Trust in Family Enterprise: How to Build, Nurture and Restore It

Trust in Family Enterprise: How to Build, Nurture and Restore It

Featuring Professor Jim Davis, co-originator of Stewardship Theory and one of the world’s leading family business scholars, together with family members from South Australian family business Allin Towbars.

Date: Wednesday, 9 September 2026

Time: Arrive after 5:00pm for a 5:30pm start, followed by networking and drinks from 6:30pm until 8:00pm.

Location: Leadership Lounge, Level 7, Nexus 10 Tower

Trust sits at the heart of every successful family enterprise.

It shapes how families make decisions, navigate differences, transfer leadership and ownership, and work together across generations. Yet trust can also be fragile. Miscommunication, unmet expectations, succession, changing family relationships and difficult business decisions can test even the strongest family relationships.

So how is trust built and sustained—and what happens when it breaks down?

Join us for a thought-provoking evening with Professor Jim Davis, co-originator of Stewardship Theory and an internationally recognised scholar whose work has transformed our understanding of trust, stewardship and governance in organisations and family enterprises.

Jim will explore what decades of research tell us about the foundations of trust: how it develops, why it matters, what causes it to erode, and importantly, how it can be restored.

We will then bring these ideas to life through a conversation with two family members from Allin Towbars, who will share their own experiences of navigating the relationships, challenges and opportunities that come with being part of a family in business.

Bringing together world-leading research and lived family-business experience, the evening will explore practical questions relevant to family business owners, family members and their advisers:

• What creates trust within a family enterprise?

• How can trust be nurtured across generations?

• What happens when trust is tested or damaged?

• What role do governance, communication and stewardship play?

• And can trust, once lost, genuinely be rebuilt?

Join us for an engaging and practical conversation about one of the most important—and often least discussed—foundations of enduring family enterprises.