Amy Schuman
Amy
Schuman, a principal of The Family Business Consulting Group Inc., works with family
businesses on leadership development, communication skills and team building. Her
experience is centered on helping family members collaboratively create systems,
structures and relationships to help them function as effective stewards of their
enterprise. Schuman creates leadership and career development approaches tailored
for sibling teams, young adults, teens and younger children in the next generation.
She helps create conditions for successful generational transfer. For more than
11 years, Schuman directed organization development efforts for one of the top 10
of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America and a third-generation, family-owned
and managed business. A key executive during the successful transition from second-
to third-generation family management, she worked closely with the owning families
to preserve the company's unique culture while re-interpreting and updating company
practices to meet the intense demands of an increasingly competitive marketplace.
In July 1993, Schuman participated with former President Clinton on a panel describing
"The Future of the American Workplace." Schuman has been an adjunct faculty member
at Loyola University Chicago's Family Business Center since 1996. She serves as
a coach and facilitator in Loyola's Next Generation Leadership Institute, an intensive,
two-year program during which men and women who desire to assume leadership positions
in their family businesses are coached in developing leadership skills. She also
facilitates a monthly Peer Lab where participants explore the unique challenges
of family business leadership. Schuman teaches group process and facilitation skills
in Loyola's Family Business Communication Institute and leads Chicago's only support
group for women in family business.
Schuman has made presentations at the Family Firm Institute Conference and the Family
Business Network meeting in Stockholm, Sweden. She has been an adjunct faculty member
of the Lake Forest College Graduate School of Management and has taught at the University
of Illinois Chicago campus. She has a Bachelor's of Arts in psychology from Oberlin
College and has completed work towards a Master's Degree in organization development
at Bowling Green State University and received her MBA at The Kellogg School of
Management at Northwestern University.
Schuman currently lives in the Chicago area with her husband, a clinical psychologist,
and their three children.