Midlands family businesses face Question Time

Leading family business representatives and advisors are to face a Question Time Forum in Birmingham that will explore the issues of expanding a family business without diluting its family values.

The Family Business Forum event is being organised by specialist insurance and financial advisers The Wilson Organisation, which is itself in the third generation of family ownership, and is the latest in its programme of events for the region's family businesses.

The panel confirmed for the event includes Gurdeep Bath, joint MD of Wednesbury-based Perfection Foods, founded in 2000 by the Bath brothers and which is today a leading supplier of hand decorated cakes and confectionary to retailers including Asda and Morrisons.

He will be joined by Parveen Mehta, Operations Director of MWW Limited of Birmingham and one of the UK's largest independent suppliers of exotic and conventional fruit and vegetables, and Director General of the Institute of Family Businesses (IFB) Grant Gordon.

Wilsons' MD Charlotte Prow and Simon Hellier, the firm's non-executive director, will chair the Forum.

"This is a new format for our Family Business Forum in the West Midlands, and brings together a panel of representatives from high profile family businesses in the region, who will share their no-holds barred personal experiences on how they've succeeded in expanding the family business, but not at the cost of the family values," explains Charlotte.

"The panel will be quizzed on issues pertinent to other family businesses and their particular dynamics to deliver a first-hand insight into whether their business can achieve successful growth - through diversification, expanding nationally or internationally, or through acquisitions - whilst maintaining family control and retaining family values, which are the very essence of a family business."

The West Midlands Family Business Forum is free to attend and takes place from 12 noon to 2.30pm on Wednesday 15th September 2010 at Hotel du Vin, Birmingham. For more information, contact Charlotte Prow Tel: 0115 942 0111, email: cprow@wilorg.com.