In 2009, the focus of post-degree education providers (e.g., business schools, Unions' training centers) that have targeted also to family businesses (FBs), is shifting from courses for entrepreneurs and potential successors to courses for consultants of FBs.

In particular, looking at the courses provided by American top business schools, the must has become to prepare professionals for being alternatively:

• Wealth Manager (WM), that is to say the one in charge of supporting the owner-families in managing their long-term investments by applying asset protection techniques, financial planning methodologies and portfolio management ones;
• Succession Planner (SP), that is to say the one in charge of anticipating succession difficulties and elaborating the plan to be followed in managing the coming succession;
• Human Resources Specialist (HRS), that is to say the one in charge not only of recruiting external top managers, but also of setting up the systems of: (i) retention of the external; (ii) integration among the external and the family members; (iii) periodical evaluation of the potential successors; (iv) incumbent's exit;
• Chief Emotional Officer (CeO), that is to say the one in charge of solving the conflicts within the family by facilitating the communication among the family members, for example as mediator in family's focus-group on succession configuration.

The underlying hypothesis is that consulting to FBs requires specific skills that previous consulting and corporate banking experiences can enable but not fully develop. In 2010 the first statistics on the placement and on the performances¹ of these family advisors should be available; what is expected is that these advisors have been involved in:

• The task force for succession management in order to optimize the succession activities (e.g., shareholding re-definition, succession planning, successor's training planning, succession strategy communication);
• The personal entourage of the FBs' leader in order to solve specific issues (e.g., financing or planning of family members' way-out, changes in the ideal successor's profile, succession communications to potential successors) as on-demand counselor;
• The ad-interim job positions (CFO, CEO, HR Manager) that are offered when FBs go through an evolution in the business model, which usually occurs after successions, in restructuring operations and in growth phase. 

^[1] Self-perceived performances compared to those declared by the FBs' leaders