Family businesses account for the majority of the GCC’s private sector economy, and many of the region’s most prominent groups are now approaching their second or third, and in few cases fourth or fifth generational transition. How do you lead a family enterprise through that kind of change?
The stakes are significant; evidence drawn from family enterprise research across multiple decades indicates that many family businesses globally do not survive to the second or third generation, and a far smaller proportion reaches the third or fourth. The primary cause is almost never commercial. It is the failure to manage the human and governance dimensions of leadership transition with the same rigor that the family applied to building the business in the first place.
In our report, we lay out the honest conversations that boards, owners, and family members need to be willing to have and that the governance of these enterprises depends upon. Offering key insights and recommendations grounded in direct engagement with GCC family enterprises navigating these transitions and in the body of academic and applied thinking that has developed around family governance over the past two decades.
