Realizing synergies across different businesses is a mulitbusiness firms generic strategic challenge. Eva Bilhuber Galli investigates the role of social capital in cross-business collaboration and how to build it effectively with leadership development practices.Strategic Challenge of a Multibusiness Firm; The Role of Social Capital for Realizing Growth Synergies; Leadership Developments Potential for Social Capital Development; How to build Social Capital with Leadership Development; Strategic Alignment of Leadership Development Practices Dr. Eva Bilhuber Galli wrote her dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Dr. G?nter M?ller-Stewens at the Institute of Management, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). She is the founder of human facts ag and works as a management consultant and executive coach.Realizing synergies across different businesses is a mulitbusiness firms generic strategic challenge. Eva Bilhuber Galli investigates the role of social capital in cross-business collaboration and how to build it effectively with leadership development practices. Studying a case of a large multibusiness firm, she comes to counter-intuitive conclusions: 1) Not all types of cross-business collaboration require the same intensity level of social capital. 2) To build strong forms of social capital, single networking events seem to fall short. The alignment of practices over time needs to be considered.Realizing synergies across different businesses is a mulitbusiness firms generic strategic challenge. Eva Bilhuber Galli investigates the role of social capital in cross-business collaboration and how to build it effectively with leadership development practices. Studying a case of a large multibusiness firm, she comes to counter-intuitive conclusions: 1) Not all types of cross-business collaboration require the same intensity level of social capital. 2) To build strong forms of social capital, single networking events seem to fall short. The alignment of prlÓ2