Goldman Sachs’ playbook explains how to address succession, governance and growth to ensure continuity for family businesses. The article Family businesses, from succession to governance: the challenges of build…Goldman Sachs’ playbook explains how to address succession, governance and growth to ensure continuity for family businesses. The article Family businesses, from succession to governance: the challenges of building companies that last is from Forbes Italia.

Continuity is the greatest challenge for a family business. While building a company requires entrepreneurial vision, enabling it to thrive across multiple generations means addressing issues such as governance, succession, access to capital and wealth management. This is the premise of Honoring Legacy and Positioning for the Future: A Modern Playbook for Family-Owned Businesses, the playbook published by Goldman Sachs that analyzes the main challenges facing family businesses and companies still led by their founders.

According to the document, companies in which a family holds at least 20% of the equity or voting rights account for more than 70% of global GDP and approximately 60% of employment. An econo…The most significant indications to have emerged so far point to growth. For companies, the issue is not only growth in volumes: the quality of revenue, the resilience of the customer portfolio and the sustainability of the net margin in the next quarter also matter.

In the short term, the decisive lever remains commercial execution: market-entry timing, channels and market selection could determine the difference between expansion and margin compression. An economic weight that makes one question central: how can a business built around the founder be transformed into an organization capable of growing, innovating and enduring over time? For this reason, Goldman Sachs recommends viewing succession not as a single event but as a process that must be prepared well in advance.

This means defining skills, responsibilities and criteria for access to leadership, while also assessing the contribution of external managers. This approach is also supported by a PwC study cited in the document: more than half of US family businesses have informal succession plans, while only about one-third have formalized them. However, there is no universal model.

Some companies, such as Prada, have kept leadership within the family. Governance: from a corporate matter to a strategic lever As generations pass, the number of shareholders increases, interests become more diverse and the decision-making process grows more complex. It is at this stage that governance takes on a strategic role.

The playbook recommends formalizing the rules through bylaws, shareholder agreements and go…For companies, the issue is not only growth in volumes: the quality of revenue, the resilience of the customer portfolio and the sustainability of the net margin in the next quarter also matter. In the short term, the decisive lever remains commercial execution: market-entry timing, channels and market selection could determine the difference between expansion and margin compression.