Thomas Deans – speaker MKRF2025

Dr. Tom Deans is the author of three books on the subject of family wealth transfers. His first book, Every Family’s Business: 12 Common Sense Questions to Protect Your Wealth, remains the best-selling family business book of all time — selected by The New York Times as one of the Top Ten Books Business Owners Should Read. The book has sold more than one million copies in more than 100 countries.

His second book, Willing Wisdom: Seven Questions Successful Families Ask is also an international best-seller and has received critical acclaim for its controversial explanation why 360 million North Americans and EU citizens do not have a legal will.

Dr. Deans newly released book, The Happy Inheritor: How Successful Families Prepare Heirs and Transfer Wealth, describes how facilitated family meetings can be the centre-piece of successful family wealth transitions.

Having delivered more than 2000 speeches in 28 countries, he is regarded as the preeminent thought-leader on the subject of inter-generational wealth transfers.

Dr. Deans started his career in banking in 1989 and then joined his family’s multi-national manufacturing business in 1999. In 2007, he sold that business, something that previous generations of his family had done with their businesses.

With 4 generations of his family selling businesses for more than $100 million, prepare to unlearn everything you thought you knew about transitioning family businesses and family wealth.

Deans earned a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick in England and has sold more than two million copies of his books worldwide.