Dr Claudia Binz Astrachan has been supporting research projects and formats in practice transfer at the WIFU since 2021, focusing on the development of shareholder skills, the resilience of family businesses and instruments of family governance. In 2019, she joined the US-based firm, Keyt Consulting, as the head of governance practice. In this capacity, she worked extensively with the boards of some of the largest private family companies in the United States. Dr Binz Astrachan is a board member of the International Family Enterprise Research Academy and a former chair of the special interest group ‘Family Business Research’ at the European Academy of Management. Her research currently centres around family (business) governance and ownership competence. Born and raised in Switzerland, Dr Binz Astrachan studied business administration at the University of Berne. After graduating in 2005, she joined UBS, where she worked in marketing and business development for several years.

During the financial crisis of 2008, Dr Binz Astrachan decided to leave the banking industry and took on a research and teaching position at Lucerne Business School in Switzerland (HSLU) while simultaneously pursuing her doctorate. She earned her PhD from Witten/Herdecke University in 2014. Her summa cum laude doctoral thesis, which was supervised by the WIFU, dealt with ‘Branding the Family Business’. Even though she moved to the United States in 2013, she took over the lead of the family and business programme at the HSLU in 2014, continuing to provide research-based and peer-oriented learning opportunities for family-owned companies in Switzerland.

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