The Transformational Women in Family Business 2024 are 16 accomplished women who are propelling their family enterprises into the future.
LISA DANIEL
Education Committee Chair, Family Council | Lodge Cast Iron | South Pittsburg, Tenn.
Lisa Daniel is a married-in member of the Lodge family. She and her husband, fifth-generation member Jay Daniel, live in Sarasota, Fla., where they own and operate Intechgrate Systems, an IT services company they founded. Daniel was born and raised in a small town in Pennsylvania along with her eight siblings.
Jay is a member of Lodge Cast Iron’s board.
The company, founded in 1896, makes heirloom-quality cookware and accessories. The company operates two foundries in South Pittsburg, Tenn., where it has been based since its inception.
Lodge shareholders voted to create a family council in 2016. The impetus was the transition to a non-family CEO. Some constituencies within the family questioned why a council was needed, Daniel says.
The early efforts didn’t get the family excited, she recalls. “Other than some emails that went out, there wasn’t a deliverable to the family. And because of that, there wasn’t buy-in from the board.”
Daniel, who hadn’t yet joined the council, was in a unique position. “I was attending meetings and hearing what the family council was saying, and then I’m hearing my husband, as a board member, talking about a lack of progress.
“I realized that the communication piece just didn’t exist, so I jumped in, and I worked to create it. And as soon as that was structure was in place, we were able to do some really great projects.”
The council’s communication committee, which Daniel initially headed, worked to gather information about Lodge family members (who number between 150 and 200) and encourage their engagement with the council and each other.
Daniel deployed her technology expertise to create a family web portal, a secure way for the family to share information. Other technology initiatives include an interactive family tree with updatable bios and the digitization of historic documents. The committee produces a quarterly family newsletter and sends birthday messages to family members.
“We’re engaging with the family, not necessarily about business,” she says.
Now, as chair of the education committee, Daniel is working on several programs. Every two to three months, the committee presents an online session on a topic identified by the board. This is followed by a family council presentation related to the family or its history, and then by content from the executive team.
“Our first true deliverable as an education committee was a company update,” Daniel says. “The financials had been removed, so it was something we could share with the entire family. People who are not eligible to come to a shareholder meeting were able to dial in and hear about how the company is doing — just in generalities — and how the housewares industry in general was doing.
“As soon as it was over, we had people emailing, ‘Can we get the recording? We want to share this with our kids.’” The company update is now an annual event.
Another recurring program currently in the planning stage will highlight a department in the company, such as the foundry, HR, marketing and finance. These sessions will provide an opportunity to celebrate the employees and provide information to family members who might be interested in working in those departments.
“In all of these educational events, we communicate to the family ahead of time what the content is going to be, and then we invite them to send questions ahead of time, so everybody feels that their questions are being considered and answered.”
Among those who have praised these efforts are some of the family council’s early detractors, Daniel says.
“My passion is individual growth and celebrating the people in the family. I have a lot of enthusiasm about it. And I think that that’s contagious.”