Insights
Insights from a Family Business Advisor
As a family business advisor, Ria N. Mankee-Sookram works with multigenerational enterprises across the Caribbean and beyond, turning research and lived experience into practical frameworks for leadership, equity, governance and lasting family harmony. The book, talks and writing below distil that work.
The Seven Domains of the Family Business
The Journey to a Multigenerational Legacy
In The Seven Domains of the Family Business, Ria Mankee-Sookram maps the recurring points of vulnerability that determine whether a family enterprise survives its own success: death, duration, departure, disruption, disputes, divorce, and debilitation. Drawing on over 15 years of advising Caribbean and diaspora family enterprises, she translates decades of governance, succession, and estate-planning experience into a practical roadmap that families and their advisors can use to spot blind spots before they become crises. Written for founders, next-generation leaders, and the professionals who support them, it pairs real case patterns with structured frameworks — as useful for a founder mapping their own succession plan as for an advisor guiding a client through one.
The Legacy DNA
The Legacy DNA is the simplified core sequence behind the Seven Domains — six essential strands every family legacy is built on:
- Leadership — Transition & Development: preparing the next generation of leaders and planning the handover itself.
- Equity — Wealth & Ownership Planning: structuring ownership, wills, and trusts so contribution and wealth transfer fairly across generations.
- Governance — Decision Making: the structures and rules that determine how decisions get made, and by whom, while ensuring our shared purpose and values are equally considered.
- Adaptation — Capacity & Resilience: preparing the family enterprise to respond to disruption, change and unexpected events while preserving what matters most.
- Communication — Conflict Management: the systems that keep family members talking productively under pressure.
- You — Health & Wellbeing: the wellbeing of the people carrying the legacy, because no business outlasts the people running it.
“Strong families. Strong businesses. Lasting legacy. Built in our DNA.”
The Legacy Matrix
The Legacy Matrix is the proprietary diagnostic behind the Legacy DNA — a research-grounded assessment that maps the same six domains across 18 distinct capabilities, drawn from Dynamic Capabilities Theory and Socio-Emotional Wealth research and built specifically around the realities of Caribbean family enterprises. It surfaces gaps most global frameworks miss entirely — for instance, where an estate plan elsewhere might lean on a simple power of attorney for incapacity, that instrument doesn’t exist in the same form here, so the safeguard has to be built directly into a family’s governance documents instead.
In practice, the Matrix is used early in an engagement — typically during the Assessment stage of my work as a family business advisor — to give a family a clear, evidenced picture of their own readiness, rather than generic advice. It becomes the shared reference point for prioritising what gets addressed first.
The full Matrix names and measures several capabilities most families have never had spelled out — which is why it is reserved for those I work with directly, and for families serious about building an enterprise that lasts beyond one generation.. If you’d like to see where your own family business stands, get in touch or explore how I help families turn this kind of clarity into action.
Featured Talks
As an attorney and family business advisor, I am regularly invited to speak on governance, succession and legacy planning by various institutions and private family businesses alike. A selection of recent public talks is below. If you are interested in engaging me for speaking opportunities, please visit Speaking & Training and Contact.
CCGI Governance Week 2026 — Succession Without Conflict: Structures for Continuity & Stability
Ria examines how families can structure succession to minimize conflict — building the governance and communication safeguards that protect continuity and stability through a leadership transition. Delivered at CCGI Governance Week 2026.
CCGI Governance Week 2025 — Succession Planning & AI: Safeguarding Continuity in Family Business
Ria explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping succession planning for family enterprises — from decision-support tools to safeguarding institutional knowledge across generational transitions. Delivered at CCGI Governance Week 2025.
CCGI Governance Week 2024 — Surviving the Third Generation
Ria examines why most family businesses falter by the third generation — the well-known “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves” pattern — and the governance and succession structures that help families beat those odds. Delivered at CCGI Governance Week 2024.
CCGI Governance Week 2023 — A Circular World: Governing for Future Generations of Family Businesses
Ria discusses governance models built for long-term, multigenerational resilience, framing family business continuity as an ongoing, circular process rather than a single succession event. Delivered at CCGI Governance Week 2023.
UWI Global Entrepreneurship Week Roundtable — Is a Will Enough to Protect Your Family Business?
In this roundtable dialogue at UWI’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, Ria unpacks why a Will alone rarely protects a family business, and what additional legal and governance structures families need to consider.
(Note: video start times use YouTube’s ?start= parameter — please confirm each plays from the intended moment once live.)
Watch more on Ria’s YouTube channel →
Client Stories
“Our father did not leave a Will and there were many issues both in the family and in the business that arose as a result. Through communication, governance and succession strategies, our family was able to come to an amicable mutual agreement.”
— Second generation family business
“Our dad died unexpectedly, and I was the only child that worked in the business with him. With Mankee Advisory, we were able to outline our roles and responsibilities, and develop a workable exit strategy, as well as a communication, succession and governance structure that everyone was able to get on board with.”
— Second generation family business
“As a founder, I had a vision of building a multigenerational legacy. Ria helped me understand what I needed to do for this to become a reality.”
— First generation business owner
“The first time we saw the LEGACY ECOSYSTEM, we knew we really underestimated the amount of grey area that we overlooked. It is an on-going process, but we feel more secure having the expertise to help us work though the challenges in our business and in our family.”
— First generation family business transitioning to the second generation
Book Reviews
“Ria’s in-depth understanding of our region’s culture and values adds a unique and enriching perspective to the challenges faced by Caribbean family businesses. I am grateful for the invaluable insights and strategies provided in this book.”
— Dinesh R.
“The book covers all aspects of family business management, from CEO succession planning to resolving conflicts and protecting assets. The ‘ABC’ Technique for conflict resolution has been particularly helpful in improving communication within our family and business.”
— Rajiv K.
Work With a Family Business Advisor
If these insights resonate, let’s talk about your family business. Explore how I help families build stronger leadership, governance and legacy plans, or get in touch to start the conversation.