Dennis W. Townley
Senior Advisor and Associate Partner
Cambridge Family Enterprise Group
Mr. Dennis W. Townley is a senior advisor and associate partner at Cambridge Advisors to Family Enterprise, a highly specialized, international advisory firm serving family enterprises. Cambridge Advisors and Cambridge Institute for Family Enterprise, an education and research institute, are divisions of Cambridge Family Enterprise Group, a global organization founded in 1989, devoted to helping families achieve multigenerational success for their families, ownership groups, enterprises, and financial wealth.
An attorney for over 40 years and a specialist in business law, Mr. Townley has served as a partner in several large law firms in Boston throughout his career. He provides legal representation and advice to family-owned companies (both privately-held and publicly-traded), including to founders, their heirs who are owners of the family business, and related parties. He has assisted the owners of family-owned companies with the design and implementation of their ownership strategies, ownership structures, ownership succession, shareholder agreements, buyouts, liquidity methods, and ownership governance systems. He has extensive experience in the creation of family shareholder agreements involving multiple generations of owners. For a number of important families around the world, Mr. Townley has put in place shareholder agreements that provide for the family’s continuity of ownership while establishing liquidity mechanisms. His work has also included advising families on their management structures and compensation policies.
In addition to his specialized work with family-owned companies, Mr. Townley has served as inside and outside general counsel to several companies, providing advice to shareholders, directors, and senior management on a wide range of issues. These include ownership matters, corporate governance, merger and acquisition transactions, joint ventures, financings, and intellectual property matters.
Mr. Townley has a J.D. (Law Degree) from Northwestern University. He earned a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.
