Tag: Family Business Center

Emma Vogel, a video intern in Olin marketing and communications, wrote this for the Olin Blog.

Spencer Burke, adjunct lecturer in family business for WashU Olin, will assume the role as Eugene F. Williams Jr. Executive in Residence for the Koch Center for Family Business, Dean Mark Taylor and Professor Bart Hamilton announced in May.

The appointment is the latest development following the spring 2018 announcement of the Koch Center for Family Business, launched with the support of the St. Louis Koch family’s gift $9 million. That center is the outgrowth of the Olin family business program, funded with a $1.09 million donation from the Kochs in 2016.

The Olin family business initiative began to “educate future business leaders on unique family business issues while providing resources for family enterprise as they grapple with these challenges.”

Prior to accepting this position, Burke served as the leader of the family business initiative and has been the organizer and moderator of Olin’s highly successful annual family business symposium. He is a principal at the St. Louis Trust Company, where he leads the firm’s family business advisory practice.

Additionally, Burke currently serves as chairman of the board of the Mallinckrodt Foundation, which seeks to fund biomedical research in St. Louis and throughout the United States.

“I have taught at Olin for eight or nine years and I am excited to no longer be the lone ranger in family business,” Burke said. He will now join a team at the Koch center—led by Hamilton, the center’s inaugural director, Olin’s Robert Brookings Smith Distinguished Professor of Economics, Management & Entrepreneurship—that will help to tackle family business education.

Burke also feels that that through the establishment of the Koch center and the family business initiative, the subject matter is being recognized as an important part of Olin Business School. While in the position, he wants to be a part of the team that animates the important role of family business in the U.S. economy.

Much like the mission of the Olin family business initiative, Burke places importance on business sustainability. Along with the other key players in the family business center, Burke will be the resident practitioner of family business issues.

As the executive in residence, he will be available for consultation at the request of students and will also be establishing office hours for the upcoming semester. He is excited for the opportunity to have more interaction with students in the family business program. This will allow for valuable, real-time analysis and problem solving in relation to real-life family business issues that students encounter. Burke feels that through more interaction, the program will achieve even greater success.

Pictured above: Roger, Fran, Elke, and Paul Koch, attending the 2018 Family Business Symposium where their $12 million gift to the university was announced.

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Four members of St. Louis’s Koch family have contributed $12 million to endow and establish the Koch Center for Family Business and two professorships—one at Olin Business School and the other at the Washington University School of Law.

The family provided the gift to raise awareness about the complexities of family businesses and engage students in understanding the career opportunities available in such enterprises.

Roger and Fran Koch and Paul and Elke Koch “have been passionate about seeing a greater focus on family businesses here at Olin for many years,” said Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, as he announced the gift.

“There’s a lack of perception about how many family businesses there are and what role they play,” Paul Koch said, following the announcement. “There’s also a lack of perception about the complexities of family businesses.”

The announcement kicked off the third annual Family Business Symposium at Olin—part of a family business initiative the Kochs established several years ago. The brothers noted how frequently family businesses fail to survive past the third generation of family ownership—a phenomenon Paul Koch said was “a waste of resources.”

Paul A. Koch (BSBA ’61, JD ’64, MBA ’68) and Roger L. Koch (BSBA ’64, MBA ’66) are co-chairmen of the board, and the third generation in leadership at Koch Development Co., a St. Louis-based developer and manager of commercial real estate and owner/operator of select entertainment attractions.

“It was clear from the moment I arrived in St. Louis that family business is integral to the community,” Dean Mark Taylor said during the announcement. “Some of the very first people I met—even before I became dean—were Roger, Fran, Paul, and Elke Koch. They have been extremely instrumental in thinking about how we can move forward scholarship in family business.”

Taylor noted that family businesses are a substantial driver of the global economy, responsible for 80 percent of new job creation. Family businesses contribute more than $68 trillion to global GDP and drive 64 percent of the US economy.

With the announcement, Olin will launch a search for the Koch Distinguished Professorship in Family Business, who will lead the new family business center, contributing to a curriculum for students and research in the field.

The center “will have a strong practical application and will also have a very, very strong research side,” Taylor said. “The Kochs were keen in their discussions that we should have a strong research leader.”

The Kochs’ $12 million gift also creates a distinguished professorship at the Washington University School of Law. Wrighton noted that the Kochs will “be providing additional expendable gifts, which will help with the ongoing growth and development of the Family Business Center and the endowed chair holder who will lead that center.”