Management ConsultancyService
Family business governance
How the family makes decisions, kept separate from what it signs.
Kaelo Global is a Dubai company licensed in Meydan Free Zone, with over 100 clients served so far.
At a glance
What it is
How the family decides is operating design. What it signs is legal work. We are clear about which side of that line we work on.
A principal, Kaelo Global management consultancy
Family business governance work divides clearly, and the division is a licensing boundary as well as a professional one. How a family makes decisions, including its forums, roles, employment policy and meeting routine, is operating design. What the family signs, owns or owes is legal and tax work. We do the first and refer the second, and we are careful about where the line falls, because a single sentence in the wrong place can cross it.
Family business governance becomes important when a business grows, when a new generation joins or when ownership and management decisions start to overlap. We listen to family members individually, design forums with clear responsibilities, help write a family employment policy and support the first meetings, so the new arrangements are practised as well as written down.
We work quietly and privately with family businesses in the Gulf and South Asia, alongside the family's own legal and tax advisers.
What's included
Six areas of scopeForums and their design
Which bodies exist, who sits on each, what each decides and how often they meet. Many family governance difficulties begin as forum problems before they become relationship problems.
Decision rights across owners, board and executives
These three roles often blur in family businesses, and the blurring is usually a source of conflict. Separating them on paper is the first step towards separating them in practice.
Family employment policy
Entry criteria, requirements for outside experience, performance review and exit. It should be written before it is needed, because writing it during a disagreement is very difficult.
The charter as a statement of process
A family charter is useful as a statement of values and an agreed way of making decisions. It does not replace the constitutional documents, and treating it as if it did can cause serious difficulty later.
Preparing the next generation
Practical steps for introducing younger family members to the business, including roles, mentoring and how they gain experience before taking on responsibility.
Communication with the wider family
A simple routine for keeping family members who do not work in the business informed, which reduces misunderstandings and builds trust.
How the work runs
Listening round
Individual, private conversations with family members before any group session.
Forum and decision design
Which bodies to establish, what each one decides and how often it meets.
Policy drafting
Employment, entry and review policies written as processes, without legal effect.
First cycles run alongside you
Governance holds once it has been practised, so we support the first meetings in person.
When to come to us
- 01A second or third generation is joining the business.
- 02Ownership and management decisions are being made in the same conversation.
- 03You need a family employment policy before the next family member joins.
- 04Family members have different expectations about dividends, roles or the future of the business, and there is no agreed forum to discuss them.
What we do not do
- Advising on whether a charter can be enforced against the constitutional documents. The constitutional documents prevail, and any view on enforceability is legal advice.
- Shareholder agreements, trusts, foundations, wills or succession documents.
- Questions about tax residency or how the family's holdings are arranged. Those belong with your tax advisers.
- Investment mandates or investment policy statements.
Common questions
