meet the team
A family business is never just a business with relatives in it. It’s two worlds woven together, the boardroom and the kitchen table, the balance sheet and the birthday dinner, and the challenges that come with that need more than technical advice. We work on the human infrastructure underneath the commercial reality: the roles, the trust, the conversations that need to happen and the support to have them well.
We don’t arrive with a fixed view of what your family should do. We create the conditions for you to work it out together, calmly and with confidence, because we believe every family has the capacity to flourish, not despite the complexity, but because of how they choose to navigate it.
meet the team
Coach | Facilitator | Family Business Adviser
Russ founded The Family Business Partnership and leads every relationship from the first conversation onward. If you work with us, Russ is who you’ll be working with.
He has over fifteen years’ experience supporting family businesses and family offices through the relational, strategic, and governance challenges that come from owning and leading together. His background in financial planning and wealth management gives him a rare comfort working across both the commercial and personal dimensions of these decisions, which is often where the real difficulty lives. He holds the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising from the Family Firm Institute, a globally recognised qualification for advisers in this field.
Russ is the architect of our Ten Principles of Flourishing framework, the foundation for how we think about what makes a family business resilient across generations. He’s also the host of the globally acclaimed Family Business Podcast and a sought-after speaker at international family business events, sharing what he’s learned with audiences around the world.
What sets Russ apart isn’t just the experience. It’s a thoughtful, plain-speaking approach and a genuine belief that every family has the capacity to flourish. He creates the conditions where families can have honest conversations and make well-considered decisions together, calmly, with care, and without judgement.
meet the team
Family Business Adviser
Alec works alongside Russ on every engagement, closely involved in the preparation and conversations that help families build clarity and alignment. He spent over ten years in his own family business, where his work on governance and purpose supported a planned, successful sale in 2025, giving him a first-hand understanding of family ownership that shapes how he supports families today.
He holds the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising from the Family Firm Institute.
Mindfulness Coach | Mentor
Martin brings twenty years of lived experience in his own family business, and a coaching and mentoring practice grounded in mindfulness. He’s the founder of the Scottish Family Business Association and one of Scotland’s most trusted voices in this space.
meet the team
We work as a team because it serves the families we work with best.
Russ leads every engagement from start to finish, so you always have one constant relationship throughout. But family business challenges touch governance, relationships, succession and leadership all at once, and meeting that requires a team approach. So Russ draws on Alec and Martin’s expertise where it adds real value, and we trust and value what each of us brings to the table.
You get continuity through Russ, and the added insight and support of a wider team, a combination we believe delivers the most for the families we work with, and lets us serve a broader range of family businesses well.
The Family Business Partnership
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