The Unspoken

Family Enterprise Letters

Private stories from inside family enterprise.

Thank you for considering sharing your experience.

Some of the most consequential experiences in a family enterprise are also the hardest to put into words.

Sometimes the conversation never happens. Sometimes everyone is speaking, but they are not necessarily talking about the same thing.

The Unspoken is a place for those stories.

I am inviting first-person stories, dilemmas and questions from people living inside family enterprises. Some submissions may remain entirely private. With your explicit permission, others may help illuminate recurring questions or be developed into edited and anonymised Family Enterprise Letters.

This is not about exposing families or deciding who is right. It is about understanding how family enterprise is experienced from the inside and what those experiences may reveal about ownership, transition, governance, power, identity and belonging.

You do not need to provide your name, family name or company name. Please leave out identifying details unless they are genuinely necessary to understanding your story.

You decide how what you share may be used.

Tell me about the situation. What feels important for me to understand?

Further optional questions:

What makes this difficult to say?

What are you trying to protect or preserve in this situation?

If someone else involved told this story, what might they experience differently from you?

What do you most wish the other people involved could understand about your experience?

What questions are you left with?

It does not need to be perfectly formed. What are you still trying to understand, decide or make sense of?

What is your relationship to the family enterprise?

Select all that apply

Founder / senior generation

Family shareholder

Family member working in the enterprise

Family member not working in the enterprise

Spouse / partner / in-law

Your story remains yours. Please choose the level of permission you are comfortable with. Sharing something here does not automatically give me permission to publish it.

How may I use what you have shared?

Background only: I am sharing this privately. Please do not quote, reproduce or publish my story.

Themes only: You may draw on the broader themes or questions raised by my experience, but please do not reproduce my story or words.

Anonymous quotations: You may contact me about potentially using selected passages from my submission anonymously. Nothing will be attributed to me publicly without further agreement.

Consider my story for The Unspoken: You may contact me about developing my submission into an edited and anonymised Family Enterprise Letter. Nothing will be published as my story without further contact and an opportunity for me to review the edited version.

Before you share your story

Please share primarily your own experience rather than allegations about identifiable individuals.

Avoid names, company names, exact locations and other identifying information unless they are necessary to understanding your story.

If a submission is considered for publication, identifying details may be removed or generalised to protect privacy. Any story considered for publication will follow the permission and review process you selected above.

The Unspoken is an editorial project. Submitting a story does not create an advisory, therapeutic, legal or other professional relationship.

I understand that submitting my story does not guarantee publication and that any potential use will follow the permission I selected above.