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by Alejandro Cárdenas Villa (Author)
Are you afraid the business will fracture your family? ...or that the family will destroy the business?
Founders and family leaders eventually face the following tensions:- Suffering the emotional burden of resolving disputes between those they love most.
- Fearing the business and wealth meant to provide security and well-being could instead become a source of conflict.
- Worrying that what they spent a lifetime building could be damaged or squandered by the very people they built it for through lifestyle, poor decisions, or lack of preparation.
These risks are real, but they are preventable. This book shows how. For more than two decades, Alejandro Cárdenas Villa has studied family business failures across continents. Like high-reliability industries that learn from accidents to prevent catastrophes, he has identified the breakdowns that destroy relationships and value, and how to prevent or repair them when they occur. In Legacy Traps, he introduces two original frameworks, the Legacy Matrix and the Tanker Model, to help families identify hidden vulnerabilities and install safeguards to protect relationships, businesses, and wealth from preventable harm.
Author Biography
ALEJANDRO CÁRDENAS VILLAintegrates principles from psychology, management, law, and finance to help protect family relationships and business decisions, the true foundations of enduring wealth. He works with cross-border, multigenerational families navigating succession, conflict, and governance challenges. His perspective is shaped by experience on both sides of the table: guiding families externally as an advisor and serving within them as an independent board member and nonfamily executive. He created the Legacy Matrix and the Tanker Model, two frameworks designed to help families anticipate risks and prevent avoidable failures. His guiding principle is simple: avoid failure first, and success follows.
