About us
Thanks to cooperation with foreign universities, academic research and our consulting practice, we help owners and successors from family businesses to transfer family business from one generation to another through:
- specialized courses,
- tailored education and development programs,
- consulting and coaching services focused on the development of competencies needed for the administration and management of family business and property (i.e. responsible ownership).
Helping business families keep business their advantage
Tens of thousands of families run businesses in the Czech Republic, much more worldwide. Their success is often built on long-term vision, responsibility, and shared values passed down from one generation to the next. For many of them, business is more than work — it’s part of their identity and a way to care for the people they love.
Our goal is to help families keep this advantage. We support them through succession strategy, setting up clear agreements, and finding balance between family life and business needs. We share real-world experience and proven practices so that business can remain a source of prosperity and stability — for generations to come.
The leading voices behind the Centre for Family Business
Prof. Jiří Hnilica, Ph.D. and Martin Jurek, Ph.D. work as a close-knit team leading courses at the Centre for Family Business and advising family firms through one-on-one consultations. Over time, they have developed their own proven approach to guiding business families through succession and other key moments in their development.
Jiří Hnilica
Expert in the strategy and management of family businesses. In 2016, he founded the Family Business Center at VŠE, where he now serves as its head and teaches executive courses.
Prof. Ing. Jiří Hnilica, Ph.D. is an expert in the strategy and management of family businesses. In 2016, he founded the Centre for Family Business at Prague University of Economics and Business. He currently serves as the head of CRF, where he teaches executive courses for family firms, provides individual advisory services, and develops cooperation with major Czech family businesses within the CRF Strategic Council. As a member of the international Family Firm Institute, he is a family business advisor holding the international Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising. Since 2022, he has been the Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration at VŠE.
He specializes in:
- strategic management of family businesses,
- family wealth governance and ownership models,
- facilitating intergenerational agreements and creating family constitutions,
- systematic coaching of individuals and family teams.
He believes that successful family entrepreneurship is built on shared values, open communication, and respect between generations — not only on correct executive decisions.
At the Family Business Center, he guides entrepreneurial families through the process of finding answers to three key questions:
- “Why do we want to do business as a family?”
- “What do we want to achieve?”
- “How are we going to get there?”
He then helps families turn these answers into concrete actions that support both the long-term business success of the family and its cohesion and prosperity. He will gladly help your family find a path to entrepreneurship that unites — not divides.
Martin Jurek
Family business succession advisor. He is the academic director of the Centre for Family Business at the Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE) and comes from an entrepreneurial family himself.
Ing. Martin Jurek, Ph.D., MIM is a family advisor specializing in business succession. He is the academic director of the Centre for Family Business Prague University of Economics and Business and comes from a family-run gastronomy business himself. At CRF, he teaches executive courses for family firms and provides individual advisory services to entrepreneurial families.
In 2021, he founded the VŠE Family Business Club at the Prague University of Economics and Business — a club for successors in family businesses among VŠE students and alumni.
He also works as an assistant professor at the Department of Strategy at the Faculty of Business Administration, VŠE. Thanks to his experience moderating IFFD courses (International Federation for Family Development, which holds general consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council), he is skilled at creating a safe space for open dialogue among family members and helping them find solutions in the process of generational transition of a family business and assets.
He specializes in:
- facilitating dialogue on values, communication, and decision-making within the family,
- succession processes,
- financial strategy of family firms.
He grew up in a family business environment and, as a second-generation member, is part of an entrepreneurial family that, among other things, brews Harrach beer and shares a passion for freshwater fish. He firmly believes that although family businesses operate in many different industries, they have one thing in common — a business that is inseparably linked with family relationships. This is why he is able to sense and open topics that entrepreneurial families often postpone.
In every advisory case, he seeks to understand the context, listens to individual family members, and guides the family — using CRF’s proven methods — toward the solution that makes the most sense.
Other members of our team
Academic director at the CEMS programme
Ladislav Tyll, MBA, Ph.D. is the academic director of the international program CEMS – Master in International Management. In his courses, he connects students with Czech companies and multinational corporations. Under professional guidance, students design innovative strategies that companies can use in practice. Ladislav is also a business consultant and entrepreneur who monitors the latest trends and implements them at both professional and academic levels.
Family business governance strategist
Ales Kubicek, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at the Department of Strategy, Faculty of Business Administration, Prague University of Economics and Business. He studied at the University of Economics and Charles University in Prague. He specializes in the strategy and management of family businesses and forms of intra-group conflict. He is the author of more than 40 publications and has published in the prestigious journals ‘Family Business Review’ and ‘Review of Managerial Science’, among others. Aleš is a member of the Family Firm Institute and holds the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising (CFBA) for family business consultants.
Lead researcher
Prof. Ondřej Machek, Ph.D, works at the Centre as a senior researcher. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Business Administration of the University of Economics in Prague as well as the Czech Technical University in Prague. He specializes in family businesses and the regulation of network industries. He is the author and co-author of more than 100 publications, including 10 impact articles. The most important publications include studies in the journals ‘Family Business Review’ and ‘Organizational Dynamics’.
PR and marketing
Mgr. Julie Hambergerová, MBA provides PR and marketing activities for the Centre. She studied political science and French philology at Charles University in Prague and the MBA-MAE program, postgraduate studies in business management at the French-Czech Institute of Management at the VŠE. She worked as the editor of Economic newspaper (Hospodářské noviny) and then as a press spokesperson for VŠE. She specializes in copywriting and enjoys the topic of startups and small businesses.
Academic researcher
Lorraine M. Uhlaner, Ph.D. is a member of the Centre for Family Business and the Department of Strategy at Prague University of Economics and Business and Full Professor Emeritus, Eastern Michigan University. She studied at Harvard University (A.B.), the University of Leiden (drs) and the University of Michigan (M.A.,Ph.D.). Her research spans entrepreneurship/SME and family business topics including innovation, knowledge management, corporate and family governance and social entrepreneurship. Her articles have appeared in ‘Family Business Review’, ‘Human Relations’, ‘Journal of Product Innovation Management’ and ’Journal of International Business Studies’ among others. She recently retired as Full Professor from EDHEC Business School and holds the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising (CFBA) for family business consultants.
A full version of her professional CV can be found here.
Academic researcher
Karolina Kania, Ph.D. works at the Department of Strategy, Faculty of Business Administration, Prague University of Economics and Business. Together with her colleague Lorraine M. Uhlaner, she works on research on the growth strategy of Czech family firms. She is a graduate of EHESS – Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Karolina has also been working in the field of UX design for a long time. Her linguistic versatility and intercultural experiences enable her to connect with individuals from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
She previously lived in New Caledonia and has been researching the social and political issues facing the roughly 280,000 inhabitants of this sparsely populated island for a long time.
Strategic Council
The Strategic Council is a key advisory body of the Centre for Family Business composed of representatives of major family businesses. The Council has a maximum of 20 members and meets four times a year.
The mission of the Strategic Council is to support and influence the Centre for Family Business in fulfilling its mission and cooperate with the government and the Parliament of the Czech Republic on the conditions and possibilities of supporting family business
VŠE Family Business Club
Do your parents run a business and have you thought that one day you would work for their company? Come and meet classmates and graduates from the University of Economics in Prague who have had such experiences with family businesses.
