Family Businesses can be complex.
It can be difficult to be objective and make changes when you are part of the family and /or the business. You also might find that other family members won’t listen to you.
As a family business owner or leader, maybe you’re experiencing one of the following?
It’s hard to work with this when you are working in the family business, either as a family member or even as an external manager brought in. This is where we can help. We understand what it’s like because we’ve been there, and we can help you navigate the complexities, as well as being independent and objective. Debra is a master facilitator and loves to uncover and deal with the elephants in the room.
EOS® is transformational for family businesses. It takes the personal issues out of your decisions, gets you all focused on the business, and often lets you have family time that is just for the family. Having a business operating system helps families stay strong and own strong businesses.
Imagine this: A family business in its fourth generation, where leadership has traditionally passed from father to son. But now, three siblings want in. Who leads? Should they share leadership? What happens when capability, loyalty, legacy, and emotion all collide?
These are tough questions many family businesses face.
Because succession isn’t an announcement. It’s a transfer. And without structure, even good intentions can fracture relationships.
Enter EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System):
Example: In one case, a family business realised through EOS that none of the three siblings were fit to lead. They hired an outsider as CEO, leading to a thriving business and happy family.
Other Successes:
Why It Works: Because EOS forces clarity. It creates structure for hard conversations. And it helps families prioritise the future of the business over unspoken assumptions and personal agendas.
For families willing to face the hard things head-on, EOS doesn’t just protect the business.
It protects the relationships too.
If you’re navigating succession, leadership transition, or the pressure of stepping into a family business, You’re the Future, Not the Founder is a practical guide for second-generation leaders ready to lead with clarity, confidence, and purpose.
Get your copy today and start building a future that works for both the business and the family.
With an MBA and a career spanning senior management, leadership, business consulting. and governance roles, Debra has a mix of academic knowledge and a depth of real-world business experience.
She is an Accredited Family Business Advisor and an Advisor Member of Family Business New Zealand.
She has also worked as a General Manager / Integrator for several years in a large family business and spent 7 years working with family businesses at The Icehouse, before leaving to form her own practice and taking the licence for EOS worldwide.
Now working with clients using EOS® model & framework, around 50% of her clients are family businesses and 50% are privately owned businesses, with multiple shareholders, much like a family.
Having worked with over 100 family businesses, she knows the complexities that exist in a family business and loves helping families to navigate the inner workings of their family business and business family relationships.
Her superpower, due to her love of people, is to be able to uncover the elephants in the room and facilitate dealing with them gently but firmly, ensuring everyone is heard and they work together for the greater good.
Debra brings 25 years of real business experience, including 18 years in senior management and leadership roles before moving into governance and consulting to her role as founder of Business Action.
She’s worked with over 300 businesses to help them move ahead and leads a team of motivated business experts. who have hands-on experience and are helping clients across NZ to achieve more.
On top of this, Debra works with a team of Trusted Partners, to deliver a full range of business support services.
Debra & all of our EOS Implementers & Trusted Partners have extensive experience with many previous clients. We are more than happy to put you in touch with anyone that has been through our system so you can talk to them about their experience.
When our company decided to adopt the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), we knew it would be a transformative journey, but we never anticipated just how impactful it would be until we started working with Debra.
Her deep understanding of EOS principles and tools provided us with the clarity and direction we desperately needed. Under her guidance, we were able to articulate a clear vision and define our core values, which have since become the bedrock of our company culture.
The power of the EOS framework, under Deb’s guidance, has united us as one succinct team. Debra’s generosity with her time and her willingness to coach us through any question has been invaluable. Thanks to her, we’re now co-designing the future of our business with our capable and driven team.
We started working with Debra in December 2023, and I can honestly say the impact has been transformative. As an accredited EOS Implementer based in Melbourne, Debra helped us gain serious clarity around our Vision & goal setting—it’s made a massive difference in getting the whole team aligned & moving in the same direction.
She’s also been instrumental in helping us identify & commit to Rocks that genuinely move the needle each quarter. Her approach is straight-talking, no fluff, & she keeps us accountable without ever losing the human touch. We’ve become a more focused, cohesive leadership team thanks to her. Love your work, Debra!
Deb helped my leadership team implement EOS. We run EOS religiously in our company now and use it as the back-bone and foundation for how we operate.
Deb is extensive, detailed and thourough. I can’t recommend her enough.
EOS has transformed our business. After previous expensive system failures, EOS stood out as a lifesaver.
With a new management team, it was make-or-break time, and EOS immediately changed our thinking. Accountability and team collaboration are at the core of EOS, relieving the burden from any one person. Our business is thriving, and the ongoing support from Nick and Jeni is invaluable.
We highly recommend EOS to every business owner—it’s a game-changer! We wholeheartedly recommend EOS to any business owner. It saved our business, making it stronger, healthier, and more successful than ever before.
Thanks, EOS, Nick, and Jeni!
Debra made a difference that will last and keep making the difference for many years.
She gave us structure. She helped us frame up our vision, our values, our why, and what makes us unique. She helped bed in values and a high-trust, high-openness way of working. She made us simplify and speed up. She trained us in a framework to take all of that, and keep it live, get it happening in the REAL world of our business.
Day in, Day out. Week in, week, out. 90 days at a time.
If you’re an entrepreneur and your team has hit the ceiling, run don’t walk to call Debra. She gave us the frameworks, tools and coaching to help take the business to the next level. Unlike many other coaches out there, Debra has walked the walk. Her own entrepreneurial journey has given her a deep understanding of both what it takes to make a business succeed and the common pitfalls to avoid. I can’t recommend working with Debra highly enough.
We’re about to hit our 12 month goals in the next month and we’re only 8 months into our year and our EOS journey. EOS / Traction has been a significant part of that outcome and we find our leadership sessions with Debra invaluable. We’ve just completed our 2nd EOS Quarterly Session. I can see how we gain more and more value from each session and we are appreciating in more depth how it all works together. My expectations were wildly exceeded and I am bloody excited about where we are going next.”
Debra just facilitated our 2nd quarterly EOS session. We had some issues that we felt were almost insurmountable but Debra was able to give us some tangible tools that turned our ‘Everests’ into mole hills and now we feel more confident tackling them.
I was nervous about doing the session virtually but it was the best facilitated virtual session that I have been part of. Some of it was without a doubt the technology but also Debra’s energy & facilitation skills made the 8 hours fly by.
Debra has been working with Your Virtual Assistant since Covid hit in March and has helped us at a time when we’d hit the ceiling and were uncertain about the future. Using the EOS model and tools we’ve been able to go back to basics to ensure we have the foundation of a good business able to take on any uncertainty. These tools have helped us to make huge gains in growth and solve some underlying issues we’ve struggled with for years.
Debra holds us accountable, she’s supportive but calls me out on my excuses (in a wonderful way!) and what I love the most is she shows us the way to reach our desired outcomes so it seems like the ideas are all ours … but we’d never see them without her help. EOS + Business Action + Debra is an absolute game changer for us, in a year when a game changer is exactly what we needed. I can’t recommend her highly enough.”
Debra has been absolutely invaluable as our EOS facilitator and is a top class business coach. At a time when our business is going through a significant period of growth and change I can’t think of anyone who would have done a better job in bringing together our rejuvenated leadership team to rise to the challenge.
Debra’s input, guidance, introduction and implementation of the EOS structure, systems and processes are transformational for Cambridge Partners. I fully endorse engaging Debra to assist you and your business to clarify your values, vision, 1,3 and 10 year objectives. Plus the quarterly sessions are invaluable to help keep you on track and to deal/prioritise any issues that need to be dealt with.
Debra is a fantastic coach, facilitator, BS-detector and Elephant-in-the-Room hunter!
She is very down-to-earth, and really passionate about helping private businesses and their owners thrive not just survive. In a very short time, she has already made an impact on our team and business.
As an EOS Integrator, I find her British/Kiwi/Germanic style unique and well suited for taking me, my Visionary and my team on the journey.
Thoroughly recommend connecting with Debra to see if she suits your style.
Cheers for all the business advice over the past few years. Debra has the best solutions for the biggest problems. Give her a call – she is always happy to help out.
