By Mitch Lehman
Ninety percent of all business in North America are classified as family businesses, representing more than 80 percent of all jobs in the U.S. and north of 65 percent of our nation’s Gross Domestic Product. This demographic began shortly after World War II, when the American economy was booming and the military industrial complex retooled for domestic consumption. Given these conditions, one might guess that a successful, fool-proof model for transition and sustainability has existed for decades.
Not so, according to San Marino residents Jim Ellis and Ken Ude, who are re-launching the USC Marshall Family Business Program. The program will be hosting approximately 12 workshops during the year through the USC Marshall School of Business’s Executive Education Department. The program is designed specifically to help families negotiate the many challenges of creating a successful, multi-generational family business.
“The rate at which family businesses fail is astonishing,” said Ude, who is the Director of the USC Marshall Family Business Program. “When it gets to the second generation, only 40 percent of the businesses have survived.
Through the third generation, it drops to 12 percent and by the time you make it to the fourth generation, only three percent of family businesses are still functioning.”
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