Welcome
Authors @ Drucker is an interview series featuring topics relevant to students, alumni and friends of the Drucker School that are curious about issues surrounding multi-generational family businesses and family wealth.
Season 1 will feature authors that cover topics like business succession, innovation, conflict management, generational dynamics and more. You’ll learn the stories of some of the most successful business-owning families in the world.
Our Sponsor
Authors @ Drucker is sponsored by The James E. Hughes, Jr. Foundation. Rooted in Jay Hughes’ landmark Five Capitals research, The James E. Hughes, Jr. Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the field of family governance and generational well-being.
Upcoming Events



Russ Alan Prince & Bob Daugherty – How to Build a High-Performing Single-Family Office: Guidelines for Family Members and Senior Executives
june 15, 2023
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Russ Alan Prince is one of the most published authors on the topic of private wealth. He has completed work on 40 books covering a range of subjects from investor psychology to luxury spending, from understanding the middle-class millionaire to the political philosophies of the super-rich. His body of work is regularly consulted by affluent individuals and families, elite advisors, family offices, private bankers, wealth managers, academics and the press. Collectively, the cache of research-based insights within Prince’s publications is the most complete empirical analyses in the field and the largest, most comprehensive database on the topic.
Robert C. Daugherty served as the Dean of the Forbes School of Business and Technology and is a Professor of Strategy and Finance. Having served on over two dozen corporate boards, he regularly advises private equity firms, institutional investors, and family offices on mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. He writes a regular column for Forbes China on investing and leadership.
Whitney Johnson – Disrupt Yourself: Master Relentless Change and Speed Up Your Learning Curve
July 20, 2023
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Whitney Johnson is the CEO of Disruption Advisors, a leadership development company. She was named a 2021 Top #10 Business Thinker by Thinkers50, and is a globally recognized thought-leader, keynote speaker, executive coach, and consultant. Johnson shares her passion for personal disruption through her keynote addresses, lectures at Harvard Business School’s Corporate Learning, and her Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship LinkedIn Learning course. She is the author of the award-winning books How to Build an A Team, Disrupt Yourself, and Dare, Dream, Do, and a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. Johnson also hosts the Disrupt Yourself podcast, which is ranked in the top .5% of listenership for all podcasts.
A former award-winning Wall Street equity analyst, Johnson understands how companies work, how investors think, and how the best coaches coach, all of which she brings to her work.
Jay Hughes – The Cycle of the Gift: Family Wealth and Wisdom
august 17, 2023
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James (Jay) E. Hughes, Jr., Esq., is the author and co-author of numerous books like Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family and Family – The Compact Among Generations, and The Voice of the Rising Generation. He maintains a variety of roles, such as being a member of the Advisory Board of Arlington Partners, the Chair Emeritus and Chair of the Distribution and Beneficiary Life Enhancement Committee of Lineage Trust Company, and a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute.
Hughes is a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia School of Law. He is a counselor to the Family Office Exchange and recipient of its Founder’s Award, the Private Asset Management Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ackerman Institute Family Partner Award, and the Family Wealth Report Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2021, The James E. Hughes, Jr. Foundation (JEHJF) was founded – in his honor and as a gift to him – to advance the field of family wealth management and generational well-being. Rooted in his landmark Five Capitals research, the JEHJF is designed to spread the spirit of Hughes to as many individuals that have this desire.
Karen Dillon – How Will You Measure Your Life?
september 21, 2023
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Karen Dillon is the co-author of the three books with Clayton Christensen, including New York Times best-seller How Will You Measure Your Life?, and the forthcoming (April 2023) The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems–and What to Do about It with Rob Cross. She is also co-author of Wall Street Journal business best-seller Competing Against Luck: the Story of Innovation and Customer Choice and The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty (Thinkers50 finalist, Breakthrough Idea, 2019).
A former editor of Harvard Business Review, Karen is also the Editorial Director of BanyanGlobal. BanyanGlobal is a group of Family Business Advisors that brings together deeply-integrated, multi-disciplinary expertise in family, business, finance, ownership, and philanthropy.
Past Events
Dennis Jaffe – Borrowed From Your Grandchildren: The Evolution of 100-Year Family Enterprises
September 15, 2022
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Dennis Jaffe, a member of Wise Counsel Research, is a San Francisco-based advisor to families about family business, governance, wealth and philanthropy. He is author of Borrowed From Your Grandchildren: The Evolution of 100-Year Family Enterprises, Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations, Stewardship in your Family Enterprise: Developing Responsible Family Leadership Across Generations, and Working With the Ones You Love. His global insights have led to teaching or consulting engagements in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.
The Family Firm Institute awarded him the 2017 International Award for service, and in 2005 he received the Beckhard Award for service to the field. In 2020 he was awarded a special commendation as an individual thought leader in the field of wealth management by the Family Wealth Report. He has a BA degree in Philosophy, MA in Management, and PhD in sociology, all from Yale University, and is professor emeritus of organizational systems and psychology at Saybrook University in San Francisco.
Mircea Raianu – Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism
october 20, 2022
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Mircea Raianu is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maryland and teaches courses on South Asia, the Indian Ocean world, and the history of global capitalism. He is affiliated with the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets at the Robert H. Smith Business School, and co-organizes the Histories of Global Capitalism Forum (HGCF) in the Department of History.
Raianu is a historian of modern South Asia. His primary research and teaching interests are capitalism and economic life. He is currently writing a series of related articles about India’s economy that include topics such as the transition from trade to industry in the context of global financial crises and the intellectual history of Indian capitalism during the interwar period. He has a PhD in History from Harvard University and a BA in History from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jim Grubman – Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations
november 17, 2022
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Jim Grubman is a Boston-based family advisor who has worked with individuals, couples, and families of wealth for over 30 years. He is the author of Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth across Generations and the co-author (with Dennis Jaffe) of Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations. His work has been featured in print, online, and television media, and speaking engagements in wealth management and family dynamics. Recently, Grubman and Jaffe received the prestigious 2021 Family Wealth Report Award for Outstanding Contribution to Thought Leadership.
Grubman is also active in the UHNW Institute, where he oversees content and curriculum development for the industry and families. He is a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute and the Purposeful Planning Institute, and a member of the Boston Estate Planning Council and the internationally-based Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). Grubman has a PhD in Psychology from the University of Vermont and a MA from the University of Michigan.




Tom McCullough is the Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of Northwood Family Office. Northwood, the leading multi-family office in Canada, was established in 2003 to provide integrated and holistic family office services to Canadian families of wealth. He has spent over 35 years in the wealth management family office field and was awarded Best Individual Contribution to Thought Leadership in the Wealth Management Industry (North America) by the 2020 Family Wealth Report Awards.
McCullough is an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Western University’s Ivey School of Business. He has an MBA from York University and the CIM (Chartered Investment Manager) and CIWM (Certified International Wealth Manager) designations.


Kristin Keffeler – The Myth of the Silver Spoon: Navigating Family Wealth & Creating An Impactful Life
march 16, 2023
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Kristin Keffeler, MSM, MAPP is a thought leader, writer, and speaker at the forefront of a global shift in family wealth advising, known as Wealth 3.0. She is the founder and principal for Illumination360 and the Chief Learning Officer for the Johnson Financial Group, a multi-family office and wealth management firm based in Denver. As a consultant, she guides affluent and enterprising families, rising gen, and the professionals who support them in embracing the positive power of wealth and doing the “inner work” of money. Her recent publishing credits include Harvard Business Review, Trusts and Estates Magazine, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Scholarly Commons.
Keffeler has a Master’s in Business Management with a concentration in Public Health from the University of Denver and a Master’s in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.


Trudy Cathy White – A Quiet Strength: The Life and Legacy of Jeannette M. Cathy
April 20, 2023
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Trudy Cathy White is a native Georgian and the only daughter of Jeannette M. and S. Truett Cathy, the founders of Chick-fil-A, Inc. She began working for the family business when she was 19 years old, becoming the youngest restaurant operator at that time. Although she just finished her first year at Samford University, her father believed in her and handed her the keys. White took a year off from school to run the restaurant and, in that time, hired fellow Samford student and future husband John White. She currently serves as an ambassador for the family business, attending new restaurant openings and other corporate events.
As a mother to four and grandmother to sixteen, White lives to serve and love others. She recognizes that our attitudes, faith systems, and habits are tied to the values we are taught as children.


Jamie Weiner – The Quest for Legitimacy: How Children of Prominent Families Find Their Unique Place in the World
may 18, 2023
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Jamie Weiner, Psy.D., a psychologist, is co-founder (along with Russ Haworth, a family business adviser) of Quest for Legitimacy, a series of intimate conversations with the rising generation of prominent families from around the world. It started with one simple question: “What is it like growing up in the land of giants?” The mission is to support those raised in prominent families to successfully break through their felt isolation and navigate their quest for legitimacy.
Weiner, whose work is focused on promoting different populations to rise above their circumstances, also runs Inheriting Wisdom with his wife, Carolyn Friend, Psy.D., helping families address the problems that exist behind the money or family businesses. Weiner and Friend are coauthors of The Legacy Conversation: The Missing Gem in Wealth Planning. In addition, Weiner is a fellow of the Family Firm Institute (FFI), where he has served on the global board and chaired the editorial board of its online publication.