People Moves: Ex-family office CEO joins consultancy; Family-owned holding group appoints president

Former Anthos head joins German consultancy

Maximilian Werkmüller, a legal expert in family office management, has joined the Germany-based Peter May Family Business Consulting as a partner.

Werkmüller joins the team’s two family business lawyers: long-term partner, Karin Ebel, who specialises in tax law, and Dieter Jeschke, a mediator who focuses on governance structures and succession.

Based in Bonn, Peter May Business Consulting was started by lawyer Peter May who has since become one of Germany’s top strategic consultants for family businesses. 

After he completed his law degree, Werkmüller worked at a private bank in Düsseldorf where he served as in-house counsel with a focus on inheritance and family foundation matters.

From 2011 to 2015, Werkmüller was head of Anthos, the single-family office of the German-Dutch Brenninkmeijer family, who own multinational retail group C&A. 

Werkmüller was also managing partner at tax consulting and auditing specialists Lohr + Company, a firm that also offers family office services, after which he joined the Düsseldorf commercial law firm SSP-Law as Of Counsel in 2019.

Werkmüller has earned a reputation as a family office expert in Germany through working with them directly as well as writing and teaching about them. He is a professor of finance at the Allensbach University of Applied Sciences where he teaches asset succession, private financial planning and family office management.

Werkmüller’s appointment to Peter May’s well-known consultancy group shows its commitment to extending its family business offerings to include family office services as the sector becomes more important to the overall family enterprise world. 

Holding/investment group appoints family member to its presidency

Barry-Wehmiller Companies Inc, a family-owned holding and investment group based in St Louis, Missouri, has promoted the son of company CEO Robert Chapman to the role of president.

Kyle Chapman’s appointment means he will step out of his interim chief financial officer role, which he has held for most of this year. 

As the president of the $3 billion and 12,000 strong organisation, Kyle Chapman continues a legacy of family involvement in Barry-Wehmiller that started when his grandfather William Chapman became president in 1957. The original business dates back to 1885 when it was started by the Wehmiller family, who eventually sold the business to the Chapmans in 1963. 

William Chapman’s son Robert joined in 1969 and became president, then CEO and board chairman after his father’s death in 1976.

When Kyle joined Barry-Wehmiller in 2009, he co-founded its investment arm, BW Forsyth Partners,  which has completed 22 business acquisitions since its foundation. He also served as the firm’s strategic financial advisor from 2015 to 2019.

In a recent statement on his son’s appointment to president, Robert Chapman said it presents “a unique two-generation opportunity” to combine his fifty years of senior leadership with his son’s investment experience. 

Chapman senior reiterated that he would remain in his dual roles of CEO and board chairman and will continue to lead the company alongside his son playing a more active role.