Heiring on the Side of Profit
These are the mom-and-pop stores on steroids, huge companies that embraced nepotism wholeheartedly to build some of the strongest brands on the planet. “I define a family business as one where ownership control is exercised by two or more family members, either concurrently or sequentially,” says Josh Baron, co-author of the Harvard Business Review’s “Family Business Handbook.” To categorize a public company as a family firm, the family must have a sizable stake. “There are many debates about what that shareholding number is, but the vast majority of the time, you know it when you see it,” Baron says.