If your family is in the business of selling big-ticket items, you may have noticed a change in your customer base over the past decade or so. That is, you’ve likely observed that more and more of your clients are female.
While jewelry store shoppers were once chiefly men buying gifts for women, jewelers are now serving more women seeking fashion pieces for themselves. Auto dealers and electronics retailers accustomed to female clients accompanied by husbands, boyfriends, fathers or male friends now see more women who have done their own research on disc brakes and digital tuners.
What’s driving this change? Primarily, it’s the rise in the number of professional women with sizable disposable income. Women are—slowly—beginning to receive the respect they deserve as an economic force in today’s society.
At the same time, highly educated, accomplished women are assuming leading roles in their families’ businesses. While two generations ago many women “helped out”—often without a paycheck—in their husbands’ companies, and “Daddy’s little girl” was never considered a potential successor, today more wives and daughters have joined the executive ranks of their family firms. Others are serving on their family company’s board of directors. And enterprising women are founding and leading new businesses that are poised to become tomorrow’s dynasties.
In this issue, Sharon Nelton chronicles the progress that has been made in including women in significant roles in family companies. Our special report also features a reflection by family business consultant Leslie Dashew, who has been leading a Women in Family Business program for nine years, on how women’s concerns have changed over time. And Nancy Dunham profiles Hare Auto in Indiana, where two sixth-generation sisters are making their marks in a male-dominated industry.
“Family-owned businesses no longer can afford to base their employment and leadership decisions on gender alone,” family business adviser Anne E. Francis wrote in her 1999 book The Daughter Also Rises. When the pool of qualified candidates is expanded, a business is apt to benefit.