Explore Our Case Studies
MULTI-GENERATIONAL FAMILY BUSINESS
Menasha Corporation, Menasha, Wisconsin
Overview
Sixth-generation family members are on the verge of stepping into leadership of a large, family-owned manufacturing company. Fifth-gen family office leaders want to ensure that long-held values and the lessons of 175 years of success, challenge and evolution are carried forward.
Industry
Packaging/Supply Chain Solutions
Target Audience
Family members, company executives and employees, community leaders, partners and customers
Project Duration
Two years
Objectives
Ensure that present and future generations understand the value of the company—to the family, to employees, to the communities in which it operates and to business partners and customers—and improve the likelihood that the business will be stewarded forever in alignment with the family’s values, goals and long-term interests.
Approach
Though research and interviews, gather the voices, stories and images of family members, business leaders, employees, customers and partners throughout history to create a shared narrative of the company’s past and its path to a flourishing future.
Output
A 180-page coffee-table book, Living Our Values, that provides a permanent record of the company and family’s innovation, achievements, evolution, endurance, stature and promise.
Testimonial
TK
Other client examples: Bradley Corporation, Cook Incorporated, Dot Foods, Elkay, Klein Tools, The Lee Company, Mannington Mills, P.C. Richard & Son, Safe Flight Instrument, Schneider, Valley Proteins
LEGACY-DRIVEN CORPORATE ENTERPRISE
New York Life, New York, New York
Overview
The largest mutual life insurer in the United States is approaching its 175th year in business and wants to celebrate this rare milestone in a way that engages stakeholders’ hearts and minds and contributes to the company’s future success.
Industry
Financial Services/Life Insurance
Target Audience
Employees, agents, recruits, clients, business and charitable partners
Project Duration
Three years
Objectives
Document 175 years of history while supporting present initiatives in employee engagement and marketing; reinforce company values and culture while highlighting the need for change; foster ownership of a shared story, purpose and destiny; support employee and agent recruitment; cultivate partnerships.
Approach
Create a narrative that, through research, dozens of interviews and imagery, documents history and tells the story of a financially strong, stable and humanitarian company that has kept its promises to policyholders, made its communities better and provided rewarding work lives for employees and agents for 175 years.
Output
A 148-page, boldly illustrated coffee-table book, Built for All Times, emphasizing that the company’s purpose, values, culture and value endure no matter how much the world changes.
Testimonial
TK
Other client examples: Airstream, Anadarko Petroleum, Appleton Paper, Ball Corporation, Belden, Booz Allen Hamilton, Commerce Bank, Consumers Energy, Edison International, Entergy, Greenwich Hospital, Guardian Life, HNTB, Keck School of Medicine at USC, Progress Energy, Progress Rail/EMD, WellStar Health System.
BUSINESS LEADER/PHILANTHROPIC FAMILY
Donald Sturm and the Sturm Family Foundation
Overview
One of the most significant philanthropic foundations in the western United States wants to document and promote the story of its founder, a former corporate executive and scion of a family-owned banking business, as he nears the age of 90.
Industry
Financial Services/Philanthropy
Target Audience
Family members, friends, business associates, community leaders
Project Duration
Two years
Objective
Present the first major public portrait of a man and his achievements while inspiring family members and others to carry on his business and philanthropic legacies.
Approach
Through a series of interviews with the subject, his friends, family members and business associates, capture and tell a colorful, credible and inspiring story of a boy who grew up poor, put himself through school, became an innovative business executive, creatively established a banking network and used his wealth to make his community better.
Output
A 240-page biography, A Class of One, that reveals the character, motivations, aspirations and impact of a man who, near the end of his life, said, “I want to feel that when I close my eyes for the last time that I’ve left people in charge … and that they can carry on what I started for a long time if that’s what they choose.”
Testimonial
TK
Other client example: Lloyd Schermer