Turning Garbage Into Money, with Jeff Savlov

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Jeff Savlov. Jeff started working at an early age in his family business, a growing commercial printing operation. His first role was to peel off strips of silver in the film that was otherwise garbage so they could sell the silver for cash. Jeff learned firsthand the challenges that come with working for your dad. As Jeff shared with us, his dad took out the business frustrations on Jeff because it was safe. Jeff, after all, was family. They ultimately hired a therapist to help address the challenging family dynamics. This experience inspired Jeff’s ultimate career decision.

Jeff is founder of Blum & Savlov, LLP – Family Business & Wealth Consulting and works with family businesses, high net-worth families, family offices and their advisors with a focus on balancing family dynamics with ownership and management of shared assets across generations. Jeff’s specialty is working with families that want their wealth to serve current and future generations in healthy and productive ways and he loves coaching parents on raising children in a family business/wealth context to harness potential and avoid common, painful pitfalls. He speaks in the U.S. and internationally, has been quoted in the NY Times, Family Business Magazine, and authors a popular blog – “The Family Business Minute.”

Jeff brings more than 25 years of unique experience in sales and marketing, business ownership, entrepreneurial endeavors and family dynamics training, along with a common sense style, to his consulting work with families. By integrating his diverse business background, extensive academic work and family dynamics/psychological training with his experience working in his family’s commercial printing business, Jeff helps enterprising families to balance family dynamics and business so both will thrive for many generations.

Having participated in his family’s business, Jeff understands first-hand the challenges of balancing the interplay between family and business and the devastation that can befall an otherwise healthy business when this balance is not proactively managed. In the business Jeff’s family owned, a consultant was brought in to work with the family, facilitated a successful reorganization of the business and helped rebuild family relationships. This is one of the primary experiences which motivated Jeff’s career in family business/family wealth consulting.

Jeff holds a Master of Social Work degree from Rutgers University with specializations in group dynamics and family systems theory and has a post-graduate certification from the Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of New Jersey (now the Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of NJ) where he is a member of the faculty. He earned an Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising and Fellow status from the Family Firm Institute (FFI), Boston, MA. In addition, he has consulted with Fortune 500 companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and Schering Plough. He also devotes a portion of his time to performance enhancement with corporate executives and elite high school athletes.

Through membership in the Family Firm Institute, an international organization comprised of family business and family wealth advisors, consultants, educators and researchers, and the Purposeful Planning Institute, Jeff has access to the latest trends, developments, best practices and research in family business and family wealth consulting. Jeff is the founder of the Princeton Family Business Consultants Group – an interdisciplinary group of professionals serving enterprising families across the U.S. and convening to develop best practices.

Jeff lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children. He coaches youth sports and makes time for his lifelong passion – ice hockey. Jeff approaches his life and work with creativity and a sense of humor.

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