Otis W. Baskin

Otis Baskin is a founding member of FBCG and retired from consulting in December of 2025. To connect with another experienced consultant, please contact us. 

Otis worked with family-owned businesses, family foundations and family offices in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America for more than 25 years. His primary expertise was in helping business-owning families develop plans for leadership succession, development of next generation leaders, and family/ownership structures and decision making processes. 

Otis has spoken on various topics to many organizations including the Family Firm Institute (U.S.), the Family Business Network (Europe), The Conference Board (Mexico) and The World Knowledge Forum (Korea). He also hosted a nationally televised series on entrepreneurship for PBS: “Were in Business.”

Otis is Emeritus Professor of management and former Dean at The Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University where he had complete P&L responsibility for a $50 million annual revenue enterprise. His academic  career included positions as Dean of the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at The University of Memphis; Director of the School of Management at Arizona State University, West Campus; Coordinator of the management faculty at the University of Houston – Clear Lake.  He was the founding director of the Family Business Forum at The University of Memphis; Visiting Professor for Family Business at ITESM (Monterrey Tech), Mexico, and Visiting Scholar in Family Business at Oxford University, England.  

He has served on several boards, including the board of directors of EMRISE Corp. where he chaired the Compensation committee and was a member of the Audit committee; the board of directors of the Los Angeles Development Corporation; and the Durham Foundation Board where he chaired the Finance committee.