Succession planning in family businesses

Since the announcement of the Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has been witnessing unprecedented transformation in various domains. As one the Vision’s main objectives is to achieve a long-term economic diversification, a significant role is placed on the private sector.

Speaking of the private sector in Saudi Arabia, we inevitably have to consider family businesses as they make up 63% of the private sector and make significant economic contributions to the economy – whether GDP or employment. For those familiar with research on family businesses, it is known that the rate of survival of family businesses drops significantly as the business transitions from one generation to another.

What makes family businesses unique in the Kingdom compared to other countries outside the region, is that majority are fairly young – established during the 1960s – and have either gone through one succession or none yet. As we do believe in the significance of family businesses for this country’s economy, the National Center of Family Business (NCFB) and KPMG teamed up for a two research projects on family businesses in the Kingdom; the first one on succession planning now published, with the second on conflict resolution coming soon.

The research projects took place over the course of 2022, including in-depth interviews with family business members across the country, and were led by two distinguished Saudi researchers and practitioners in the family business field namely Dr. Hanoof Abokhodair and Dr. Dalal Alrubaishi. We hope that you find this useful and our team of family business practitioners at KPMG is ready to discuss this in more detail with you.

Dr. Hanoof is the Co-Founder and the Managing Partner of the Business Family House (BFH), a boutique family business advisory firm and a Visiting Researcher at the American University of Sharjah. She worked extensively with KPMG and the National Centre for Family Businesses (NCFB) before, and earned her PhD in Management from King’s College London, with her research focusing on family businesses in Saudi. She also holds an MBA from Aston University, UK.

Dr. Hanoof Abokhodair

Managing Partner

The Business Family House

Dr. Dalal is an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Family Businesses at the College of Business Administration in Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University (PNU). She holds an MBA from Prince Sultan University and a PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Coming from a family business herself, Dalal’s research focuses on the entrepreneurial behavior, innovation, and succession planning of Saudi family businesses.

Dr. Dalal Alrubaishi

Associate Professor

Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University

KPMG Private Enterprise & Family Business

KPMG Private Enterprise & Family Business was established to focus on companies with private ownership and High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) and are typically financed by venture capital, private equity, family offices, or are standalone private entities and family businesses. When it comes to family businesses, KPMG provides services that aid, not only the operations of family businesses, but also taps into the family dynamics of business families. KPMG’s advantage depends on leveraging on its global network of professionals, ability to provide a technology enabled one stop shop of cross functional services, and expertise in serving businesses across their business lifecycle as the personal and/or family wealth grows. KPMG Private Enterprise & Family Business is the trusted adviser for a significant number of the major business families in Saudi Arabia. Being in close touch with the family business ecosystem helps the team in catering KPMG’s solutions to fit the needs of business families in the Kingdom. KPMG Private Enterprise & Family Business is also active in producing research publications and organizing periodic events in the form of summits, webinars, and discussion roundtables to discuss topics which are of great importance to Business Families such as governance, succession, NextGen, and philanthropy.

National Center for Family Business

The National Center for Family Business (NCFB) was established under the Royal Decree in 2012, as a joint initiative by the Ministry of Commerce and the Federation of Saudi Chambers. NCFB has been working on achieving its mission through providing services and communicating effectively with family businesses, government organizations, consulting firms, and the public to build an ecosystem that reinforces the sustainability of family businesses.