Both can succeed together

About Family & Business Success

Neutral and built for the Complexity of Family Enterprise.

When families and their enterprises are truly aligned in governance, ownership, leadership, and relationships, all can succeed together. FABS helps families make this happen.

We are Midwest-based and serve clients across the United States.

Our Mission: Endure. Energize. Elevate.

Everything we do is built around three outcomes:

Endure through transitions, generations, and whatever comes next.

Energize the family and business system.

Elevate the people within it.

Most family businesses don’t struggle because of bad intentions — they struggle because the structures that make good intentions executable are missing.

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Clear governance, aligned ownership, legitimate leadership, honest communication: these aren’t corporate formalities. They’re what allow a family enterprise to actually perform.

The family is not the problem. The absence of structure is.

We build that structure — and we build it in a way that energizes relationships, elevates the people in the room, and creates something worth handing down.

What We Are — and What We're Not

We Are

Neutral family enterprise advisors.

Governance designers who build decision rights and succession architecture.

Facilitators of critical conversations across family, ownership, and leadership systems.

Producers of concrete, documented deliverables — not just facilitated meetings.

Active do-no-harm practitioners who protect the family system while improving business performance.

We Are Not

Therapists — we do not treat mental health conditions or provide clinical services.

Attorneys, accountants, or financial advisors — we partner with those professionals.

A replacement for your primary advisor — we address the relational and organizational dynamics that determine whether technically sound advice actually gets implemented.

Our neutrality is not passive. It is why families trust us in sensitive conversations — and why our work tends to stick.

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How We Work: Listen → Plan → Implement → Support

Listen — We engage in private conversations with owners, family, and leaders, plus document review, to understand what's working and what's creating risk.

Plan — We organize a 1.5–2 day working session where findings are shared and the group co-creates an action plan it owns.

Implement — We facilitate governance meetings, communication support, and workshops on the topics that matter most.

Support — We provide ongoing health checks and advisory availability as the system sustains itself over time.

The FABS Team

We Understand Because We've Lived It.

Amy Wirtz, JD, CEPA — Founder & Senior Advisor

Amy leads every client engagement and guides the decisions and pacing that move families and businesses forward. She brings decades of experience in family enterprise consulting — with deep expertise in governance design, succession planning, ownership alignment, and the relational dynamics that determine whether transitions succeed or stall.

Amy is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA), a DiSC facilitator, and a recognized voice in the family enterprise field. She teaches CEPA certification, presents at national forums including the EPI Summit, and is active in EPI, IFG, and the Private Company Governance Association. Her work spans industries including nursing and assisted living, agriculture, manufacturing, hospitality, and outdoor recreation.

Melissa Hautz, DiSC Coach — Operations Manager

Melissa is the organizational engine of every FABS engagement. She manages scheduling, logistics, and document flow — coordinating listening sessions, DiSC assessments, Readiness Assessment preparation, and the ongoing communication cadence that keeps engagements on track. She is often the first point of contact and the person who ensures no detail falls through the cracks.

Andrew Wirtz, CAPM, CEPA, CPIM, LSSGB — Junior Advisor

Andrew supports the analytical and follow-through work that makes FABS engagements productive. He assists in developing materials, analyzing themes from listening sessions, supporting presentation development, and ensuring that decisions made in key meetings translate into documented next steps. His involvement helps maintain momentum between major milestones.