Last weekend, I attended the 2025 IESE Family Business Conference in Barcelona — a thought-provoking gathering of owners, advisors, and academics exploring the evolving governance of family-owned enterprises. Here are my key take-aways: 1. Rob Lachenauer’s “Kite” Framework – A Compass for Family Owners One of the most resonant insights came from Rob Lachenauer (BanyanGlobal),...
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From Advisory to Ecosystem: How VC-A Is Redefining Corporate Growth
In this episode of the IMH Media Podcast, Alexander Mihalcea interviews Christophe Schwoertzig, Founder and Managing Director of Value Creation – Alternative (VC-A). Together, they explore how VC-A evolved from a corporate advisory firm into a global ecosystem of investors, experts, and solution providers helping companies “find that missing piece” to accelerate their growth. Christophe...
Political crisis. War crisis. Will the economy hold?
On September 16, I attended a high-level conference at IESE Business School that addressed a crucial question: how can the economy withstand an environment marked by political and war-related crises? The speakers were Jordi Gual, former President of CaixaBank, whom I had the privilege of having as a professor when I did my MBA, and...
Driving Strategic Transformation to Embrace AI
AI-Adoption Program - Key Service Objectives Uncertainty around AI adoption is sky high. A recent MIT/Fortune report highlights that 95% of corporate generative AI pilots fail before scaling. The reasons are clear: lack of alignment, poor business models, and projects driven by hype rather than strategy. At Value Creation – Alternative, we believe AI should...
Argos Index Q2 2025: European SME prices continue their downward slide to 9.2x EBITDA
The Q2 2025 Argos Index®, measuring every quarter the level of private mid-market company valuations in the euro zone, has been released. The index is down to 9.2x EBITDA, reflecting widespread uncertainty that disrupted the European mid-market M&A activity. Please click here to download the complete study.