Twenty years ago this month, having stayed home for several years with our two active young sons, I went back to work, not as a commercial banker—my previous occupation —but as a journalist with our family’s chain of community newspapers. Later, I founded Main Line Life, a weekly paper covering the communities outside Philadelphia where we live. Then, in 2005, I shifted to Family Business.
Today Family Business stands as the leading magazine serving thriving multigenerational business families. I recall its exciting launch in 1989 as a consumer publication, and for years I followed its evolutionary progress. The credit for its mission belongs to my father-in-law, Milt, a visionary who saw the magazine as filling a narrow but critical niche. Looking back, he says his decision to start Family Business was prompted by a firm belief that “The backbone of American business and prosperity is family business.” He expresses his pride that the magazine was early in recognizing this important piece of the economy.
While the magazine shifted over the years, it began, according to Milt, as “a snapshot of families and how they effectively manage their businesses, select successors and develop leaders.” It emphasized “how family members react to making critical business decisions while at the same time balancing the family dynamics.” These elements, he notes, are separate but intertwined: “families in business, rather than just family businesses.”
Milt says that in hiring the original contributors, he sought “articulate writers and astute academicians who could provide the breadth of content necessary to help families run their business, but who were also interested in an innovative way of looking at families and business.” According to Milt, a business family’s goal should be to ensure that the business remains sound for future generations. “When the business does well, the family can be happy,” he says. However, “when the business suffers, the family feels it the most.” Milt’s vision is now expanding globally—our magazine has been approached for licensing partnerships in China, Turkey, Japan, Russia, Korea and Spain.
For 20 years, my extended family in Kansas City have been devoted readers of Family Business, and in fact, in March 1990, the cover story featured my brother’s father-in-law, Henry Bloch of H&R Block. With a history of observing my own family’s dynamics, I can attest to the delicate balancing act between family harmony and financial success in a family-owned company.
When a family business succeeds, it is indeed rewarding. Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to work with an unbelievably patient and giving husband, a terrific mentor in Milt, a talented Generation 3, and an extraordinary team: longtime, perceptive editor Barbara Spector, CFO Lisa Cody, publishing director David Shaw, advertising director Scott Chase, art director Bill Cooke, Jerri Smith-Baldwin in our accounting department and Barbara Wenger, who handles our subscriptions and directory. We look forward to serving the burgeoning community of business families and their advisers for many more years to come.