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** Financial gossip
Author of Financial Gossip
The legend of Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha, came to an end, evoking the memories and regrets of countless people.
His daughter Zong Fuli, vice chairman and general manager of Wahaha Group, was quickly pushed to the center, and the accompanying argument was: Can the second generation of women take over the next baton, and where should they go in the future?
Looking back at the more than 40 years of reform and opening up, a large number of self-made entrepreneurs have stepped on the waves of the times and created immortal business myths.
The flowers return to dust, and the green silk turns gray.
When the older generation of entrepreneurs enters their twilight years, how to smoothly transition authority to the next generation has become an unavoidable proposition of the times.
In general, the choice of family business** people is often accompanied by gender bias, and men are usually preferred over women.
This has a lot to do with traditional Chinese social concepts, after all, the daughter is an outsider who wants to marry, and the water spilled out is ......
And with the progress of the times, more and more rich women have begun to take over the banner of their parents and enter the center of power!
This kind of measure to break the traditional confinement of "passing on men but not women" has gradually become a popular event.
But the questioning voice of the "vase" carried by the second generation of women still echoed for a long time.
But now it seems that "women inherit their father's business" seems to be a new answer of the times!
The biggest drawback of a family business is the risk of succession.
This point has been discussed in detail in the previous article "China's rich second generation, most afraid of suits and ties".
In many cases, the female head of the family takes over for quite awkward reasons, and the family structure is mostly only daughters, or the male heirs are minors, so they have to do it as a last resort.
Even when I first entered the enterprise, I developed as a "marginal person" or "firefighter", and it was rare to train directly in the direction of entrepreneurs.
But according to the 2023 Hurun Global Self-Made Women Entrepreneurs List, China has 62% of the world's most successful female entrepreneurs, with 68.
Source: Internet
It shows that Chinese women entrepreneurs have a certain soil for social development, which is not as traditional as the traditional concept believes.
Counting the second-generation female ** people of well-known local enterprises, each has its own development path.
Zong Fuli, the "Iron Lady" of Wahaha, who boldly innovates management concepts and changes in the direction of youth.
After losing 3.2 billion yuan in 7 years, Hu Jiajia, the "eldest lady" of Metersbonwe, who walked out of the pace of "the second generation abdicated and the founder returned".
Without hesitation, he rushed to the pig industry, and Liu Chang, the new hope for ten years.
From grassroots employees to Huawei's helmsman, Meng Wanzhou, the "eldest princess" who rose to the occasion in the crisis.
In the fierce business circle, they are injecting new energy into the enterprise in their own ways.
As the saying goes, the "rich second generation" is the background color, and the "second generation" is the future, and this sentence is also applicable to the female leader.
At the same time, looking back at some high-profile male second generations, there are not many people who have really made achievements.
Wang Sicong, the Discipline Inspection Commission of the entertainment industry, is the top class on social networking, but he rarely appears publicly with the label of his own company.
The most bullish second generation" Zhang Kangyang grasped commercial sports, but Suning is still struggling to survive.
There seem to be very few rich men who can shoulder the heavy responsibility.
In terms of how to improve this, the older generation hopes that their children will embark on a reasonable road of inheritance: starting from the grassroots level, after a long time of tempering, and gradually entering the company's top management.
But this process is also a process for the second generation to stay away from the family business.
It is undeniable that in this era of uncertainty, two generations will face different propositions of the times, and each step will seem extremely difficult.
Inheriting a family business is not as simple as passing on equity and positions to children.
In addition to the fluctuation of the company itself in the general environment, how to smoothly transition power is the most basic problem.
I have come into contact with many second-generation men in the family business, and some of them are in a hurry, and they will have fierce conflicts with their parents.
Source: The drama "Succession War".
There are not a few male second generations who are eager to get rid of control and seek self-identity by confronting patriarchy.
In contrast, daughters tend to be more willing to work with their fathers, are more gentle in managing power, and rarely appear to be urgent.
In the process of the enterprise, due to the different models adopted by the family, the way of handing over power will be different.
In the face of their daughter**, the older generation often holds the mentality of "helping the horse to give a ride". New Hope Liu Chang, Wahaha Zong Fuli, Huawei Meng Wanzhou, etc., all have good stories of father and daughter creating brilliance together.
This kind of experience is a little bit from scratch, step by step to complete the transition, and the handover comes relatively smoothly.
There is a second-generation female friend in Wenzhou, who is not an only child, and after returning from school, she began to take the initiative to help take care of the family business.
She once said that the first person in the enterprise should have a relatively coordinated positioning and mentality, even in the face of the closest and most familiar parents, after all, the country is laid by them, and those who are out of the authorities can enter the game smoothly from the perspective of an outsider.
Her father was a strong entrepreneur and decided everything himself. In this context, even after four or five years, the father was still the de facto owner of the company, until she started to really feel like she was moving from a daughter mentality to a leader mentality.
But when the company encounters critical problems, she is always used to turning to her father for help, and she enjoys such a power relationship and feels that she has the bottom of her heart.
The most prominent thing about the stability of the enterprise is one word - stability, otherwise the turmoil in the process of power transfer may cause the company to suffer huge losses.
From this point of view, female ** people have a unique advantage.
There is an old Chinese saying: the rich can only be three generations, and the poor can not be more than five clothes.
I think the core meaning of this sentence is: if you don't have money, please don't lose hope; If you have money, please don't lose your fighting spirit!
Inheritance and governance are the eternal topic of family business, with nearly 3 million family businesses in China entering the inheritance stage, and only 13% of family businesses in the world can be passed on to the third generation.
Looking at the world, there are also many century-old enterprises, such as the "luxury giant" Hermès family, which has been rich for more than 6 generations and has survived for 200 years.
The Hermès Family Succession Program is the soul of the unique family culture, a family executive committee composed of family members, who firmly controls the company and gives the family personality and traditions to the company.
The scientific design of the equity structure allows the members of the Hermes family to maintain a united front for a long time. The most important thing is that the family heir training system, which has 100 years of exploration experience, has always maintained a correct and free career development path.
Louis, the fifth-generation heir to Hermès, once said: "Hermès is not what I inherited from my parents, but borrowed from my children."
These high-quality inheritance concepts and methods are worth our repeated chewing and learning.
From the perspective of the development of Chinese private enterprises, most of the older generation have retired from fame, and the second generation has ushered in a big test.
Whether it is a male or female person, it is the important task of replacing the old and the new in the enterprise at the historical node.
Now it seems that cultivating female ** people has gradually become a new proposition of the times!
From a macro perspective, whether a family business can be stable or not is related to social stability and the sustained and healthy development of China's economy.
But I think the solution to the problem is not just between simple individuals.
Instead, it requires scientific and systematic inheritance planning and a sound corporate governance organization to escort it.
After all, "it is difficult to fight the country, and it is even more difficult to defend the country".