One in Five Family Business Leaders Is Struggling in Silence. A New Report Says It’s Time to Talk.
Family Enterprise Foundation’s “From Silence to Strength” launches at the 2026 Family Business Symposium in Vancouver, revealing how stigma, secrecy, and generational pressure put families—and their businesses—at risk
VANCOUVER — May 25, 2026 — Family Enterprise Foundation today released From Silence to Strength: Mental Health in Family Business, a landmark report that confronts one of the most urgent and least discussed threats to the continuity of family-owned enterprises: untreated mental illness. The report launches at the 2026 Family Business Symposium in Vancouver, where it is expected to catalyze a national conversation among Canada’s most influential business families.
Developed in collaboration with Andrew Keyt, Chairman and Founder of Generation6 Family Enterprise Advisors and author of From Stigma to Strength, the report relies on in-depth interviews with Canadian family business owners to explore how depression, bipolar disorder, addiction, and schizophrenia intersect with the unique pressures of family enterprise—where identity, leadership, wealth, and reputation are intertwined.
Mental health challenges impact about one in five adults. That means one in five family business CEOs, owners, board members, and employees might be dealing with a mental health issue of some kind,” said Andrew Keyt. “Despite often having access to substantial financial and professional resources, enterprising families tend to struggle more — not less — when it comes to managing mental health.
Why Vancouver. Why now.
The decision to release the report at the Family Business Symposium—Canada’s leading gathering of enterprising families—is intentional. Surrounded by peers who appreciate the significance of legacy and the intricacies of shared leadership, family members are more inclined to engage openly with the report’s findings and to start the challenging conversations it encourages.
“The Symposium is exactly where this conversation belongs,” said Keyt. “These families don’t need another abstract panel on wellness. They need to see themselves in these stories—and to know they’re not alone.”
The Cost of Silence
The report makes a powerful case that silence around mental health is not protective—it is corrosive. When families treat personal struggles as private failures rather than systemic challenges, the consequences ripple outward: eroded trust, fractured relationships, leadership paralysis, and, in the most devastating cases, loss of life.
Research cited in the report estimates that mental illness costs the global economy as much as a trillion dollars annually. But the report argues the deepest costs are relational—the isolation of a family member suffering in silence, the strain of untreated addiction, and the conflicts that can permanently fracture families and the enterprises they have built over generations.
Four Families. Four Turning Points.
At the heart of the report are four case studies grounded in real experiences, each illustrating a different dimension of how mental health challenges unfold within family enterprise:
The Stein Family – Henry’s Cameras: Spanning four generations, this is the only named case study in the report. After losing the family patriarch to suicide and navigating bipolar disorder across multiple generations, CEO Gillian Stein became one of the few Canadian chief executives to publicly disclose living with a mental health disorder. The family’s courage has opened a national conversation.
When Performance Isn’t the Real Problem: A high-achieving sister labels her brother’s declining performance as laziness—only to discover, after her own departure from the business, that he was suffering from major depressive disorder hidden by a family culture that equated vulnerability with weakness.
The Evans Family Enterprise: Across a multi-billion-dollar, four-generation enterprise, a culture of endurance and reputation protection conceals a fourth-generation member’s descent into alcoholism following the death of her closest caregiver. Recovery only becomes possible when treatment finally addresses the family system, not just the individual.
Breaking the Silence – The Moreau Family: A young woman’s gradual onset of schizophrenia is misread as teenage moodiness by parents without the language or framework to understand what is happening. Her tragic death transforms a grieving family into advocates for early intervention and mental health education.
Key Findings
The report identifies several recurring patterns across the families studied. Mental health challenges are consistently framed as individual failures rather than as conditions affecting the broader family system.
The overlapping pressures of ownership, governance, and legacy create unique stressors that amplify vulnerability. Family cultures built on stoicism and reputation protection often prevent early recognition and intervention. And critically, when even one family member breaks the silence, the potential for healing extends well beyond the individual to transform the entire family.
The report also surfaces striking workplace data: 30–40% of short-term disability claims relate to mental health, one in three long-term disability claims is mental-health-related, and 75% of Canadians remain reluctant to disclose a mental illness at work—even though 76% of employees say they would support a struggling colleague.
“These are not distant or theoretical concerns; they are present, lived realities that affect how families function, relate, and endure,” the Foundation’s Board of Directors wrote in its letter introducing the report. “Our investment reflects a commitment to supporting families as ecosystems—capable of resilience, but in need of better tools to sustain it.”
A Call to Action for Family Enterprises
The report concludes with a four-part framework for families seeking to move from silence to strength: identify and gracefully acknowledge the problem; educate yourselves and understand the patterns; build supportive and safe communities; and seek treatment and take meaningful action.
Each case study is accompanied by reflective discussion questions designed to help families examine their own dynamics—making the report not just a document to read, but a tool to use at the boardroom table and the kitchen table alike.
From Silence to Strength: Mental Health in Family Business is available beginning May 25, 2026.
About Family Enterprise Canada (FEC)
Family Enterprise Canada is the national member association for family-owned enterprises, offering resources, advocacy, education and community to support enterprising families in building lasting legacies. Family-owned enterprises make up 63 percent of all private-sector firms in Canada, generate around $575 billion in real GDP and employ 6.9 million Canadians.
About Family Enterprise Canada
Family Enterprise Canada is the national member association for family-owned businesses, providing resources, advocacy, and community to help enterprising families build lasting legacies.
Acknowledgments
The Foundation extends its sincere thanks to the James A. Burton & Family Foundation, the Graham Boeckh Family Foundation, and the Pixel Foundation for their generous support of this research.
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