Women in Family Businesses

This week I had the privilege of being one of the speakers at an international conference held by HSM in São Paulo, Brazil. The event focus was on strategies related exclusively to family businesses. Most of the speakers were big international experts in the family business area, such as the Harvard Business School professor, John Davis, the well-known Italian fashion guru Ermenegildo Zegna, currently the CEO of the family business initiated by his grandfather, and Vikram Bhalla, a partner of Boston Consulting Group in Mumbai, India. I was very honored to have had the chance to share the stage with these selected group of people.

However, for my surprise, I was the only woman among the speakers! Eight men, plus me in a family business event… Did I miss something? As I said, I was really happy for the opportunity to talk about an important topic but, at the same time, I did not understand the reason why there was only one woman speaking for an audience of more than 600 family businesses executives. Are we talking about family businesses or men’s businesses?

I was glad to notice that, at least the audience was more balanced in terms of men and women, almost fifty-fifty. What a relief! In practice, women and men are sharing the responsibilities of managing family business. And that is what should happen, always. Family businesses, as the name indicates, are supposed to be managed by the family, including men and women that share a blood tie. There is no indication this is a men-exclusive arena, or at least, it should not be that way.

Before and after my speech, I talked about the concept of Purpose for Family Businesses using the methodology of the 4Is created by Joey Reiman from BrightHouse. Although these people have paid a lot to attend the event and learn from the speakers, I felt I learned a lot from them too. Below, I present four topics that I have received from these contacts and believe are worth sharing:

1. Women are playing a very important role in family business but are still occupying the second-rank managerial roles while men dominate the CEO positions.

2. One of the main contributions of women for the family business is related to their ability to deal with the organizational emotional state, creating a good internal relationship, managing family conflicts, and keeping employee’s satisfaction high.

3. Family businesses purposes depend essentially on family values and women play a fundamental role in transmitting those values, either for their children as well as for the company’s employees. Joey Reiman, quoting Madre Teresa, expressed very well this feeling: “What one can do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” I firmly believe women are bringing love to companies and this is a huge contribution.

4. The entrepreneur spirit of women is one of our most prominent traits. In Brazil for example, 50% of new businesses were led by women. This vocation is pivotal for the family business success and woman are naturally born with it.

More than ever I am convinced that family businesses worth owes a great portion to the presence of women. Moreover, I hope in the next event, not only we can continue seeing a lot of women attending, but also more women sharing their experiences on the central stage, speaking and teaching other women how to manage a family business. A more balanced ratio in terms of speaker’s gender sounds more fair and more productive for the family businesses, for the event, and for the audience.

Ah, one final important note: I am also a family business owner and have the privilege of having my husband as my partner for the past 21 years. In that particular event, for the first time, I shared the platform with my husband/partner. I will talk about that in my next post!

By Cecilia R. Troiano

Cecilia R. Troiano is a Brazilian business owner, COO of Troiano Branding Group, and author of two books related to working mothers, both published in Brazil.