Family Business

Our founder, Debra Chantry-Taylor, is an Accredited Family Business Advisor and an Advisor Member with Family Business New Zealand.

Having worked with over 100 family businesses and in a large family business herself, she knows, understands and loves the dynamics that exist in family businesses.

Using the 3 circle family business model of Ownership, Family and Business plus the EOS® model and framework, she will help your family business owners and leaders to get what they want.

Her superpower, as an EOS Implementer, is to be able to uncover the elephants in the room and gently but firmly facilitate dealing with them, ensuring everyone is heard and they work together for the greater good.

Why do you need a family business advisor?

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?

There’s no shared vision for the family and/or the company
There’s no clarity on who owns what, especially for those who don’t work in the business
There’s no agreement on the roles and responsibilities that each family member has in the business
Some family members aren’t pulling their weight or can’t do the job they are assigned
You’re worried about a succession plan / generational leadership transition into the business that is sustainable and good for business
There’s issues and discrepancies on important things like compensation, stock valuation, leadership, governance, transparency or confidentiality.
You’ve lost family harmony and don’t look forward to family barbecues anymore

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.

Our Services

Meet Our Founder

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.

Learn more about Debra

Debra Chantry Taylor Certified EOS Implementer Accredited Family Business Advisor

25 Years of
Business
Experience.

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.

Our happy customers.

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.

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!

Kara Weeden-Butler

- Solid Mechanical

Mitchell Whitehouse - Traction EOS Implementer Client

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.

Click here for the full Testimonial

Mitchell Whitehouse

- Owner | Director | EOS Visionary

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.

Lisa Kagan

- Owner & Integrator

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.”

Richard Austin

- Managing Partner & Visionary, Cambridge Partners

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.

Fiona Davis

- Integrator & COO, Cambridge Partners

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.”

Justine Parsons

- Founder & Visionary, Your VA (An established family business)

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.

Nathan Bentley

- Regional Manager IT Services – Spark Strategic Partnership at LANtech Ltd

Kerry Whitehouse - EOS Client of Debra Chantry-Taylor | EOS Implementer

We have been working with Debra and EOS for 12 months now.

Debra has been fantastic to work with and helped to speed up and smooth the bumps of our EOS Implementation at BrandSpec.

Would thoroughly recommend working with Debra and the EOS program to move your business forward.

Kerry Whitehouse

- Owner | Managing Director | EOS Integrator

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.

Jacob Wolt

- Managing Partner, Cambridge Partners

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.

Daniel McCarthy

- EOS Integrator, AlphaCert

Hayden McKee - EOS Client of Debra Chantry-Taylor EOS Implementer

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.

Hayden McKee

- CEO & Visionary, LANTech (An established IT business)

With EOS & Debra’s help, we have so much more clarity than we have had in 17 years of the business

Benjamin Wilson

- Director, The Little Linen Company (An established family owned business)

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