Frequent Asked Questions

Most advisors help design plans. We have seen what happens when those plans fail—discord, estrangement, and, in many cases, litigation between family members. Our founder, Joe Manna, has deep experience litigating high-stakes family business disputes. In 2011, he was featured in Buffalo Business First for his niche business divorce practice. For decades, Joe has worked directly inside situations where governance broke down, communication failed, and families paid the price—both financially and personally. His experience shapes this work. Joe later completed certification in Family Business Leadership from Cornell University. He is also a member of the Family Firm Institute, an internationally recognized organization dedicated to advancing best practices in family enterprise governance and succession. Invisible Elephant Consulting brings together real-world litigation insight and formal governance training to address the issues most families already know exist—but have not yet addressed. We do not focus only on structure. We focus on whether that structure will hold when decisions become difficult, roles change, and pressure increases. Our role is to help families address what is often left unspoken—and to build systems that allow both the business and the family to move forward with clarity and alignment.

Invisible Elephant Consulting is grounded in a perspective most advisory models do not have. Our work is informed not only by governance theory and best practices, but by decades of experience in high-stakes litigation disputes involving family businesses. In 2011, our founder, Joe Manna, was featured in Buffalo Business First for his work in business divorce litigation, which frequently involves litigation between family members. Since then, Joe earned certification in Family Business Leadership from Cornell University. He is also a member of Family Firm Institute, a leading global organization hyper-focused on family enterprise governance, succession and advisory excellence. We have seen the aftermath of communication breaks down, unclear expectations, and missing structure. That decades long experience shapes how we approach every engagement. We focus on building governance systems that function in real-world conditions—under pressure, across generations, and through difficult decisions—not just on paper. Protect the Family. Protect the business. Protect the relationships.

Because in many family businesses, the most important issues are visible to everyone but addressed by no one. They are the "invisible elephants" that are hard to talk about because they are awkward and difficult. The “invisible elephants” are the unspoken issues shaping decisions, tension, and uncertainty behind the scenes. Our work is to surface those issues into the open in a productive, structured, and usable way.