Speakers
Philip Pryor
Rachel Cook, Philip Pryor
This session identifies a vital protective force within every family: the often invisible, frequently gendered, and almost always under acknowledged role that holds the relational fabric together across generations, the Kin-Keeper.
In this special discussion for the WA State Summit, Rachel and Annie will explore what kin-keeping actually involves in practice.
We will examine the kin-keeper's critical role as the family's "emotional regulator," discussing how they actively rebalance historical grievances that can block families from moving forward, and why family enterprises that ignore these dynamics tend to fragment.
Participants will gain a new vocabulary for the dynamics they may have witnessed in their own families for years, a clearer understanding of the personal costs involved, and practical strategies to intentionally recognise, develop, and support the kin-keepers in their lives.
Philip is a trusted advisor to family businesses and family offices across Australia and New Zealand. Drawing on a unique background and training from the US and UK in psychology, family therapy, problem resolution, organisational change, and business consulting, he brings both depth of theory and a practical understanding of the challenges families face at the intersection of love, legacy, and enterprise.
His focus is on preventing future family conflict—helping families design long-term succession plans, building appropriate governance, developing the Next Generation, and aligning the family with the business to create resilient, multigenerational enterprises.
Philip’s passion is personal. His own family once ran a business that did not survive beyond the first generation. That experience drives his commitment to helping strengthen families to create enduring and successful family enterprises.
He has also developed a distinctive model of succession that enables families to have the right conversations, share wisdom and culture, and grow while staying true to their values. A Fellow of the Cybernetics Society in London, Philip is one of the leading developers of Light Touch Change methodology with a group in the UK which is used to bring about changes in complex organisations and families.
Rachel is a pioneering technology and operations executive with a foundational background in early-internet enterprise architecture and digital transformation.
A major career highlight includes her pivotal role as Second in Command (2IC) at the start-up Business Web from 1999 to 2003. Beginning her tenure as a self-taught web engineer at just 22 years old, Rachel was instrumental in creating the operational ecosystem required to execute a unique digital business model during the dawn of the global internet economy. In this capacity, she spearheaded the automation and digitization of the nascent search industry, acting as the crucial bridge between visionary concepts and scalable technical execution.
Drawing on her deep technical and operational expertise, Rachel architected comprehensive workflows that transitioned traditional paper-based methods into sophisticated digital solutions. She led the prototyping of order fulfillment systems using Visual Basic and database solutions, ultimately laying the strategic groundwork for a proprietary, browser-based intranet system. Her foresight in e-commerce strategy was critical in automating manual, international payment processes prior to the advent of modern payment gateways. She operationally designed technical roles, customer data capture protocols, contract architectures, and robust communication templates, all focused on maximizing the online cart experience and ensuring continuous system uptime.
Beyond technical systems, Rachel is a proven leader in human capital and financial oversight. She actively managed the hiring, training, and administration of cross-functional teams, expertly troubleshooting the intersection of human, digital, and business platforms. Furthermore, Rachel actively designed the firm’s fiscal expense culture, implementing stringent process controls that yielded deep insights into operational success, sourced systemic efficiencies, and seamlessly integrated human workflows with digital fulfillment processing.