John Allison keynote speaker for second annual N.C. Family Business of the Year Awards

John Allison will be the keynote speaker for the second annual Wake Forest University Family Business Center N.C. Family Business of the Year Awards on Thursday, May 6, at Discovery Place in Charlotte.

He is a former BB&T CEO and a Distinguished Professor of Practice in the Schools of Business at Wake Forest. Allison, a champion of individual liberty and personal responsibility, spent 38 years with BB&T before retiring as CEO in 2008. He remains on the BB&T board.

“John Allison is a leader in the world of business, and we are delighted to have him as the keynote speaker for the awards event,” said Kathy Baker, FBC director. “I am sure that our members will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to hear John Allison’s thoughts on family business as well as his valuable insight and perspective about today’s business climate.”

A member of the N.C. Business Hall of Fame, Allison is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University. He has received honorary doctoral degrees from East Carolina University, Mount Olive College, Clemson University and Marymount University.
BB&T, he says, has 10 core values, which are non-contradictory and integrated. Found within those core values are three great virtues – purpose, reason and self-esteem.

“Businesses make the world a better place to live,” Allison, who was named by Morningstar as one of best CEOs in 2008, has said. “Businesses produce better products and better services.

“When business leaders forget they’re in the business of making the world a better place to live, bad things happen to that business.”

The Family Business Center at the Wake Forest University Schools of Business will honor four companies in a ceremony during the May 6 event.

Awards Patron level sponsors BB&T, Fennebresque & Co., GenSpring Family Offices, PricewaterhouseCoopers, ReGeneration Partners and Southern Community Bank & Trust have provided generous financial support for the event. Business North Carolina is the media sponsor, and GenSpring Family Offices sponsors the special section on the Family Business of the Year Awards to run in the May issue of Business North Carolina.