| NEW KNOWLEDGE
When Family and Business Meet you know that feeling when you
BY | KAITIE CATANIA
PHOTOGRAPH BY | ANDY DUBACK
20 |
UVM MAGAZINE
finally realize something and then you can’t stop noticing it—you seem to find it everywhere? That’s how a class or conversation with Pramodita Sharma, director of the Family Business Institute at Grossman School of Business, might leave you—seeing family businesses everywhere. Sharma is renowned for her extensive research on succession, governance, entrepreneurial leadership, and sustainability, which serves as the “go-to” literature in her field. Recently the inaugural SchlesingerGrossman Chair of Family Business was named among the top one hundred influencers in family business by Family Capital, a London-based online magazine. When asked about the significance of family businesses and why she chose to build a career around it, “Dita”—as her students call her—makes it clear why she’s earned a reputation among Grossman students as one of their most beloved professors. “What did you do this morning? What did you eat? What are you wearing? What are you using right now?” she asks in a non-invasive way, but rather a genuinely
curious way. She wants to make that connection between each individual and the enormous entrepreneurial ecosystem that unknowingly affects them. “Every single product, everything you touch comes from a business family. Who is manufacturing it? Who is distributing it? We tend to use the products and services of business families, and these families remain in the background,” she says. Of course, there are the well-known heavy hitters like the Walton family of Wal-Mart, the Buffet family of Berkshire Hathaway, the Murdoch family behind Fox News, and France family behind NASCAR. Together they employ nearly three million people and earn more than $750 billion in revenue. But what Sharma challenges her students to understand is that those billionaire families aren’t the norm, nor are they the only ones worth studying. They’re just the tip of the iceberg. A family business is defined as any business involving two or more family members, with a majority of ownership or control belonging to a family. It’s estimated that roughly 90 percent of American businesses are family-owned or controlled.
