Peter Vogel

Professor of Family Business and Entrepreneurship, Director of the Global Family Business Center, and Debiopharm Chair of Family Philanthropy

Peter Vogel is Professor of Family Business and Entrepreneurship. An expert on family enterprises, he leads IMD’s work in this field as Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center and Debiopharm Chair of Family Philanthropy. He was named by Poets&Quants as one of the world’s best business school professors under the age of 40 in 2022 and included in Family Capital’s Top 100 Family Business Influencers list in both 2020 and 2022.

He works with families, owners, boards, and executives of family enterprises and family offices around the world focusing on transformations, governance, ownership and leadership succession, wealth management, fostering entrepreneurialism and innovation within the system, and on establishing professional boards and leadership teams. He does so through major transformation journeys that include custom programs, advisory work, and open programs, as well as tailored diagnostics and workshops.

Family firms comprise two-thirds of the world’s businesses. Through the work we are privileged to do with the owners, board members, and top management teams of these businesses, we believe that we can make a difference in the world by helping enterprising families and business owners make better decisions – both for themselves and their stakeholders.

The IMD Global Family Business Center aims to be the world’s leading center of excellence in the domain, and to act as a trusted learning partner for global enterprising families and a safe space where they can go for neutral advice and support. Its mission is to help enterprising families ensure family unity and business success across generations while also having a positive impact on society.

Vogel says long-term success and unity depend on having a healthy family enterprise ecosystem, so this requires a holistic approach covering the legacy family business, any new businesses, the family office and investment activities, and all aspects of what he calls “total family wealth” ­– human, social, financial, and reputational capital.

He is director of a suite of programs offered by the Center – Leading the Family Business (LFB), which was launched in 1988 as the world’s first family business program, Navigating your Family Enterprise into the future (NFE), and Leading the Family Office (LFO).

Helping with the establishment of family offices accounts for a growing share of the Center’s work, with many families now looking to transition from being a family in business to managing their private wealth through a family office structure. It is therefore working on the development of an advanced LFO program, which will act as a certification program for aspiring family officers.

Vogel is also Director of the IMD Global Family Business Award, which recognizes excellence in the art of building and managing a successful, sustainable and well-governed family-owned enterprise. The award was established in 1996 and is now seen as the most sought-after prize in the field of family business.

In addition, he is co-author of the award-winning book Family Philanthropy Navigator, the first in a planned trilogy on family businesses. The book will be followed by Family Office Navigator in 2022 and Family Enterprise Navigator in 2024.

Family Philanthropy Navigator, which offers a step-by-step guide that philanthropic families can use as they seek to make a real difference through their giving, earned praise from Beatrice Fihn, winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize and Executive Director of ICAN, and won an Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal in 2021.

Vogel has published articles in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and has written several books and book chapters as well as scientific and practitioner-oriented reports. His work is frequently referenced by leading newspapers and other media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, CNN, Huffington Post, Forbes, the Financial Times, and TechCrunch.

He is a regular conference speaker and has appeared at TEDx Lausanne, the Global Economic Symposium, the Family Matters Forum, the Family Business Network Global Summit, the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, and the St. Gallen Symposium, among others.

He is also an Associate Partner of the Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, and an alumnus of the Forum’s Global Shapers Community.

Before joining IMD in 2017, he served as Director of Custom Programs and Business Development at the Executive School of University of St. Gallen. He was previously Assistant Professor of Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen, as well as Managing Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Director of the Swiss Start-up Monitor Foundation.

Before embarking on his academic career, Vogel was an entrepreneur. He launched several ventures in the software segment and remains Chairman of the investment firm Delta Venture Partners.

Selected publications
Family philanthropy navigator
Book
Family philanthropy navigator
Family Business
Philanthropy is an important and highly rewarding way for individuals and families to make a difference in a rapidly changing world. Like the world around us, philanthropy is changing and transform...
1 December 2020
Article
From venture idea to venture opportunity
EntrepreneurshipStrategy
Opportunities are a core construct in the field of entrepreneurship. Despite recent advances suggesting the separation of ideas from opportunities, the field still suffers from conceptual deficienc...
1 November 2017
Academic publications
Case Study
Maria Ahlström-Bondestam: Together everyone achieves more (Video case)
EntrepreneurshipFamily BusinessLeadershipSustainabilityDiversity and Equity and Inclusion
This case presents the unique approach to philanthropy of the Ahlström family. A group of 25 fifth-generation female Ahlström family members founded the Eva Ahlström foundation in 2010, in the nam...
23 January 2023
Book Chapter
Finding a philanthropic focus and integrating the rising generation perspective
Family Business
It is no surprise that many families intuitively turn to philanthropy as a way for individual members to make a positive difference in the world and for the family as a whole to feel connected thro...
7 September 2022
Book Chapter
Decision making in family philanthropy
Family Business
Based on an in-depth research project in which we interviewed over 70 philanthropically active families, and on our decades of experience working with philanthropic families, we identified at least...
2 January 2022
Book Chapter
Entrepreneurship in the family business
Family BusinessEntrepreneurship
Family businesses have a hard-earned reputation for mastering the art of longevity. This may create misleading impressions of rigidity, yet some of the most established multi-generational family en...
1 December 2020
Family philanthropy navigator
Book
Family philanthropy navigator
Family Business
Philanthropy is an important and highly rewarding way for individuals and families to make a difference in a rapidly changing world. Like the world around us, philanthropy is changing and transform...
1 December 2020
Case Study
Climeworks (B): Business modeling – creating new market opportunities
SustainabilityStrategy
Climeworks took a multipronged approach when seeking markets for its end product: emissions reversal, beverages and fuel. Climeworks emissions reversal solution involved the direct physical removal...
31 December 2019
Case Study
Climeworks (A): A visionary business to help stop climate change
SustainabilityStrategy
Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher founded Zurich-based start-up Climeworks in 2009 based on technology they had developed, which they claimed would help slow the massive challenge of climate chan...
31 December 2019
Article
Family firms and CSR : The importance of the affective aspirations
Family Business
Empirical research on family firms is inconclusive about the effect of family control on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Some scholars argue that this inconclusiveness stems from the fact th...
1 December 2018
Book Chapter
Introduction: Digitalization and why leaders need to take it seriously
Technology ManagementLeadership
We are living in an era of unprecedented change and transformation. Never before have we and our cumulative knowledge evolved in such a rate as what we can observe today. Today’s leaders need to pr...
31 August 2018
Article
From venture idea to venture opportunity
EntrepreneurshipStrategy
Opportunities are a core construct in the field of entrepreneurship. Despite recent advances suggesting the separation of ideas from opportunities, the field still suffers from conceptual deficienc...
1 November 2017
Article
In vitro assessments of reverse glenoid stability using displacement gages are misleading - recommendations for accurate measurements of interface micromotion
General Management
BACKGROUND: Baseplate micromotion of the reverse shoulder glenoid component can lead to implant loosening. We hypothesized that a remotely positioned displacement gage measures elastic deformation ...
1 January 2011
Insight for Executives
Report
Navigating your family's philanthropic future across generations
Family BusinessSustainability
We live in a world of unprecedented change and transformation, in which world leaders are increasingly uncertain about how to tackle the many new challenges confronting humanity. Amid the global he...
19 December 2022
How ‘social dividend’ ensures unity down the generations
Article
How ‘social dividend’ ensures unity down the generations
Family Business
Based in Colombia, Carvajal SA is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of paper notebooks. For more than 30 years, all family members have been given free or heavily subsidized access to educat...
15 December 2022
How working for the collective good helped bring a family closer together
Article
How working for the collective good helped bring a family closer together
Family BusinessInnovationSustainability
The Ahlström family in Finland recognizes that commercial success depends not only on generating profit but also on making a positive global impact on the lives of others, write Malgorzata Smulowit...
15 December 2022
In turbulent times, family enterprises must reinvent and renew to survive
Article
In turbulent times, family enterprises must reinvent and renew to survive
Family BusinessLeadership
Family businesses have been traditionally hard-wired for longevity and stewardship, seeking to preserve and grow wealth across generations. This patient approach offers transferable lessons for all...
15 December 2022
The silent but powerful investor: The evolution of the family office
Article
The silent but powerful investor: The evolution of the family office
Family BusinessInnovationCorporate Governance
As family offices grow in popularity and expand into riskier investments, families should take a holistic view of their whole ecosystem to build a healthy future for themselves and society, argues ...
14 December 2022
Article
Enterprising families should take time to reflect on their purpose
Family BusinessEntrepreneurship
Enterprising families need to take time to reflect on their greater purpose before setting up a family office and above all should avoid being rushed into decisions by financial institutions lookin...
7 October 2022
Report
Future wealth management
Family Business
Creating the double-digit growth that family businesses need in order to ensure that the generations maintain the wealth of the business is a tall order in a world gripped by crisis. And it’s a big...
29 March 2022
China’s succession panic is a wake-up call for families everywhere
Article
China’s succession panic is a wake-up call for families everywhere
Family BusinessEntrepreneurship
Many Chinese entrepreneurs who set up businesses during the economic liberalization of the late 1970s and 1980s are nearing retirement age without a willing or well-prepared family heir. It’s a tim...
22 November 2021
Can Rockefeller, Bezos and IKEA turn the developing world green?
Article
Can Rockefeller, Bezos and IKEA turn the developing world green?
Sustainability
The welcome announcement of a multi-stakeholder philanthropic partnership to accelerate the adoption of green energy in Africa, Asia and Latin America is a bold move. But, like all philanthropy, it...
4 November 2021
Article
Impactful giving demands engaged families
Family Business
How engaged is your family with your foundation? Are they passionate about giving or do they see it as something distant or inherited, like antique furniture? Let’s take it a step further. How alig...
17 April 2021
The lost generation?
Article
The lost generation?
Family Business
Family businesses traditionally pull together to survive a crisis, but the dramatic impact of the pandemic has brought even the strongest to their knees. They will have to develop new skills to ada...
10 March 2021
Article
Esprit de Noël, esprit de famille
Family Business
In recent weeks, we have been able to feel how the intergenerational bond has been abused, by stigmatizing either the young or the old, for different reasons. Exacerbated by this crisis, this link ...
23 December 2020
Article
The nine trends of modern philanthropy
Family Business
Families gave on average $6.4 million via their family office to philanthropy over 12 months, according to The Global Family Office Report 2019 by Campden Wealth. Driven by next-gens, 26% of famili...
11 December 2020
Article
There are as many ways of doing philanthropy as philanthropists
Family Business
Over 80% of enterprising families are philanthropically active. When you think about philanthropy in the public sphere, some individuals and families are more prominent and come naturally to your m...
29 September 2020
Ensure your family business is fit for purpose in a post-COVID world
Article
Ensure your family business is fit for purpose in a post-COVID world
Family Business
There are various factors that contribute to the multi-generational success of family businesses, with six being particularly relevant: long-term perspective, financial prudence, emotional connecti...
21 July 2020
The rise of family philanthropy in times of crisis
Video
The rise of family philanthropy in times of crisis
Family Business
In an era of unprecedented transformation, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic.
16 June 2020
Daughters in Charge: A Lesson for Enterprising Families
Article
Daughters in Charge: A Lesson for Enterprising Families
Family Business
Succession in the modern era is complicated, but women may well hold the key in the family business environment!
15 June 2020
Leading in turbulent times webinar series: family businesses
Video
Leading in turbulent times webinar series: family businesses
Family Business Leadership
Resilience and adaptation, paired with an agile, holistic approach to leadership, strategy and governance, will help family businesses weather the storm.
27 April 2020
A healthy family enterprise is a balancing act
Article
A healthy family enterprise is a balancing act
Family Business
Long-lasting family businesses focus on five areas of health and well-being
7 April 2020
Article
Coronavirus has sparked an unprecedented level of philanthropy
Family Business
Coronavirus took most of us – governments, businesses and individuals – by surprise. Feelings of anxiety and fear have spread across parliaments, board rooms and our homes. But many philanthropists...
3 April 2020
The inspirational guide for philanthropic families on their giving journey