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 in 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 the director of two programs offered by the Center – Leading your Family Business (LFB), which was launched in 1988 as the world’s first family business program and Leading your 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 (2020) and the Family Office Navigator (2023).
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.
