Resolving High Stakes Conflict in Family Enterprise
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The Cost of Unresolved Conflict
In family enterprises valued between $10M–$100M, even a 5% valuation impairment due to leadership instability represents a material loss to enterprise value.
Unaddressed conflict inside a family business does not disappear, it compounds.
Decision-making slows.
Ownership factions quietly form.
Succession timelines stall.
Key operators disengage or exit.
Strategic clarity dissolves into emotional reaction.
The financial impact is measurable. The relational damage often is not — until it is permanent. Most families wait too long to intervene.
By the time outside advisors are engaged, positions have hardened and trust has already thinned. We help families step in earlier — while authority, dignity, and alignment can still be preserved.
We help family enterprises address difficult conversations early — before conflict turns into cost, risk, or regret.
Who We Serve
Summit Crown Advisory exists for founders and multi-generational owners of family enterprises who are successful, capable, but privately carrying decisions that will shape control, succession, and long-term legacy.
We work quietly. We are selective. And for those carrying the weight of consequential decisions — we help you navigate them without fracturing what you’ve built.
Our Core Customers:
Family Businesses
(Including their advisors)
This work is designed for established family businesses who recognize themselves in one or more of these moments:
Leadership alignment is deteriorating, ownership conversations are stalled, and avoidance is beginning to impair decision-making or enterprise value.
You are approaching a transition — sale, buy-out, generational succession — but authority, expectations, and control structures have not been clarified.
Family dynamics, capital expectations, and legacy intentions are no longer aligned — and the tension is beginning to affect governance, valuation, or long-term continuity.
What We Do
Summit Crown Advisory works directly with leaders to strengthen their capacity to resolve conflict, conduct difficult conversations, and address tension before it escalates.
This includes executive coaching through live situations, structured preparation for high-stakes discussions, leadership training in conflict resolution and negotiation, private facilitation of critical meetings, and mediation when disputes require neutral intervention.
We are engaged early — before conflict becomes litigation, resignation, or irreversible fracture.
Our Core Offerings
Strategic Conflict Resolution
A confidential engagement designed for family enterprises navigating high-stakes conflict that cannot move forward without structured intervention.
What it includes
Confidential one-on-one stakeholder interviews to identify misalignment, authority dynamics, and root causes.
A structured alignment & risk brief outlining key issues and forward pathways.
Facilitated resolution sessions designed to surface unspoken concerns and establish clear commitments.
Defined agreements and documented next steps to restore momentum.
Follow-up stabilization support to prevent regression and reinforce accountability.
Investment: Enquire with our team by requesting a private conversation
Communication Strategy Counsel
A structured advisory relationship for leadership teams needing guidance on challenging conversations, team tensions, and leadership communication.
What it includes
Quarterly 4-hour strategy sessions focused on leadership communication, how to have difficult conversations, conflict prevention, and leadership clarity.
Practical frameworks and preparation models for navigating consequential conversations with partners, associates, team members, or family.
Guidance on addressing partnership strain, feedback breakdowns, misalignment, and early-stage disputes before positions harden.
Investment: Enquire with our team by requesting a private conversation
One-on-One Private Counsel
One‑on‑one private counsel to help leaders navigate sensitive conversations, interpersonal conflict, and emotionally charged leadership moments.
What it includes
Everything in Quarterly Strategy Counsel, plus:
Semi-monthly private coaching sessions for the owner or principal (or selected leader) focused on conflict resolution, communication clarity, and emotional steadiness.
Support preparing for high‑stakes conversations with team members, associates, partners, or family.
Guidance on managing tension, misalignment, and interpersonal dynamics
Strategic thought partnership to prevent issues from escalating
Discreet access for moments requiring calm, perspective, and judgment.
Investment: Enquire with our team by requesting a private conversation
Engagements are limited and offered by invitation or referral.
Principal Advisory Partner
A high-access advisory relationship for owners who want a strategic partner involved in their most consequential conversations and disputes.
What it includes
Everything in One-on-One Private Counsel, plus:
Priority response and direct strategic access during moments of tension, escalation, or acute conflict.
Private facilitation or structured preparation for critical conversations with partners, associates, key leaders, or family stakeholders.
Direct support navigating partner disputes, alignment breakdowns, performance conflict, and relational fractures before they escalate externally.
Annual on-site review focused on identifying recurring tension patterns, decision bottlenecks, and emerging conflict risk.
Ongoing counsel to strengthen clarity, accountability, and disciplined leadership under pressure.
Investment: Enquire with our team by requesting a private conversation
Engagements are limited and offered by invitation or referral.
Request a Private Conversation
How We Work at Summit Crown
1. Clarity Before Strategy
We begin in silence — understanding the goals, personalities, unspoken tensions, partner dynamics, and family expectations shaping your challenge. We study not just the facts, but the unseen forces moving beneath them.
2. Strategy Before Movement
Only once clarity is achieved do we design your communication architecture — a precise combination of conflict resolution, negotiation framing, behavioral insight, and strategic counsel tailored to the realities of leading a business, a partnership, or a family enterprise.
3. Movement With Meaning
Every conversation, deal, and decision becomes intentional — aligned with your values, protecting both your position and your peace, and ensuring that each step strengthens the legacy you’re building.
Who We Are
Resolving Conflict. Protecting Legacies.
We are a boutique advisory firm that helps owners navigate the difficult conversations that quietly determine outcomes — in business, in families, and across partnerships where the stakes are high and the margin for error is small.
We don’t replace your legal, financial, or governance advisors. We work alongside them — ensuring the conversations they depend on actually happen, and happen well.
Business growth and legacy are rarely lost through poor intentions. It’s lost through conversations that were delayed, avoided, or mishandled.
Founder & Principal
Mark Raffan
Mark Raffan is an award-winning, globally recognized negotiation expert and trusted advisor to business owners navigating high-stakes decisions.
Ranked as a top Negotiation Thought Leader in the world by Global Gurus, Mark has led and advised on multi-million-dollar negotiations across industries.
His work is trusted by Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurs who value clear, practical strategies that protect both results and relationships.
Mark is the author of “9 Secrets to Win Deals and Influence Stakeholders” and a contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global.
Over the past two decades, Mark has worked in conflict-laden decision environments, advising leaders, teams, and families during pivotal transitions.
But his work is not only professional.
Having witnessed the strain that unspoken tension, misaligned expectations, and difficult conversations placed on his own family and its business, Mark often reflects that he wishes that a steady, discreet advisor capable of guiding families through emotionally charged decisions before they hardened into fractures had been there to help.
That reflection shapes his approach today.
He now works directly with owners and family enterprises facing pivotal moments, including:
Partnership, associate, family, and team tension
Succession, sale, & buy-out
Legacy & wealth transfer
For owners seeking clarity, alignment, and durable outcomes in their most important decisions, Mark Raffan brings a rare combination of strategic rigor, negotiation expertise, and practical wisdom — delivered with discretion and long-term perspective.
Delay Is Where Cost Accumulates
When difficult conversations are delayed, the cost always compounds. We provide discreet counsel to owners of family enterprises who want to resolve conflict, restore clarity, and protect their practice before issues escalate.
If you’re sensing something isn’t being addressed — or isn’t being handled well — it’s worth a conversation. Request a private conversation.