Andrew Hier
Senior Advisor and Partner
Cambridge Family Enterprise Group
Andrew Hier is a senior advisor and partner at Cambridge Advisors to Family Enterprise, a highly specialized international advisory firm serving family enterprises. He is a fellow at Cambridge Institute for Family Enterprise, a leading education and research institute dedicated to the significant issues family enterprises face. Both organizations comprise Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a global organization, founded in 1989. It is devoted to helping families and ownership groups navigate the new economy and achieve multigenerational success for their families, enterprises, and financial wealth.
Mr. Hier is an internationally recognized expert and trusted advisor to multigenerational family enterprises. Since 2003, he has advised family-owned businesses around the world on strategies for growing and passing their enterprises to the next generation. His areas of focus include ownership issues; family and business governance; succession planning; performance evaluations of family employees; and family communication. He is a globally recognized expert on the ownership dimension of family enterprises, which encompasses ownership strategies, trust and estate planning, shareholder agreements, the owners’ council, shareholder unity, and preparing the next generation to serve as effective owners.
Mr. Hier has authored important works on the unique ownership challenges of family enterprises. He recently authored, with Professor John Davis, a chapter on “Family Unity: What Is It, Why Is It Vital, and How to Achieve It” in the book Wealth of Wisdom (Wiley, 2018). He authored the articles “Tough Decision: Family Business Dividends in Turbulent Times” and “Developing an Ownership Strategy” (Cambridge Institute for Family Enterprise), and “Key Diagnostic Parameters for Family Enterprise Functionality” (The Family Firm Institute Practitioner, 2015). Mr. Hier is active in The Family Firm Institute (FFI), the preeminent association for family enterprise professionals. Mr. Hier served as co-chair of the 2014 FFI Global Conference in Washington D.C., and in 2020 he received the prestigious Interdisciplinary Achievement Award for outstanding achievement in the advancement of interdisciplinary services to business families.
Mr. Hier frequently teaches around the world at conferences, education programs, and private family meetings. He lectures on the topics of family business dynamics, family governance, creating an effective board of directors, improving family communication, family business succession planning, and developing a family’s core values, mission, and vision statements. He is chair of the Preparing Owners of a Family Business program and teaches in the Building a Worldclass Board for the Family Enterprise and Making Family Councils More Effective programs at the Cambridge Institute for Family Enterprise. He is a facilitator in the Future Family Enterprise program at the MIT Sloan School of Management, an innovative program for multigenerational families to prepare themselves for the future. For several years, Mr. Hier served as a facilitator and guest lecturer at Harvard Business School’s Families in Business program.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Hier was CEO of Bennett and Co., then one of the world’s largest privately held intimate apparel companies. Prior to this, he practiced law for 15 years, most recently as a partner in a Boston law firm and earlier as an assistant district attorney in Massachusetts.
Mr. Hier earned his JD from Harvard Law School and his BA in Philosophy and Economics from Harvard College. He is fluent in English and conversant in French.