Italy’s Dynamic Family Firms Are Breaking the ‘Succession’ Mold
Their growing strength at the heart of the country’s economy points to the resilience and adaptability of the family business model.
Family firms are still in the driver’s seat of Italy’s economy.
Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/BloombergCome to Milan, as I recently did, and you cannot help but notice that Italian capitalism remains what it has always been: a family affair. (Granted, I was there to attend a conference on the future of capitalism.) The great Milan-based fashion houses of Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, and Prada are all family companies. The Ferraris that roar through the city’s streets, the Bezzera machines that make such excellent coffee, the Ferrero chocolates that finish off a meal are all produced by family companies. Family giants such as Ferrari sit atop a vast network of suppliers, almost all of them family companies, that dominate the Lombardy region. Giant public companies and chain stores belong to the alien world of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Even in the most economically advanced region of Italy, the family is king.
Yet anyone who has watched “Succession” knows that family companies are subject to unique and often fatal problems, notably dysfunctional children and family feuds. Most languages have a phrase for the three-generation curse of family companies: “clogs to clogs in three generations,” in English, for instance. In Italy the popular phrase is “from stables to stars to stables.”