TD&A Family Business Consultant Biographies
Thomas D. Davidow, Ed.D.
Dr. Thomas D. Davidow is founder and principal of Thomas D. Davidow & Associates. He also co-founded Genus Resources, which became a leader in the field of family consultation. Drawing upon his extensive background in psychology, family counseling, and individual therapy Dr. Davidow pioneered the interdisciplinary method in family business consulting. The Davidow Interdisciplinary Method™ is rooted in family systems theory and addresses the family issues that can interfere with sound business decisions.
Dr. Davidow has more than 30 years of experience working with hundreds of national and international family controlled enterprises. He has applied his method and expertise in working with businesses in diverse fields including retail, distribution, manufacturing, real estate, construction and more, as well as with family foundations and family offices.
A frequent speaker at national and international seminars, Dr. Davidow has conducted seminars for financial institutions on the “Psychology of Wealth” and “Best Business Practices for the Family Owned Business.” At the 9th Annual Family Business Network Conference in Paris he presented a major paper, “How Multi-Generational Family Firms Transfer Management Control Successfully.” He also addresses memberships of family business programs at academic institutions across the United States, including Northeastern University, University of New Hampshire, University of Southern Maine, Purdue University, University of Southern California, and the University of Vermont.
In addition, Dr. Davidow has served on a number of boards, including the Attorneys for Family Held Enterprises (AFHE) and the Family Firm Institute. He is currently serving on the Jewish National Fund Boston Board of Directors and the Advocacy Committee of the Jewish Family and Children’s Center.
His articles on subjects of critical interest to family businesses appear in professional journals and periodicals such as Family Business magazine. He has been quoted as an authority on family business consulting by many publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Dr. Davidow received his Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Boston University in 1976. He was a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Massachusetts from 1989 to 2005 and received his Certification of Completion from Mediation Works, Inc. in October, 2010.
Susan Y. Friedman
Susan Friedman is a strategy consultant with her own practice, serving both for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. She began her career with the Boston Consulting Group, later becoming a founding partner of Telesis, Inc., a consulting firm since acquired by Cresap, McCormick and Paget. After several years working independently, including a year as Research Director for the Massachusetts Commission on Mature Industries for the Dukakis Administration, she joined Alliance Consulting Group, where she was promoted to Vice-President. She established her own practice in 1992.
A strategy consultant for over 30 years, Susan focuses on realistic assessments of an organization's internal and external environments as the basis for pragmatic recommendations. Her sector experience includes health care, consumer products, training and education.
Assignments typically address identifying and assessing growth opportunities, evaluating competitive dynamics, understanding the economic model underlying an organization's financial performance, assessing the internal alignment of an organization's operations and the "match" between the needs of a target market and the organization's capabilities. She has also developed business plans for a number of organizations.
Her national client base includes Unilever NV, Omnicom Group, Kaiser Permanente, Pepperidge Farm, and Warner Lambert. She has also worked with the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA), and WGBH Educational Foundation. Most recently, she has been working in the fields of education and health care with Achieve, Inc., the Merck Institute of Science Education, The National Center on Education and the Economy, the Massachusetts Department of Education, Graduate School of Education at Harvard, American Red Cross and Children's Hospital Boston.
Ms. Friedman has an AB in economics from Brown University where she was commencement speaker, attended the London School of Economics, and has an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School.
George Burns
George Burns was born in Boston, Massachusetts, raised in Maine, and admitted to practice in New York in 1973 and in Maine in 1978. After practicing commercial, corporate, and securities law with Nixon, Hargrave, Devans & Doyle (now Nixon Peabody) in Rochester, New York, he moved back to Maine. In 1980, George and another partner started the law firm Burns, Ray, DeLano, Macdonald, which later merged with Bernstein Shur. With his move back to Maine, George's practice expanded to litigation.
George's trial and appellate experience has been wide-ranging, and has included business and construction litigation, probate and fiduciary duty disputes, insurance coverage issues, antitrust and securities claims, and product liability matters. After concentrating for the last 25 years on litigation, George has committed himself to offering mediation and counseling on avoiding and resolving such disputes. He has acted as mediator or arbitrator of over 100 cases.
George also serves as a trustee and counselor to several prominent Maine family businesses and has endeavored to apply his dispute resolution and business experience to family business environments.
George is a member of the Commercial Panel of the American Arbitration Association, and the Maine Superior Court has appointed him as an arbitrator, mediator, and early neutral evaluator for its Court Alternative Dispute Service (CADRES). He recently has served on Chief Justice Saufley's Business and Consumer Docket Advisory Committee.
George is recognized by Best Lawyers in America for his work in alternative dispute resolution, commercial litigation, corporate law, construction law, and timber law. He is AV-rated by Martindale Hubbell.
George has come to believe that many family disputes have non-legal causes and therefore require non-legal solutions. For this reason he has teamed with Thomas Davidow & Associates, experts on family dynamics in a business setting. With this help George is able to better advise families when the law can help, when it is not likely to help, and when a combination of legal and non-legal counseling will yield the best results.
Education
JD, New York University, 1973
BS, International Affairs, Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service, 1969
Affliiations
Admitted to practice: States of Maine and New York
Member
Maine State Bar Association
American Bar Association
Cumberland County Bar Association
Maine Bar Foundation, Fellow
American Arbitration Association, Commercial Panel
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Director
Massachussetts, New York & New Hampshire bars
Amelia Renkert-Thomas
Amelia Renkert-Thomas brings expertise in estate planning, trust and investment structuring and tax law, as well as years of practical experience developed while running her family's fifth-generation family-owned and managed manufacturing company.
Amelia is the founding member of Fisher Renkert LLC, a US-based consulting firm focused on multi-generational family business succession planning and wealth preservation. Fisher Renkert LLC assists families facing a generational transition - whether in ownership, leadership or management, whether for their businesses, their family offices or family trust structures - to evaluate strategic alternatives and develop and implement plans for effective trans-generational ownership, decision-making and control.
Prior to founding Fisher Renkert LLC, Amelia was a partner at Withers Bergman LLP, an international private client law firm, and remains Of Counsel to the firm. Amelia's practice at Withers focused on tax-sensitive wealth planning for individuals, their families and their family offices, including structuring of family trusts and investment holding companies, and development of multi-generational governance mechanisms to support and strengthen long-term family relationships. During her tenure at Withers Bergman, Amelia chaired the US Families and Business practice group, and co-chaired the firm's Family Office Special Interest Group.
From 1990 through 2002, Amelia served as President and CEO of Ironrock, Inc., a 5th generation family-owned and managed producer of ceramic tile and thin brick located in Canton, Ohio, succeeding her father. She remains closely involved with Ironrock as a director and officer.
Amelia received her B.A. cum laude from Yale College, her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, and her L.L.M. in Taxation from Case Western Reserve University College of Law. She currently serves in leadership roles on several non-profit boards. Amelia lives in Woodbridge, Connecticut with her two teenaged daughters.
Jack Moore
Dr. Jack Moore specializes in business governance for large family enterprises, coordinating responsibilities between business oversight and effective family ownership. Jack is a 4th generation member of the Benjamin Moore Paints family and former member of the family’s board of directors. He currently serves as a Manager and Trustee of Frank W. Moore, LLC, a family investment company created after the sale of the family paint company. From April 1994 to January 2001, Dr. Moore served on the board of directors of Benjamin Moore & Co, a publicly owned manufacturer of architectural and industrial maintenance coatings with annual revenues of over $800 million. He contributed as a director toward extensive modernization of the company’s operations, which doubled profits from $40 to $80 million. In January 2001, the company was acquired in an all cash transaction by Berkshire Hathaway.
In 2005, Dr. Moore founded and chaired a three-day program in Maine, “Governance for Families in Business,” delivered in June of each year and hosted by the Institute for Family Owned Business in affiliation with the University of Southern Maine. He has also been active as a seminar leader and conference speaker with the National Association of Corporate Directors, Campden Conferences, the Family Firm Institute, and Attorneys for Family-Held Enterprises. He is in the early stages of launching an educational 501c3 for sharing family business success stories.
From 1985 to 1999, Dr. Moore worked in consulting, sales, and sales support for Electronic Data Systems, a major computer systems company founded by Ross Perot of Dallas, Texas. He has a doctorate in Education from The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, and an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Rochester in upstate New York.