Glossary

The person holding the highest decision-making authority in a business — anyone who founds, buys or inherits it. The title can pass from generation to generation.

The shared personality traits and behaviours of bosses who have achieved success.

It includes the courage to take risks, getting back up after a fall, strong problem-solving, vision, diligence and passion. Core areas that are part of this mindset: being sure of one's goals and story, building the right team, monitoring change, accountability, and diversity in decision-making.

The discipline of managing corporate transformation by taking seriously how a well-designed solution actually lands in the company — people's emotional cycles, resources and culture. For Orhan Erkut it is the invisible backbone of almost every project.

The principles and mechanisms ensuring a company is governed with fairness, transparency, responsibility and accountability. These build on the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance; the four emphasised in Türkiye (there are more) are central to Orhan Erkut's work.

The Corporate Governance Association of Türkiye (TKYD), a civil-society organisation working to make corporate governance recognised, developed and implemented through best practices in Türkiye. Orhan Erkut is a member.

A strategic talent-search discipline for senior executive roles that, rather than 'finding the right title', reads the organisation in multiple layers and centres profiling and need-validation. The specialty of E&G Partners, founded by Orhan Erkut.

As the family grows, ownership branches out across generations; each branch's relationship with the company needs to be managed in its own right.

A written set of principles governing many matters — work, relationships and communication — among family members and between the family and the company.

A change-management model developed by Claes Janssen that addresses change by taking employees' emotions and corporate culture into account, easing the integration of personal goals with organizational ones. Orhan Erkut is a licensed consultant of the model and a co-founder of Four Rooms of Change® Türkiye.

A board member who serves without a conflict of interest, contributing independent and objective oversight to decisions. Orhan Erkut has held this role in various companies.

An education foundation (Junior Achievement Türkiye) that develops young people's entrepreneurial mindset and business knowledge and skills. Orhan Erkut has been a volunteer mentor for 5+ years, supporting high-school students in structuring their business ideas.

A mutual-suitability evaluation software developed by E&G Partners for its executive search process, used to identify the candidates who best match a position and to avoid wasted time in meetings.

The next (new) generation who will take over the family business. The SPALDA® approach develops this generation not just as operational managers but as responsible shareholders and leaders who grasp the whole of the corporate entity.

The current generation still running the family business. The SPALDA® approach prepares this generation for retirement and a healthy transition of control and change of role.

Here, 'organization' is used in a broad, encompassing sense: beyond companies, it covers legal entities such as associations, public institutions and non-governmental organizations, as well as the decision-making and governance structures of a company and family (family council, ownership group, board of directors, next-generation board).

The term 'organization' is used here in a broad sense. Beyond companies, it covers legal entities such as associations, public institutions and non-governmental organizations; but its meaning is not limited to these. The decision-making and governance structures of a company and family — family council, ownership group, board of directors, next-generation board (GYK) — also fall within its scope. In short, all the corporate and family structures that can be served and worked with are described by, or under, this concept.

In executive search, the opening phase that, rather than accepting the position request as given, begins with 'what is really expected of this leader?' — clarifying corporate culture, the company's stage, and management and shareholder expectations to validate or redefine the sought profile.

In a family business, a conscious shareholder who carries the responsibility of ownership — even without running the business day to day — safeguards the institution's continuity, and does not shy away from saying what they believe to be right. (Also: responsible ownership / stewardship.)

Two ways of coming up in business: the self-taught (alaylı) rises from the heart of the work — hands-on, by doing and experiencing — while the formally trained (mektepli) combines education with work.

The key difference is in approach: the self-taught often struggles to explain or systematise what they want and why, whereas the formally trained approaches from exactly that explainable, systematic end. In family businesses, the self-taught/formally-trained balance is an important part of change management.

An academy whose idea was seeded in 2018, whose pilot development began in 2022, and which launched in 2025. It develops the next generation in family businesses not merely as operational managers but as responsible leaders who grasp the whole of the corporate entity.

SPALDA stands for 'Succession Planning and Leadership Development Academy'. It is a measurable, long-term development programme for intergenerational leadership transition in family businesses, developing the next generation as leaders able to manage the wholeness of the corporate entity.

The transfer of management and ownership in a family business to the next generation — approached not as a moment of 'handover' but as a long development journey that begins with growing the next generation.

Succession is not 'choosing an heir' but the current generation (NowGen) and the next generation (NextGen) setting out on a shared development journey. It calls for an early, structured approach before problems arise; because every family, ownership structure and young person differs, there is no one-size-fits-all recipe.

In a family business, the whole that encompasses not just the business but business, family and all assets together. The SPALDA® approach develops the next generation as responsible leaders able to grasp and manage this whole, holding that sustainable success is possible only with this holistic view.

A Turkish saying describing the traditional approach of entrusting the next generation to a trusted professional with full authority to train them. Amid changing scale and ownership structures, this method alone is no longer sufficient.

Named after Orhan Erkut's article, the approach of treating succession in family businesses not as an early judgment ('will this child make it?') but as a long, systematic and patient journey walked together. (The closest English equivalents are 'we'll figure it out as we go' or 'building the plane while flying it.')

Orhan Erkut is a management consultant who empowers organizations and their leaders across generations; his focus is succession in family businesses and the SPALDA® Academy he founded.

Orhan Erkut has been a management consultant since 2002, empowering organizations and their leaders across generations. He works across three areas with a holistic view — management consulting, succession in family businesses, and executive search — placing corporate governance principles at the centre of everything he does. His focus is succession in family businesses. Concentrating on this field since 2018, he blended academic literature from the 1960s to today with field experience to develop an original approach, and gave it concrete form in the SPALDA® Academy — which develops the next generation (NextGen) not merely as operational managers but as responsible shareholders who grasp the corporate entity as a whole, while preparing the current generation (NowGen) for retirement and role transition (foundations 2018, implementation 2022, general availability 2025). His management-consulting career runs nearly a quarter-century deep: strategic management, the design of management systems, and independent board memberships across various companies. One of his distinctive strengths in transformation work is his command of technology — a consultant who can read and understand a company's technology processes, is well-versed in data and software concepts, and can take an active role from system design through to the work of technical teams. The executive search he leads under E&G Partners is a long-established practice of matching organizations seeking leaders with the right ones; his team and network here also form the independent-assessment infrastructure of the SPALDA® Academy. At the foundation of all his work lie the corporate governance principles he embraces as a member of TKYD (the Corporate Governance Association of Türkiye) — fairness, transparency, accountability, and responsibility. In large-scale change he uses the Four Rooms of Change® model — the one closest to his own way of working and communicating; he is a licensed consultant of the model and a co-founder of Four Rooms of Change® Türkiye. To date he has worked with more than 25 sectors, over 100 companies, and more than 30 families.

The registered title of a forthcoming book by Orhan Erkut. It addresses the idea of developing the next generation in family businesses not merely as operational managers but as leaders who grasp the wholeness of the corporate entity.