FBU Joins Forces With The Path To Put People First In Family Business

Family Business United (FBU), the independent media, membership and advocacy platform for the family business community, today announces a new partnership with Russ Haworth and Martin Stepek of The Family Business Partnership to bring The Path to the wider family business audience.

The Path is an online development programme designed to help individuals within family firms build the personal foundations, not just the business skills, needed to thrive. It combines mindfulness practice with real world family business experience across eight modules, helping participants manage stress, strengthen relationships and lead with greater clarity and confidence.

Why The Path, And Why Now

Working in a family business brings a depth of complexity that strategy alone cannot resolve. Family members are often juggling multiple identities at once: leader, sibling, owner, parent, child. Underneath the roles and decisions sit personal expectations, deep loyalties and unspoken assumptions that shape how a family firm really functions.

FBU has long championed the idea that succession, governance and next generation development are as much about people as they are about process. The Path gives individuals within family firms a structured, supported way to build the emotional resilience, communication skills and personal clarity that so often determine whether a transition, a difficult conversation or a change in role goes well.

About The Path

Available as a self guided course or a facilitated cohort with weekly group sessions, The Path takes participants through eight modules covering mindfulness, focus, resilience, stress management, navigating change, handling emotions, and building a personal plan for lasting change. The cohort option includes a guarantee: if participants do not feel the benefit by week four, their place is bought back in full.

Meet The Guides

Russ Haworth ACFBA is a UK based family business adviser who holds the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising from the Family Firm Institute, one of the leading qualifications in the field. He founded The Family Business Partnership after moving from a career in financial planning and wealth management into full time work with family firms.

Martin Stepek is a leading mindfulness teacher and long standing supporter of the family business community. A former director of his own family's business, he founded the Scottish Family Business Association and has spent over 20 years helping families navigate the personal and emotional side of business life. He is also an author, poet and historian.

What This Means For The FBU Community

Through the partnership, FBU members and the wider family business audience will gain access to The Path alongside the practical, governance focused resources FBU already provides. It is a natural extension of FBU's mission: supporting the people behind the businesses, as well as the businesses themselves.

As Paul Andrews, Founder and CEO of Family Business United explains, "Family businesses succeed or struggle on the strength of the relationships within them. We talk a great deal about governance, succession planning and structure, and rightly so, but the personal side of the equation is just as important. Russ and Martin have built something genuinely useful in The Path: a calm, practical way for people in family firms to strengthen their own foundations. I am delighted to bring it to the FBU community."

Russ Haworth adds, "Working with families in business for the last 15 years has shown me that the strategic challenges are rarely the whole story. The Path was built to help individuals show up with more calm, confidence and clarity, whatever they are facing."

"Partnering with FBU means we can reach many more people who are carrying that weight quietly, and give them somewhere to start."

Martin Stepek completely agrees adding that "Mindfulness is not about escaping the pressures of family business life, it is about meeting them differently."

"The Path gives people practical tools to pause, breathe and respond with intention rather than reaction. This partnership with FBU means those tools can reach the people who need them most."

Ask yourself: when was the last time you had a safe space to reflect on the personal side of your role in the business, rather than just the operational demands of it?

The Bottom Line

The Path adds a new, personal dimension to FBU's support for the family business community, recognising that strong businesses are built by well supported people. The self guided course is available now, with places for the next guided cohort open for registration.

For more information about The Path, take a look at the website via the link here