James Bly

As national practice leader of EY’s Family Enterprise Business Services (FEBS) unit, James is responsible for working with multi-generation family businesses and family offices that own upper middle market companies.

He has over 35 years of professional experience working with such companies and owners. During his career, James has personally advised the principal owners of hundreds of businesses in a wide range of industries on business value creation and generational transition matters.

He assists on matters relating to developing and implementing strategies to drive organic and/or external growth, financing the growth of companies while maintaining family control, completing generational transitions that use parallel governance structures and processes, and on designing and implementing shareholder liquidity plans.

James graduated from St. Bonaventure University. He is a Certified Merger and Acquisition Advisor (CM&AA) by the Alliance of Mergers & Acquisition Advisors (AM&AA).

How James is building a better working world

Having started a professional services firm in 1982, which was acquired by EY in 2017, James is an internationally recognized leader in the field of family business consulting.

His unique practice approach and methodologies have enabled hundreds of private, family companies to remain rooted in their communities while growing to become larger and more profitable.

By tying business growth with generational transition and improving the structure and processes associated with parallel governance systems, he has also demonstrated how to enable stable, long-term stewardship of such private companies, which facilitates better outcomes for their employees, customers, owners, communities and our society at large.