Carmen Bianchi has been a Family Business Consultant since 1991. She is the founder and director of the EMC Business Forum at San Diego State University, servicing the growth needs of family and closely held businesses. She was the founder of the University of Texas at El Paso Family Business Forum and was the executive director of the Forum. Ms. Bianchi has relocated to the San Diego area and is the founder and a principal of Carmen Bianchi Associates, a consulting firm in Family Business. She currently teaches in the College of Business at SDSU in the MBA program a class on Family Business Management.
As a family business consultant, Ms. Bianchi has served as a facilitator for family business retreats, facilitator for conflict resolution and an advisor on a variety of strategic business issues. Ms. Bianchi is also an expert in family systems and the relationship between family, business ownership and the professional roles within a family firm.
Ms. Bianchi received national recognition and was elected to be the President 2007-2009 of the Family Firm Institute, the premier organization in the U.S. for professionals specializing in family business and wealth management. She was awarded fellowship status by The Family Firm Institute in recognition of outstanding achievements and contributions to the field of family business advising.
Ms. Bianchi has been invited by numerous national and international organizations to speak on family business issues. She has taught and put on a number of workshops on family business; June 2008 in Santiago Chile, March 2007 in India at the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad and the Graduate School of Management in Coimbatore, India, the American University of Beirut where she did a 2 day seminar on family business issues and case studies in May 2006 and in October 2006 she presented a 2 day seminar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Carmen was invited to South Africa to speak to family businesses involved in agriculture. She worked with numerous South African families on spouse and family issues.
In September 1998, Ms. Bianchi was invited to start a family business forum at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland where she worked with MBA students on family business issues. At the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) Conference in February 2000, Carmen Bianchi Associates was awarded the “Best Workshop Award in Family Business”. In January 2004, Ms. Bianchi was invited by The Business Journal in Fresno to be the keynote speaker at the Annual California Family Business Awards Luncheon.
Ms. Bianchi was born in South Africa where she was brought up in her family’s businesses, Bianchi Hotels, Inc. and Bianchi Investment Corp. She was a financial comptroller of South African Breweries Hotel Division. She speaks six languages, having completed her high school in Florence, Italy and attending the Sorbonne University in Paris. She received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Texas, El Paso in Business Administration where she also completed her Masters Degree.
When not consulting to family business, Carmen spends as much time as she can with her family especially the grandchildren. Or she can be found playing tennis or bridge, hiking, bicycling, skiing, running the Metropolitan Opera Regional Auditions, and visiting art galleries and theatre. She serves on several charitable boards in her community.