Walter Vieira (certified management consultant or CMC) was among the first to be elected a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India (FIMC); and also the first to start a marketing consulting company— MAS—in 1975, in Mumbai, India, after a 14-year successful career in the pharmaceutical industry, with Glaxo, Warner and Boots. In a span of over 40 years, Walter has worked with many of the largest companies in India—both multinationals and Indian—which have been family-managed or corporates. MAS offers consulting in marketing strategy, and selection and training of marketing personnel in India, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.Walter has published 14 books, three of them in collaboration with C. Northcote Parkinson of Parkinson Law fame. The 5Gs of Family Business is his sixth book published by SAGE.He has been a business journalist, having written a fortnightly column for Business World for 20 years, and for the Times of India for 10 years; has published over 900 articles in the business and general press. He was on the advisory board of the Journal for Management Consultants, USA. He is the only consultant invited to address three consecutive World Management Consultants meets in Rome, Yokohama and Berlin, and the World Marketing Summits in Dhaka and Tokyo.He has been president of the Institute of Management Consultants of India, founder-chairman of Asia Pacific Conference of Management Consultants, and later elected chairman of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes, the world apex body.Walter is listed by Speakers Academy of Europe for speaking engagements worldwide. He has been a visiting professor at the Bajaj Institute of Management, Bombay University for 20 years, and he has lectured in the USA at Kellogg, Lake Forest, Rady, Drexel and Cornell, and also in Bangkok, Colombo, Singapore, Spain and Beijing.Walter now spends considerable time in NGO work and is chairman of the Consumer Education and Research Society; trustee of MoneyLife Foundation, IDOBRO; and has been advisor to WWF for Nature for many years.Walter is also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA) for Consulting by IMC India in 2005, and another LAA for Marketing by Indys India in 2009. Dr Mita Dixit is the co-founder of Equations Advisors Pvt Ltd. She is an advisor, researcher and educator, specialized in guiding single- and multigenerational family-owned businesses.Mita has over 24 years of experience in family business advisory and in management consulting, strategic marketing and organizational development. She facilitates owner-families to develop a unified vision, inculcate good governance, prepare for generational transitions and lead their organizations to the next level.At Equations, Mita provides strategic direction to the team of consultants and associates. She leads the Knowledge Forum initiative and conducts customized workshops for owner-families to enhance their capabilities, skills and performance. She mentors next-gen scions for future leadership. Having worked in her family’s business, Mita has an insider’s perspective on family dynamics. She has guided several owner-families to develop and implement family constitutions and build effective board practices.Mita has worked in corporates at senior positions in marketing and brand management. She has also worked in the academic field as the Head of Research and Consultancy for the Centre for Family Managed Business at SPJIMR, a leading B-school in Mumbai. She is a visiting faculty at renowned management institutes offering family business programmes. A certified management consultant (CMC), a corporate director and a certified psychometric assessor, Mita is a chemical engineer with a master’s in marketing management. She is the first Indian to do a doctoral research in ‘Conflict and Splits in Indian Family Businesses’ from BITS Pilani University.Mita is a member of Family Enterprise Research Consortium and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Amity Business School, India. Her family business case studies have won international prizes and are taught in family business courses abroad. Her research papers and articles are published in peer-reviewed journals and business magazines. Mita speaks at national and international conferences and seminars on family-business-related topics. The media often takes her views on contemporary issues in family businesses.
