz were sent to the UK, to turn around a fledgling subsidiary of the company. After successfully turning it around, they had to return to India in 1996 when Meher’s father Rohinton Aga suddenly passed away. She was elevated to the board of the company and worked in the Finance division for a couple of years after which she looked after the Air Pollution Control business and a JV in water. Both Meher and Pheroz helped and supported Anu Aga (Meher’s mother who chaired the company) to turn around Thermax in the late nineties. In restructuring the organisation and the Board, the family decided to take a non-executive role.

In 2004, when Anu decided to step down, the Board appointed Meher as Chair. She has worked alongside 3 professional CEO’s over the past 18 years (with 2 of them retiring from the company). She is passionate about conserving resources, greening the business and helping customers do the same.

She is presently on the board of Teach For India and Chairs the board of Akanksha Foundation – both NGO’s involved in education. Meher is also a director on the board of Pidilite Industries.

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.