Your family built something worth protecting. The hard conversation is how you keep it.
Schema helps families whose relationships and whose business have become impossible to separate — and turns the conversation-you've-been-avoiding into a catalyst instead of a catastrophe.
Let’s see if we’re a fit.
You already know something has to change.
Maybe it's the lack of any succession plans.
Maybe it's a sibling dynamic that's quietly corroding the business.
Maybe a parent's health is declining and there's an estate conversation no one has been brave enough to open.
Maybe working together just isn't fun anymore, and you want the magic back.
Or maybe you simply know that if you don't deal with this now, it's going to cost you the relationship, the business, or both.
You don't need another year of circling it. You need a skilled outsider in the room, two focused days, and a clear plan you can actually act on.
About Schema Consulting
The “family” part of family business — handled with sanity, humanity, clarity, and joy.
For better or for worse, in family-owned-and-operated businesses, family dynamics impact operations. Business IS personal, and vice versa. Navigating normal life-cycles of both business and family development can be challenging, but is especially so during times of growth, succession planning, or crisis. Just as your business changes over time, your relationships and dynamics change as people grow.
Schema helps families navigate changing business landscapes while preserving and growing relationship. Through compassionate and pragmatic coaching, we foster healthy and constructive dialogue to create clarity, operational resilience, and relational harmony.
- Clarify your options — including ones you didn’t know were available
- Facilitate decision-making by removing emotional and relational hurdles
- Create actionable plans that align business values and goals
- Foster harmonious relationships among business partners
- Coach with best business practices, operational efficiency, and legacy in view
- Tell you what decision to make
- Provide financial, tax, legal, or clinical advice
- Manage your employees or act in any official capacity of the business
Where to start
Three ways in. Each one a complete offering on its own.
Most families start with one of these and discover what comes next from there. They’re not a sequence — they’re different tools for different moments.
One hour · Virtual or in person
Individual Consultation
One focused hour, just you and me, before anyone else is in the room. A decision to pressure-test, a conversation to plan, a dynamic to make sense of. Or a low-stakes way to see if we’re a fit before you bring in the family.
Two days · In person · Seattle · The flagship
The Family Intensive
Two days. What’s actually going on — and where to go from here. Individual interviews with each participant on day one. A joint synthesis, shared diagnostic, and working action plan on day two. Followed by a written roadmap you can actually run.
Multi-phase · Custom-scoped
Extended Engagements
For families navigating a major transition, a multi-year succession process, or a situation where the family system and the business system are both in play at the same time. Every engagement is designed from scratch.
Schema also offers family retreat design & facilitation, family workshops, whole-family education, and services specifically for advisors. See the full range of services →
Why Schema
Most advisors can see one side of this. I can see three.
Savannah Berry Suttle, MAMFT
Founder, Schema Consulting LLC
at once
I trained and practiced as a marriage and family therapist before I ever consulted on a business. That background isn’t incidental — it’s the whole point. It means I can see three things at once that most advisors can’t:
I’m not your therapist. I’m not your attorney or your financial planner — and I don’t replace any of them. What I do is create the structure and the relational container that makes all of those conversations actually possible, and actually stick.
My job is to safely bring order to the chaos: name what’s really going on, show you your options, then build the structure, the plan, and the conversations that get you where you want to go.
What families say
Savannah is a breath of fresh air. Joyful, pragmatic, compassionate, strategic, and wise. She genuinely cares, and you feel it. But she also knows what she’s doing — and you see that too.
Schema client
Work with Savannah. Just do it. We were skeptical at first, but the reality is, working with her saved us literally millions in attorney fees, trust litigation, and years of our lives.
Former Schema client
Savannah helped us feel like we were on the same team. I’d say “like we’re on the same team again,” but I actually don’t know if we’d ever really felt like a team in the first place. It’s pretty awesome.
Former Schema client
Were you sent this page?
Someone thought you might need this.
They were probably right.
Schema’s site is designed to be studied and shared — passed from one family member to another, forwarded by an advisor, or discovered through a referral. Whoever sent this your way did it because they recognized something. Here’s where to go next depending on who you are.
For families
See the full range of services
An overview of everything Schema offers — from a single consultation hour to a multi-year engagement — and guidance on which might fit your situation.
Services for families →For advisors
For the professionals in the room
If you’re a wealth manager, estate planner, attorney, or CPA who works with family enterprises — Schema partners with advisors directly. Your clients stay yours.
Services for advisors →Let’s see if we’re a fit.
A free 30-minute call is the right place to start. We’ll talk through what’s happening, whether the Intensive is right for your family, and what the next step looks like. If we’re not a fit, I’ll tell you that too — and point you toward what might be.
Book a Free 30-Minute CallSchema Consulting, LLC · 1809 7th Ave, Suite 1503, Seattle, WA 98101 · +1 (206) 552-0333 · savannah@schemaconsult.com. Schema Consulting is not therapy, counseling, or medical services. We do not diagnose or treat mental health conditions, and our work is not governed by HIPAA or therapist–client privilege. All services are educational, facilitative, or advisory in nature. For clinical needs, please consult a licensed mental health professional.