Prof. Dr Tom A. Rüsen heads the non-profit WIFU Foundation as CEO. At the same time, he is the managing director of the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU), an honorary professor of the economics faculty of the Witten/Herdecke University and a visiting professor at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. His research, teaching activities and publications focus on the investigation of conflict and crisis dynamics in families and companies of family businesses and the development of practical solution concepts for the creation of resilience structures within business families. As part of his coaching and consulting work, he accompanies succession processes, conflict and crisis situations and the development of family strategies and family-internal (self-) management systems. He also designs and teaches open and in-house programmes for promoting ownership competence in business families.

He is a member of the Commission for the Governance Code for Family Businesses and the editorial advisory board of the Magazine for Family Businesses and Strategy. In 2020 and 2022, he was recognised by Family Capital as one of the world’s top 100 family influencers in the ‘Academics’ category. Prof. Dr Tom Rüsen is the father of two children.

Main areas of work, research and interest

• Conflict and crisis management in family businesses
• Structural risks in family businesses
• Mental models in business families
• Interim management in family businesses
• Innovation in family businesses
• Advising family businesses
• Dynamics in business families (particularly succession arrangements, family strategies and management systems and coaching family members)

LinkedIn profile of Tom Rüsen

Research Gate profile of Tom Rüsen

Google Scholar profile of Tom Rüsen

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