Top family business advisor dies

Cindy Iannarelli, a renowned family business adviser, has been murdered.

Her throat had been "slit by a sharp object" while on holiday at a resort in India last Friday, according to the Times of India who quoted a local police superintendent.

Her 15-year-old son Joncarlo is the prime suspect in her death, police said.

Iannarelli, whose brother runs a dry cleaning business founded by her father, had spent many years helping families to use their companies to raise their children.

For over 25 years she was director of the US-based Bernelli foundation, which began with a business plan competition in 1981. In 2005 the foundation launched Bernelli University, which uses the Bernelli 5+5+5 Entrepreneurial Learning Method that was pioneered by Iannarelli.

"Bernelli University has suffered a great loss," it said in a statement.

Iannarelli was the former director of the Centre for Family Business at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a visiting lecturer at the Wharton Business School Family Enterprise Centre at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Michael Hutchinson of The Hutchinson Consultancy and former head of the Guinness family office had known Iannerelli for 10 years. He told campdenFB.com: "She was a born educator. Business-owning families worldwide have lost a good friend."

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