A few weeks have passed since I stood in front of 300+ family business leaders and advisors at the Family Enterprise Canada Symposium in Vancouver.

I’m still processing it.

I didn’t know what to expect. Vulnerability in a room full of people is a risk.

What I didn’t expect was a standing ovation. Or the wave of people who found me afterward, many in tears, to share their own versions of similar stories.

I spent forty-five minutes in conversation with Andrea Lekushoff of CONTEXT Studios sharing the full arc of the Norwood Portable Sawmills story: How I acquired my father’s start-up, built it into a global brand in over 100 countries with a years of exponential sales growth, sold controlling interest to a New York PE firm in 2021, and then watched everything we had built unravel with stunning speed in the hands of the new ownership and their leadership team.

That’s when I understood why this conversation mattered. Not because my story is unique – But because it isn’t.

Family businesses are not just “businesses” – They are deeply personal. They are stitched together in a rich tapestry of risks taken, sacrifices made, hardships endured and determination tested. They carry identity, relationships, and legacy.

When control changes hands, the financial transaction is the easy part. What follows, particularly when it ends in something senselessly tragic, that’s the part nobody talks about. Watching something you nurtured and built be systematically dismantled while you stand powerless on the sidelines causes a sense of loss and grief so deep it aches and it endures.

And that grief has no name. Because everyone around you believes you should be celebrating a successful exit. The isolation, the guilt, the mourning – these are the parts that go unspoken.

The risks of selling control, and of selling to private equity are real, they are specific, and they are almost never discussed honestly before the ink is dry.

Maybe it’s time we did.

Thank you to the Family Enterprise Canada community for creating the space for exactly this kind of conversation. And to Andrea Lekushoff, for knowing how to hold it.

The documentary and article that inspired the session are linked in the comments.