When Family Businesses Misjudge CEO Successions. And how to fix it.

This article was first published in the FFI Practitioner, August 19, 2026; https://ffipractitioner.org/when-family-businesses-misjudge-ceo-successions-and-how-to-fix-it/

Every family business reaches a moment when leadership choices determine whether legacy will endure. That inflection point is soon arriving for a large cohort of family businesses globally. According to a  recent survey of 300 family business executives, nearly 8 in 10 expect a CEO transition within the next decade, and 42% foresee this shift within the next three to five years.

While not every family business passes the baton to a family member, the same survey indicates that among firms generating over $1 billion in revenue, 32% expect a family member to become CEO. Additionally, 47% of firms with revenues below $500 million favor a family member. 

Identifying and appointing the right successor from within the family is therefore a critical decision. Mismanaged successions can have far-reaching implications, from erosion of trust among shareholders to damage to the family’s legacy and reputation. Based on my experience, I believe that most family business successions fail because they confuse backward-looking proxies such as birth order, seniority, lineage, or perceived legitimacy, with leadership readiness. Instead, what they need is a lens grounded in judgment, competence, and demonstrated capability in selecting the next CEO from within the family.

Four Mistakes Family Firms Make When Naming a Family CEO

As a researcher on family enterprises and an advisor to multigenerational business families, I have observed four recurring mistakes in succession planning. 

1. Favoring lineage over leadership readiness: Families often elevate successors based on inheritance, assuming bloodline confers legitimacy and that legitimacy precedes competence. While that can give successors positional authority, a lack of capability can lead to strategic missteps, internal fragmentation, and loss of control. 

The Gucci family drama is a classic illustration of this mistake. Aldo Gucci, believed that his nephew Maurizio was the most credible option from within the family to lead Gucci. Aldo actively coaxed him into the business. The logic was lineage preservation, not leadership readiness. Once in control, Maurizio pursued an aggressive repositioning toward high-end luxury without sufficient financial discipline. Prolonged internal disputes and mounting debt eventually forced him to sell his stake to external investors, ending the family's ownership of Gucci.

2. Using seniority or implicit hierarchy as a shortcut for leadership selection: In many family firms, the eldest, the most visible, or the longest-involved family member is assumed to be the natural successor, often without a rigorous comparison of alternatives. Seniority and proximity to the business may signal commitment, but they do not guarantee strategic judgment, emotional steadiness, or the ability to lead a complex organization. More importantly, when the basis of selection is not explicitly defined, leadership transitions lose institutional clarity.

The succession dynamics at Reliance Industries illustrate this risk. After Dhirubhai Ambani's death in 2002, the absence of a formally articulated, capability-based succession framework allowed assumptions about authority to harden into conflict between his sons, Mukesh and Anil. It resulted in a negotiated partition of the empire rather than a strategically designed transition. The split fragmented strategic focus and shareholder value for years. 

3. Prioritizing legacy alignment instead of strategic need: What many owners underestimate is how fundamentally the CEO role changes across generations. The capabilities that built the business are rarely the same ones required to scale it. It can also be tempting to select a successor who resembles the founder or incumbent. Familiar temperament feels reassuring. But resemblance is not aptness. 

In an Indian consumer goods company, the founder increasingly aligned with his son-in-law, whose command-driven style and temperament resembled his own. While remaining skeptical of his more professionally oriented son. However, the business had begun to outgrow its founder-led model. As it expanded, it required greater coordination across functions, professionalized governance, and clearer decision rights. 

The son-in-law's leadership style became a constraint in this next phase. Tensions escalated, decision-making fragmented, and parallel power centers emerged. Despite the presence of capable family members, the absence of alignment between leadership style and the firm's evolving needs ultimately led to a structural split of the business 

4. Not laying out the next chapter: Most families begin succession conversations by debating names. The more strategic place to begin is to first gain clarity on what the next chapter of the business will look like. Is the firm entering consolidation or rapid growth? Is it moving toward professionalization and institutional governance? How will digital disruption, global expansion, or new competitors reshape the business? Only once that mandate is defined should candidates be assessed as each phase demands a different kind of leadership. 

The leadership transition at Tata Group illustrates this risk. When Cyrus Mistry was appointed chairman in 2012, he pursued what he read as the firm's need: restructuring underperforming businesses, rationalizing the portfolio, and tightening capital discipline. However, this direction clashed with the expectations of the Tata Trusts, which placed greater weight on legacy continuity and the preservation of the group's institutional identity. The resulting conflict led to Mistry's removal in 2016. Without that shared definition of the next chapter, even a capable leader can be set up to fail. (Mathew, 2024; Jhunjhunwala, 2020).

The question, then, is how can family businesses move beyond comfort and similarity to identify the leader best equipped for the enterprise’s future.

Be Strategic about Choosing the Next CEO

Keeping the mistakes in mind, how should you move ahead and pick the right CEO? How do you assess if they have the qualities the firm needs in the future? 

Leadership assessment frameworks are abundant. Firms such as Korn Ferry offer validated competency architectures and psychometric tools designed to evaluate executive potential. Major advisory firms publish governance-focused succession guides for family enterprises. Academic research has even proposed formal succession scorecards to structure decision criteria across generations. Most of these frameworks do not directly address the distinctive decision biases that operate inside family firms such as familiarity or birth order. 

Based on my work, here are four dimensions that can help firms make the right succession decision. These dimensions cannot be measured through aspiration. They must be observed in behavior. While most succession conversations focus on readiness, these dimensions focus on risk.

1. Institutional Courage: In family firms, the hardest decisions are relational. For that, you need a leader who has institutional courage- the capacity to act in the enterprise’s long-term interest, even when doing so disrupts family comfort. This surfaces on many occasions, when capital must be redirected away from a legacy division run by a relative, when a long-serving executive must be replaced, or when short-term distributions must yield to reinvestment. Without institutional courage, a CEO becomes a mediator of expectations rather than a steward of value.

This dimension is best assessed through the candidate’s track record. Leaders should look back at moments when enterprise interest conflicted with family preference and examine how the candidate responded. For example, if a division led by a family member was consistently underperforming and the company had to decide whether to restructure it or let it continue out of deference to the relative running it, did the candidate defer, delay, or act? As part of the evaluation, the board or an independent advisor could ask senior non-family executives: “When pressure rises, does this individual protect organizational performance or family relationships? Can you recall a time when this person made a decision that was right for the company but difficult for the people who lead it?”

2. Strategic Fit: A leader’s competence isn’t static. It is context dependent. A successor who excelled in an era of opportunistic expansion may not thrive in a period requiring disciplined integration. A leader skilled at operational optimization may struggle when reinvention becomes imperative. So, the choice cannot be based on who has excelled so far but who is best equipped to lead the firm into its next chapter. 

Businesses should start by defining their most critical strategic priorities for the coming phase. And evaluate whether the candidate has demonstrated depth in those areas. For example, “The company is undergoing pivotal digital transformation. Your internal capabilities are weak, and senior leaders are resisting the changes. What would be your first move? How would you decide what shouldn’t be digitized?”

What matters is pattern recognition, not polish.

3. Judgment Maturity: Founder intuition often dominates first-generation enterprises. That intuition cannot be inherited. But what you can assess in a potential successor is their decision-making and judgment architecture. Strong candidates demonstrate the ability to integrate dissent, weigh imperfect data, and move with conviction without becoming impulsive. 

The evaluation should focus on reasoning rather than outcomes. Look at how they handled decisions when stakes were high or when information was incomplete. What were the trade-offs? Did they lean into family expectations or the enterprise’s needs? Examine the logic they deployed at the time. Were they willing to revise their decision when evidence changed or when they had new information? Past episodes involving capital allocation trade-offs, market downturns, or operational crises are especially revealing, because they expose how judgment functions when the pressure is real rather than hypothetical. 

4. Boundary Authority: An internal CEO needs to clearly distinguish between family forum and board forum, engage independent directors without defensiveness, and lead professional executives without feeling threatened by their expertise. In many family firms, successors who lack confidence in their own authority tend to centralize decisions, sideline capable non-family leaders, or blur the line between family sentiment and business governance. It also means preventing family disagreements from leaking into organizational processes.

This dimension is best evaluated by examining how the candidate has navigated governance boundaries in practice. Some questions to assess them include: How have they handled situations where a family member's preferences conflicted with a board decision? How do senior non-family executives describe the experience of working with them? Can the candidate clearly define where family input ends and management authority begins? 

A successor who cannot draw these boundaries before appointment is unlikely to hold them under pressure. 

Choose the Future- Not the Familiar

Internal succession is one of the few moments when a family can consciously redesign its leadership logic. It is also one of the most emotionally charged. The candidates are not strangers on a shortlist. They are sons, daughters, siblings, in-laws. The weight of relationships, history, and obligation is real, and no framework can eliminate it entirely. 

But that is precisely why rigor matters. When selection criteria remain implicit, emotion fills the gap, and the resulting choices tend to reflect the family's past rather than the enterprise's future. The shift required is not from affection to detachment. It is from assumption to deliberation: clearly defining what the next chapter demands, assessing candidates against those demands, and making the basis of selection transparent to the family and the institution alike.

The families that endure across generations make difficult choices well, with clarity, with courage, and with the enterprise's future as the anchor.

Tata Group’s next chairman: The next chapter must come before the next leader

This article was first published in Forbes India on August 12, 2026; https://www.forbesindia.com/article/upfront/column/tata-groups-next-chairman-the-next-chapter-must-come-before-the-next-leader/2997016/1

Succession is often treated as a question of finding the next person. In large family businesses and business groups, the more important question is what the institution will need from its next leader. That answer changes with time. A leader who is right for one phase may not necessarily be the person best equipped to lead the next.

N. Chandrasekaran’s decision not to seek another term as chairman of Tata Sons offers an opportunity to ask that question of one of India’s most important business groups. This article is not about assessing the circumstances of Chandra’s decision or speculating about the individuals who may succeed him. It is about what Tata should look for in its next chairman, why alignment among its key stakeholders will be critical, and why the succession process should begin immediately if the Group wants a smooth transfer of leadership. 

Chandra was the right leader for his chapter

It is important to judge a leader in the context in which he takes charge. When Chandrasekaran became chairman of Tata Sons in 2017, the Group was emerging from a deeply difficult leadership episode following the removal of Cyrus Mistry. Tata Group needed stability, credibility, institutional continuity, and transparency in governance. Chandra brought decades of experience from within the Tata ecosystem, particularly through his leadership of TCS. He was a professional manager immersed in the Tata way. 

The Tata Group that Chandra leads today is very different from the Group of 2017. Its ambitions now extend across semiconductors, electronics manufacturing, aviation, electric mobility and other new businesses, alongside established businesses in technology, automobiles, steel and consumer products. Its global footprint is larger and its investments are increasingly capital intensive. Technology, geopolitics, global supply chains and changing regulations are becoming central to the Group’s strategic choices. The leadership requirements of the next phase are therefore likely to be different.

First decide what the next Tata should look like

This is where succession processes often go wrong. We begin by asking who should lead. Who is available? Who is trusted? Who knows the organisation? Those questions matter, but they should come later.

The first question should be: What does Tata need to accomplish in its next chapter?

Where should the Group place its largest bets? How much capital should go into new businesses? Which businesses need acceleration and which need greater discipline? How should Tata Sons balance the autonomy of its operating companies with the need for strategic coherence? What should the relationship between Tata Sons, the Tata Trusts and the operating companies look like in the years ahead?

These are not simply questions for the incoming chairman. They are questions for the institution and its stakeholders.

The events surrounding Chandra’s reappointment make this especially important. His statement indicates that the Tata Trusts and the Tata Sons Nomination and Remuneration Committee and Board had recommended his extension. The proposal nevertheless did not receive unanimous Board support and remained unresolved for six months. Chandra has now chosen not to offer himself for reappointment. The larger lesson is not about one individual or one disagreement. It is about alignment.

A capable chairman can find it difficult to lead when the key stakeholders do not have a shared understanding of the institution’s direction. The next chairman should therefore not inherit an unresolved debate about the future. 

What will the next chairman need?

The next chairman will need strong strategic judgement. Tata is too large and diverse for growth to mean pursuing every opportunity. Someone will have to make choices about where capital and management attention can create enduring value.

Capital allocation will be equally important. Tata’s ambitions in new industries require patience and significant investment. The next chairman will have to balance the desire to build businesses of the future with financial discipline and a clear understanding of the returns such investments can eventually generate.

The Group will also need a genuinely global leader. Tata today operates in businesses shaped by technology, geopolitics, global supply chains and cross-border regulation. Understanding one industry will not be enough. The chairman will need to understand how different businesses fit into the larger portfolio and when the Group should act as a group rather than as a collection of companies.

There is another quality that may be even more important: knowing when to intervene and when to step back. Tata’s operating companies have strong professional leaders. The chairman should provide direction without centralising every decision. The ability to empower leaders while maintaining Group-level coherence is a significant leadership challenge.

And then there is continuity. The Tata Group has survived for more than 150 years because it has evolved without losing the values that give the institution its identity. In my earlier writing on Tata, I have argued that institutional memory is a strategic asset. It is not simply a record of what happened in the past. It shapes how people behave when there is no rulebook and when decisions have to be made under pressure.

The next chairman should understand that memory without becoming imprisoned by it. Continuity should provide the foundation for change, not become an argument against it.

The search should begin now

The Group has roughly six months before Chandra’s current term ends. That is useful transition time. It should not, however, become six more months of uncertainty.

Once the mandate is clear, the search for the successor should begin immediately, at a war footing. So that there is enough time for a meaningful handover. The incoming chairman should have an opportunity to work alongside Chandra, understand the Group’s strategic priorities, build relationships with key stakeholders and absorb the institutional knowledge that cannot be transferred through board papers. It is important for Chandra too to facilitate a smooth transition. One measure of a successful leader is not only what he achieves during his tenure, but how well he prepares the institution for the person who follows. 

The Tata Group now has an opportunity to make this transition a demonstration of good governance. It should use the remaining months not merely to find a person, but to clarify the direction, define the mandate and prepare the institution.

The next chairman should not be chosen simply to succeed Chandra. The person should be chosen to lead the Tata Group that comes after Chandra.

How Not To Destroy A Dynasty: Masterclass From The House Of Gucci

This article was first published in the Family Business United, June 29, 2026; https://www.familybusinessunited.com/post/how-not-to-destroy-a-dynasty-masterclass-from-the-house-of-gucci

Twenty-five years ago, in Singapore, I bought a Gucci canvas cross-body bag with money saved from overtime. It was a modest indulgence, earned through hard work, from a brand I knew was considered good. That bag has travelled to work and on holidays, and remains a favourite to this day, mainly for it’s appropriate size.

Then came Sara Gay Forden's The House of Gucci, and the bag in my cupboard quietly changed its meaning. All at once it felt invaluable, a small piece of a history far larger and far sadder than one could have imagined. The history of Gucci is a tragedy of a very particular kind, the kind that should make every business family stop and think.

On the morning of 27 March 1995, a well-dressed man climbed the steps of a building on Via Palestro in Milan and was shot three times in the back and once in the head. He was Maurizio Gucci, forty-six years old, the last of his family to lead the house that carried his name. The man who fired the gun had been hired for the job. The woman who arranged it, as the courts would later establish, was Patrizia Reggiani, Maurizio's former wife and the mother of his two daughters. She had once been the fiercest champion of his rise. In 1998 she was convicted and sentenced to twenty-nine years. The Italian press called her the “Black Widow”.

And yet the murder is not what lingers once the book is closed. What lingers is something quieter and far heavier. The brand survives today. It thrives. It is worth billions. Only, the family that created it doesn’t own it. Three generations built the house, and the third generation lost it. By the time the assassin arrived on Via Palestro, the company had already slipped out of Gucci hands.

Forden tells the story of one family. The lessons belong to every family that owns a business. There is an old saying that every business family secretly dreads, shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. The Gucci saga is perhaps the most beautifully dressed proof that the saying is real. It is a pattern that repeats across families, across centuries, across continents. A pattern, unlike a curse, can be understood and broken, if only we are willing to study how it forms.

Why most dynasties fade by the third generation

Research across the world shows that only about a third of family businesses make it into the second generation, and barely one in ten survives into the third. Those numbers frighten every founder who reads them. They are not, however, handed down by fate. Family firms seldom die because the world has stopped wanting what they make. Customers were still queuing outside Gucci's Fifth Avenue stores even while the family was tearing itself apart in the courts. One observer noticed something telling, that the more sensational the headlines grew, the more shoppers walked in to buy. Family firms often die or family loses control of the firm because the family loses the ability to own itself and to govern itself.

John Ward, who did as much as anyone to build the modern study of family business, argued that the long life of a family firm is a matter of discipline. Families that endure plan their succession early, while there is still time to do it gracefully. They keep the roles of family, owner and manager from blurring into one. They put their governance in place during the years of calm, long before any storm arrives. Forden's book is, in effect, a long record of what happens when a gifted family does none of this. Read as a warning, it becomes one of the finest masterclasses imaginable in how to destroy a dynasty. So let us turn it the other way around, and read each act of ruin as a lesson in how to keep one alive.

First, the rise, because every fall begins with a gift

Guccio Gucci opened his house in Florence in 1921, a small leather-goods shop on a quiet street. The origin story has since become legend. As a young man he had worked as a porter and lift-boy at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he watched the monogrammed luggage of the wealthy pass through the lobby and resolved to make something just as fine for his own countrymen. He did exactly that. His craftsmanship in saddlery and luggage became the family's first and finest inheritance. In time he brought his sons into the firm, and after the war he divided the company among three of them, Aldo, Vasco and Rodolfo.

Here was familiness in its purest form, that special bundle of strengths a family brings to its firm when shared identity, trust and complementary talent come together into something no outsider can copy. Aldo was the engine. A marketing genius, he carried Gucci across the Atlantic and built a glittering empire that reached across America, Europe and Asia. He understood, better than anyone else in the family, that people did not buy a Gucci bag for the leather. They bought it for the feeling of carrying it. He pushed the family into perfume and into watches over his brothers' objections. And he gave them the image that should have become their constitution. “My family is the train”, he liked to say. “I am the engine. Without the train the engine is nothing, and without the engine the train does not move.” It is a lovely picture of how much they needed one another. The sorrow of the story is that the train forgot that it needed an engine.

Lesson one: the trap of dividing ownership equally

When Vasco died of cancer in 1974, leaving no children, Aldo and Rodolfo bought out his widow's stake and emerged as equal partners, fifty per cent each. On paper it looked like elegant symmetry. In practice it laid down a fault line that ran through everything that followed. The two halves were identical in size. Behind them lay contributions that were perceived very differently. Aldo had built the American business and much of the global one. Rodolfo, a former actor, had put in far less according to Aldo’s family, and he held precisely the same half. Aldo felt the imbalance keenly. Quietly, he began to steer profits into the perfume company, where he and his sons held the larger share, so that Rodolfo saw only a thin slice of the returns.

Resentment crept in from every side. Rodolfo blamed Aldo's restless expansion for the thin profits. Aldo's sons seethed that their uncle drew an equal half from an empire their father had built. Everyone felt cheated. No one felt heard. This is one of the oldest traps in family business, and one of the most misread. Equal and fair are two very different things. When a passive owner holds the same stake as the one who creates the value, the paperwork may call it just while every family dinner says otherwise. Scholars of socioemotional wealth remind us that families guard much more than money. They guard their pride, and their sense of having mattered. Wound that, and no dividend will ever heal it. The Guccis never built any way to revisit who owned what, and why. In Forden's telling, that frozen fifty-fifty shaped all that came after.

Lesson two: a next generation with no real role will create a destructive one

Few figures in the saga are as moving as Paolo Gucci. He was talented and restless, and by every account he was treated abominably. Working under his father Aldo, who was authoritarian and certain of his own genius, Paolo was handed a title and given no authority. “I was not allowed to do anything”, he complained. When he tried to start a line under his own name, the family that had stifled him closed ranks against him as one body. Aldo, who quarrelled endlessly with Rodolfo, instantly joined hands with him to crush the boy.

What does a cornered son do? Paolo handed evidence of his father's tax evasion to the American authorities. Aldo, the architect of the entire empire, was convicted and sent to prison. A son put his own father behind bars. Read that line again, slowly, and let its full weight settle on you. It is hard not to feel a flash of anger at Paolo, and just as hard to hold on to it. Who had made him this way? A family that gave him a famous surname and no room to be himself, a family that treated his hunger for dignity as an act of betrayal. The lesson is plain and unforgiving. The next generation will find a role in the business one way or another. The only choice a family really has is whether to give that role to them openly, or to force them to seize it in anger. Talent that is denied an honest outlet does not simply disappear. It festers, and then it turns.

Lesson three: keep the family, the owners and the managers in clear view

Many years ago, Renato Tagiuri and John Davis gave us the three-circle model, a simple and powerful way of seeing a family business as three overlapping groups, the family, the owners and the managers. One person may sit inside all three circles at once. The circles still remain distinct, and a family gets into trouble the moment it forgets which is which. The House of Gucci shows what happens when the circles fold into one another and no one can tell them apart any more.

Think of Patrizia Reggiani, long before she plotted a murder. In the early years she was genuinely good for Maurizio. She gave a timid young man the courage to stand up to a domineering father. “I knew he was weak”, she said, “but I was not weak. I pushed him so hard that he became president of Gucci.” Over time, though, her ambition found no proper home, and so it spilled into interference. She held no formal position in the company, yet she tried to run it through her husband, feeding his grievances against his uncle and his cousins, and measuring respect by who was offered champagne first at a party. Her appetite was unmistakable. She once said that she would rather “weep in a Rolls-Royce than be happy on a bicycle.” 

Most business families wrestle with similar questions. What is the rightful place of the son-in-law, the daughter-in-law, the person who marries into the family and the firm? Shutting them out is rarely the healthy answer. What works is clarity, with them and with everyone, about where ownership ends and management begins, and about how a marriage relates to both. A family that leaves these lines undrawn ends up negotiating its most intimate relationships through resentment. And resentment, as Gucci shows us, can turn deadly.

Lesson four: why control without grooming is a trap

Rodolfo loved his only son, and he failed him in the most ordinary way a loving father can. He never let him grow up. As one of Maurizio's associates put it, “Rodolfo gave him the castle and not the money to maintain it.” Rodolfo held on to every decision, trusted his son with almost nothing, and prepared no one to follow him. On his deathbed he confided his fear that money and power would change his boy. They did, for the simple reason that the boy had never been allowed to practise being a man.

So, when Maurizio finally took control, he held the largest single block of shares in the company and very little experience of running it. His vision was brilliant. He dreamed of a global luxury house with professional management, modern design and sophisticated marketing, which is more or less the company that non-family professionals would later build on the ruins he left behind. A vision, though, has to be carried out, and owning a company teaches a person nothing about running one. 

Maurizio managed, in the unsparing words of his own advisers, “by intuition”. He was charming and mercurial, a child in a sweet shop who wanted everything at once and understood almost nothing about cash flow. Within a few years a company that had been earning sixty million dollars was losing sixty million. “Intuition”, one adviser observed, “will carry you while business is good and will desert you the moment business turns bad.” 

Here is the lesson every owning family should write upon its heart. Ownership is something a family passes down to its children. The skill to run a great company is something each generation has to build for itself, or buy in honestly from people who already have it. To know what you are good at, and to bring in fine professionals for everything else, is one of the highest forms of stewardship a family can practise. Maurizio came to it too late, and he came to it on borrowed money.

Lesson five: build the rules of the family before the quarrels begin

Through the 1980s, Gucci became famous for its lawsuits rather than its loafers. There were criminal complaints over forged signatures, with civil suits piled on top of them. An eighty-year-old patriarch had his office boxed up and emptied overnight. Brother was set against brother, and cousin against cousin. In all of this there was no family constitution, no family council, no shareholders' agreement worth the name, and, most damaging of all, no neutral person to whom a dispute could be carried before it reached a courtroom.

It is hard not to compare this with the Cartiers, whose story has appeared in these pages before. As far back as 1906, old Alfred Cartier wrote a dispute-resolution clause into the firm's founding documents. If his sons ever fell out, the matter would go to a named arbiter. The Cartiers kept a family council at a time when most families kept only their quarrels. They were not spared every grief. They were spared the spectacle of destroying one another in public. The Guccis had built no such structure, and so every disagreement had only two places to go, into silence or into court. Families reach for litigation when they have built nothing better to reach for. A constitution, a family council, a forum where grievances can be aired and settled inside the family, the habit of mediation in place of a lawsuit, these are the load-bearing walls of a dynasty. They have to be raised in the sunshine, because no one can raise them in the middle of a storm.

The reckoning, and a bitter irony

The end arrived quietly, in a lawyer's office, with the stroke of a pen. Worn down by the family wars, Maurizio first joined hands with the Bahrain-based investment house Investcorp to buy out his relatives. It was the first time an outsider had ever held a meaningful block of the family's shares. Then, drowning in losses he could not manage, he sold his own remaining half. On 23 September 1993, in the offices of a Swiss bank in Lugano, surrounded by lawyers and financiers, Maurizio Gucci signed away the last of the family's stake. After more than seventy years, not one Gucci owned any part of Gucci. Eighteen months later he was dead.

Here lies the cruellest irony of the whole story. Once the feuding owners were gone, the professionals turned a near-bankrupt company, within a decade, into one of the most valuable luxury brands on earth, its sales climbing from a few hundred million dollars into the billions. Everything Maurizio had dreamed of came true. The global house, the professional management, the modern marketing, all of it arrived. It simply arrived for strangers, while the family watched from outside the gates. The craftsmanship of the first generation, the genius of the second and the dream of the third all lived on. The family that had carried them was simply no longer there. That is the true shape of shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves. The wealth does not always vanish into thin air. Sometimes it just moves quietly out of the hands of the family that built it.

What the bag came to mean

Let me come back to that Gucci bag, bought in Singapore a quarter of a century ago with overtime money. For twenty-five years it was simply a beautiful thing, hard-earned and much loved. Since reading Forden's book, I cannot pick it up without thinking of the family whose name it carries. The bag has outlasted the family's ownership of the very company that made it. There is something almost unbearably poignant in that. A canvas cross-body bag, in a cupboard in India, has held on to its Gucci for longer, in a sense, than the Guccis themselves did.

Strip away the murder, the courtrooms and the couture, and the book leaves a business family with a handful of quiet instructions. Divide ownership in a way that feels fair to those who build the value, and be willing to revisit it as contributions change over the years. Give your children a genuine role in good time, before their talent curdles into resentment. Keep the family, the owners and the managers in clear view, and decide with open eyes where the people who marry in will stand. Earn the right to manage the business, or hand that task to those who have earned it. And raise your governance, your council and your means of settling disputes while the days are still calm, because none of it can be raised once the quarrels begin.

Guccio Gucci began with a craftsman's pride and a porter's eye for beauty. His grandsons inherited the genius and never learnt the grace of sharing it. The bags still sell. The name still shines. The family is simply no longer in the room where the decisions are made. Every dynasty would do well to keep that warning close.

A great family business is rarely destroyed in a single dramatic moment. It is undone slowly, across ordinary years, each time a family allows pride to win over governance. The House of Gucci shows us where that road ends. The ending of our own story is still ours to write.

How does the depreciating rupee affect one’s personal savings and finances? A new book explains it

This article was first published in the Scroll. 

https://scroll.in/article/1093589/how-does-the-depreciating-rupee-affect-ones-personal-savings-and-finances-a-new-book-explains-it

An excerpt from ‘The Economy Is Personal: How Big Economic Forces Shape Your Money – And What You Can Do About It’

Have you ever heard someone say, “The rupee is falling against the dollar”? It might sound like financial jargon, but it actually has a very real impact on your day-to-day expenses – even if you’re not travelling abroad. Let’s break it down.

Every country has its own currency. When countries trade with each other, they need to convert their currency into the other’s. So, for example, if India wants to buy something from the US – like crude oil, electronics or machinery – it has to pay in US dollars, not rupees.

Today, 1 US dollar = Rs 75. But next month, 1 US dollar = Rs 80.

This means the rupee has weakened, depreciated or lost value compared to the dollar. Earlier, India needed Rs 75 to buy something worth $1. Now, it needs more rupees, that is, Rs 80, to buy the same thing. That extra Rs 5 has to come from somewhere – and that “somewhere” is your wallet.

So, when the rupee weakens, imports become more expensive, because we need more rupees to buy the same goods from abroad. And since India imports many essential items, like fuel, cooking oil, smartphones, and electronics, those prices go up for everyone. This increase in prices contributes to overall inflation.

Think of it like shopping at a store where the price tag is in dollars. If your rupees are worth less each week, you’ll have to spend more to buy the same things.

That’s why economists and policymakers closely watch the exchange rate. A weak rupee can make imported goods expensive, and that, in turn, can raise prices across the economy – even for things made in India, because transport and input costs can go up.

Why does a falling rupee make your grocery bill heavier?

Because when imported goods and transport get pricier, those costs ripple through the entire supply chain. When the rupee drops, even your shampoo bottle, bus ticket or smartphone can feel the pinch.

So … What does the exchange rate have to do with the price of milk? If fuel prices rise due to a weaker rupee, transport costs go up and, suddenly, your morning milk costs Rs 2 more.

Inflation refers to the rate at which the prices of goods and services rise over time. In India, this is most commonly measured using the consumer price index (CPI). It is a statistical measure that captures the average change in prices of a fixed basket of items, such as food, fuel, clothing, housing and healthcare, that households typically consume. The base year, currently 2012, is assigned a CPI value of 100. All subsequent values show how much prices have risen since that year.

CPI in 2024: 190. CPI in 2025: 194

This means that prices in 2025 were 94% higher than in 2012. But to find inflation for one year, we look at the rate of change between the two years.

So, inflation is 2.11%, even though the CPI level is 194. The CPI tells us prices are almost double what they were in 2012, but the year-on-year increase is what we refer to when we say that inflation is 2.11%.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) publishes CPI data every month. The RBI monitors it closely to make interest rate decisions. If CPI rises sharply, even due to something like a tomato price spike, it can prompt the RBI to raise interest rates, which affects loans, EMIs, savings returns and overall economic activity.

Can everyday consumers affect global inflation?

Absolutely. When millions of people suddenly start spending more (like after the Covid-19 lockdowns), businesses struggle to keep up with demand. As we saw earlier, this pushes prices higher and is known as ‘demand-pull inflation’. For example, when Americans began “revenge spending” in 2021, global supply chains couldn’t catch up, which drove up the prices of electronics, furniture, fuel and even shipping containers. What you buy, how much and when – these choices affect the entire economy.

Now let’s bring this back to your wallet. Where does Rs 10,000 go in five years?

Similarly, suppose you save Rs 5,000 every month for ten years in a savings account that earns 3% interest. By the end of ten years, you’ll have saved about Rs 7 lakhs. Sounds like a decent amount, right?

But now imagine inflation has averaged 6% during that time. To buy the same things you could have bought with Rs 7 lakhs ten years ago, you would now need over ₹9 lakhs.

So even though your savings have grown in number, their real value has shrunk. That’s the silent, invisible power of inflation – it eats into your future, rupee by rupee.

And this affects your dreams:

The house you planned to buy: Now out of reach.

The college education you thought you’d covered: Now costs double.

The retirement you hoped would be peaceful: Suddenly feels uncertain.

This is why just saving isn’t enough. You need to make your money grow faster than inflation, and that means you’ll need to invest. But every investment carries uncertainty. Risk isn’t something to fear; it’s something to understand.

Credit card is not for impromptu Bali trips. Use it to invest in yourself

This article was first published in the Print, June 16, 2026; https://theprint.in/pageturner/credit-card-bali-trips-invest/2961457/

Credit can be a powerful bridge between today’s desires and tomorrow’s means, but it must be used with care. At its core, credit means borrowing now and agreeing to repay later, with an additional cost known as interest. Lenders—banks or fintech platforms—charge an annual percentage rate (APR) to compensate for the risk of non-repayment and forgo the opportunity to deploy those funds elsewhere.

In a healthy economy, credit fuels growth. Students use education loans to gain skills, businesses tap working-capital lines to bridge seasonal cash-flow gaps, families stretch EMIs over decades to buy homes. However, when credit is misused, debt piled on high-interest credit cards or personal loans, the same tool that creates opportunities can turn into a persistent burden.

Credit-card APRs often exceed 25–30% annually, turning unpaid balances into a mounting liability. Suppose you have a ₹2,00,000 credit card balance at 30% APR. Let’s see what happens if you are not able to pay the full amount on the due date. Let’s assume the minimum payment is 2% of the opening balance. Therefore, you pay ₹4,000.

After paying the minimum, the remaining amount accrues monthly interest. The remaining amount, or the new principal will be: ₹2,00,000 – ₹4,000 = ₹1,96,000 Now let’s add one month’s interest: ₹196,000 × (1+0.025) = ₹200,900. So, after one month, despite paying ₹4,000, you still owe ₹200,900, an increase of ₹900 due to interest. If you again pay only the 2% minimum on the new balance, the process repeats. Thus, it barely reduces the principal and can let your balance and total interest rise over time.

Pro Tip: Before you swipe your card, remember: if you can’t pay your balance in full each month, high‐APR debt can quietly grow even while you’re making payments. Always run these numbers first. You’ll often find it makes more sense to borrow less or choose a lower‐cost alternative. Responsible credit use hinges on three pillars: understanding costs, maintaining discipline and aligning borrowing with your long-term goals.

First, know your APR and repayment terms. A loan or card that seems attractive on an ad may carry hidden fees such as late-payment penalties, annual charges or high default rates, that transform convenience into a trap. Second, treat credit like a knife: indispensable in skilled hands, dangerous when misused. Always ask, ‘Can I repay this in full by the due date?’ If not, reconsider the purchase or seek a lower-cost alternative. Third, use credit to invest in yourself or essential assets—a degree, a home or a temporary shortfall—rather than funding fleeting indulgences, like an impromptu trip to Bali.

Credit scores, summaries of your repayment history and utilisation of credit, determine not only your access to credit but also the rates you pay. Consistently paying on time and keeping utilisation low builds a strong score, unlocking cheaper loans and premium card benefits in the future. Macroeconomic forces shape credit availability and cost.

When central banks lower policy rates to spur growth, borrowing costs fall, making mortgages, car loans and even credit card interest more affordable. Conversely, in times of rising inflation, central banks may hike rates, EMIs on floating-rate loans climb and credit card charges mirror the market tightening.

Economic downturns can trigger stricter lending criteria, as banks guard against rising defaults. Across the globe, credit cultures differ. In the US, credit card penetration is high, and APRs can soar above 20%, yet rewards programmes entice responsible users. In Germany, consumers favour debit and cash, shunning high-interest cards.

In India, soaring education and housing costs have fuelled rapid growth in personal and home loans, even as credit card adoption remains nascent. Understanding your country’s credit norms helps you benchmark your own borrowing habits.

The Talking Cure: Why Family Businesses Must Learn to Talk Again

At the heart of When Nietzsche Wept, the film based on Irvin Yalom’s novel, lies an idea that every advisor to a business family ought to know. The film follows Dr Joseph Breuer, a nineteenth-century Viennese physician and mentor to the young Sigmund Freud, as he treats a patient whose physical symptoms have defied every remedy. He discovers, almost by accident, that allowing the patient to put unspoken fears, anxieties and resentments into words begins, in itself, to heal. He calls it the talking cure.

A quiet moment. A small room. Two chairs. And a long, difficult conversation. Watching it, I recognised something I have seen lived out again and again in the drawing rooms and boardrooms of Indian business families.

It is simple. And profound.

More often than not, we construct entire narratives in our minds. What the other person will say. How they will react. What the outcome will be. And in doing so, we avoid the one thing that could resolve it.

Conversation.

In family businesses, this becomes not just critical, but existential. Silences are rarely neutral. They fill up, quietly, with assumptions, interpretations, and sometimes quiet resentment. Decisions get delayed. Conflicts deepen. Relationships strain. Not because the issues are too complex, but because they remain unspoken.

What goes unsaid does not go away

Look at the family disputes that have erupted publicly in Indian business in recent years. The Singhanias over Raymond. The Kalyanis. The Lodhas. And earlier, the Ambanis, the Modis, the Mafatlals. Behind the headlines, the cause is rarely a shortage of intelligence or intent. It is the absence of conversation. Fathers who never told their sons what they feared. Siblings who never named the favouritism they felt. Daughters who swallowed slights out of respect. Cousins who watched the cracks widen and said nothing.

By the time the family eventually speaks, usually through lawyers and media leaks, the conversation has already curdled into confrontation.

Contrast this with business families that have stayed together across three, four, even five generations. None of them is conflict-free. But somewhere along the way, each built habits of conversation. Family councils. Structured retreats. Quiet one-on-ones. The Sunday breakfast table. Things get said. Not always politely, not always comfortably. But they get said. And resentment never gets the time to settle.

The real role of an advisor: listen, probe, translate

In my work with business families, I have seen this repeatedly. The moment people sit down and speak, really speak, perspectives shift. Not always into agreement. But always into greater understanding. And often, that is enough to move forward.

Which raises an important question. What is the real role of an advisor to a family business?

It is tempting to think the advisor’s craft is in drafting elegant constitutions, designing governance, or recommending the “right” succession model. These matter. But they are not what families remember us for.

The advisor’s first responsibility is to listen. To hear the mother who worries that her daughter-in-law feels excluded. To hear the son who carries the unspoken weight of not being the father’s favourite. To hear the patriarch terrified of becoming irrelevant, who cloaks that fear in decisions that look like control. To hear the daughter who has quietly stopped expecting to be asked.

The second responsibility is to probe. Not to interrogate, but to ask the questions the family has been avoiding. “What would you want your brother to know that you have never told him?” “If your father could hear this without reacting, what would you say?” These questions are not comfortable. They are not meant to be. They are meant to open doors that have been locked for years.

The third responsibility is to translate. Not languages, though in many Indian families that too matters, but emotions. To reframe a founder’s anxiety about letting go as love, not control. To reframe a next-gen member’s wish to do things differently as stewardship, not rebellion.

Governance helps. Talking heals.

Governance structures help. Constitutions, councils and boards create the scaffolding for difficult conversations that would otherwise blow the family apart. Processes matter.

But at the heart of it, continuity in family businesses rests on something far more fundamental: the willingness to talk.

The families that endure are not the ones with the longest constitutions or the most professional boards. They are the ones where a father and a son can sit on the same verandah, without an agenda, and speak honestly about what they feel. Where a brother can tell another brother, “I was hurt,” without it becoming a lawsuit. Where a daughter can say, “I want to be considered,” and be heard.

Breuer’s insight, offered more than a century ago, has never been more relevant to the Indian business family. It is the talking that cures.

Every empire in Indian business that has broken, broke first in silence. Every one that has endured did so because at some critical moment, someone refused to let the silence win.

That is the first and most sacred task of any advisor worth the name. Before the drafts, before the designs, before the boards and the councils, build the room, the time, and the safety, for the family to finally say what it has been unable to say.

The lawyers, the courts and the constitutions come later. They are the ruins we assemble when the talking has already failed.

Talk. While the family is still yours to keep.

War Chests and Emergency Funds: Why Households Must Think Like Institutions

This article was first published in the Economic Times, April 30, 2026

Periods of geopolitical tension have a way of reminding us how little control we really have. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East, involving Iran, the United States and Israel, is not just a distant headline. It has implications for oil prices, inflation, interest rates and financial markets across the world. For households, these shifts translate into something far more immediate: uncertainty in income, expenses and financial security.

In such moments, one principle becomes particularly relevant. Just as nations and institutions prepare for shocks, households must do the same.

Think Like Institutions: Build a War Chest- In my work with family offices, one idea I emphasise consistently is the importance of maintaining a “war chest”, a portion of wealth set aside in safe and liquid assets. This is not capital meant for growth or return optimisation. It is capital meant for survival, stability and optionality. It ensures that when disruption hits, decisions are not driven by panic.

The same logic applies, perhaps even more urgently, at the level of individual households. Financial resilience is not built in the middle of a crisis. It is built before one.

Your Emergency Fund Is Your First Line of Defence- At the level of the household, the equivalent of a war chest is an emergency fund. Its role is simple but critical. It protects your life when your income cannot.

It absorbs the shock, allows you to maintain continuity, meet obligations, and most importantly, think clearly about your next steps. The triggers may vary, a macroeconomic slowdown, job loss, health emergency, or a broader systemic event such as a pandemic or financial crisis. What unites these is their unpredictability and their ability to disrupt cash flows.

How Much Is Enough Depends on Your Reality- There is no single number that works for everyone, but there is a guiding principle. At a minimum, three to six months of essential expenses such as rent, food, utilities, healthcare and loan repayments should be non-negotiable. For those in volatile industries, with variable income streams, or with significant dependents, a longer buffer of twelve to twenty-four months is prudent.

This is where risk is often underestimated. Income is treated as stable until it is not. Entire sectors can slow down simultaneously. Hiring freezes, delayed payments and business contractions tend to cluster in times of stress.

The real question is simple: how long can you sustain yourself if your income stops tomorrow?

Safety and Liquidity Matter More Than Returns- Equally important is where this fund is held. An emergency fund is not an investment strategy. It is a protection strategy. The purpose of this capital is not to grow, but to be available when needed, without loss of value. In periods of stress, liquidity becomes more valuable than return.

Funds locked in real estate, equities, or long-term instruments defeat this purpose. Instead, this reserve should be held in low-risk, highly liquid options such as savings accounts, liquid mutual funds, or short-duration deposits.

There is also a behavioural dimension. Without a buffer, households are forced into unfavourable choices, selling long-term investments at the wrong time, taking on expensive debt, or cutting back on essential spending. With a buffer, decisions become measured rather than reactive. Time, in a crisis, is an asset. Liquidity buys that time.

Conclusion

The current global environment is a reminder that volatility is not an exception. It is a recurring feature of economic life. While we cannot control geopolitical events or macroeconomic cycles, we can control how prepared we are for them.

A war chest does not eliminate uncertainty. But it ensures that uncertainty does not dictate your choices. Because when disruption arrives, as it inevitably will, the difference is not in the event itself. It is in how prepared you are to face it.

When governance speaks English but not everyone in the family does

This article was first published in the Economic Times on March 30, 2026; https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/when-governance-speaks-english-but-not-everyone-in-the-family-does/articleshow/129891869.cms

Family constitutions are often discussed as technical instruments. Define ownership. Clarify succession. Codify governance. Put structures in place. But on the ground, they are anything but technical.

Recently, while drafting a family constitution for a business family with networth of around Rs1,000 crores, a challenge forced me to confront a blind spot. Until then, I had worked with families where members differed in views on leadership or ownership, but were broadly similar in education, exposure, and comfort with English or Hindi. This family was different. Some members were not fluent in either language. A few had very different educational journeys and limited exposure to the wider business environment. 

In India, this pattern is not unusual. Founders often evolve rapidly. They adapt to markets, negotiate complex deals, build networks, and create significant wealth within a single generation. But the rest of the family does not always evolve at the same pace or in the same direction. While they may not be active in the business, they shape family conversations, influence expectations, affect family harmony, and impact how decision-makers think.

Therefore, governance has to be explained at the level of the least comfortable member, not just the most articulate one. When those actively involved in the business understand and agree, there is a natural tendency to move forward. And this is where even well-intentioned constitutions can quietly fail.

A constitution that is not understood is not governance

I drafted the constitution after taking extensive inputs from all. As the process unfolded, I became aware of two gaps. First, the language barrier limited my ability to engage fully with a few family members. Second, my role as an external advisor, bringing in formal frameworks and structured processes, may be intimidating to a few.

Recognising this early, a trusted assistant was brought in who could speak with these members in their own language and in a manner they were comfortable with. It helped surface concerns, expectations, and nuances that might otherwise have remained unsaid. The quality of the document improved because the quality of listening improved.

Yet, once the drafting was complete, another concern emerged. The constitution was thorough and carefully structured, but it could still feel overwhelming to some members. Its length, terminology, and formal tone risked making it accessible only to those already comfortable with governance language. A document meant to guide the family for decades cannot afford to be understood by only a few.

Bridging the gap between intent and understanding

So, what can advisors and families do when education levels, language, and exposure vary widely?

First, stop treating governance as paperwork. Constitutions must be explained through stories, examples, and the family’s own journey. Concepts like stewardship, meritocracy, or accountability become meaningful only when grounded in lived experience.

Second, translation is not mechanical. It cannot be left to someone who merely knows the language. The translator must understand family businesses and care about the family’s future. This could be a trusted family member, a colleague, a friend, or even someone the advisor can comfortably explain things to and convey the essence. What matters is emotional intelligence and conviction. Translation must carry soul, not just syntax. If it feels like homework or an academic exercise, it will fail.

Third, participation builds legitimacy. Listening sessions with non-operating members are not symbolic gestures. They are essential. When people see their concerns reflected, they feel included. Ownership of the constitution grows.

Fourth, education must accompany documentation. Constitutions need orientation sessions, simplified companion guides in local languages, and repeated conversations. Small group discussions led by respected elders or advisors often work better than formal presentations.

Fifth, symbolism matters. A signing ceremony where senior family members explain why the constitution exists reinforces its seriousness. When founders articulate that governance is about continuity, not control, it changes how the document is received.

Governance requires humility, not just expertise

Advisors must approach such situations with humility. Resistance is often due to anxiety. For founders, governance can feel like loss of authority. For members who are less familiar with formal business language, it can feel exclusionary and overwhelming. The advisor’s role is to translate governance into fairness, continuity, and harmony.

Family constitutions must honour where the family comes from while preparing it for where it is going. That balance requires empathy as much as technical skill. We also need to recognise a deeper truth. Governance is not about sophistication. It is about sustainability. Families that built enterprises without formal business training often demonstrate extraordinary commercial intuition and resilience. Our responsibility is to help institutionalise that wisdom in ways every member can access.

A constitution must belong to the family, not the advisor

A family constitution that intimidates will not endure. One that is understood, debated, questioned, and eventually embraced stands a far greater chance of guiding the family across generations.

In countries like India, where entrepreneurial wealth is young and diversity within families is the norm, this challenge will only deepen. The advisor’s real craft lies not in drafting elegant documents, but in translating governance into something human: fairness, continuity, and belonging.

Because in the end, governance does not succeed when it is written well.

It succeeds when it is felt, owned, and lived.

Behind the Metrics: The Human Story of Entrepreneurship

This Book Review was first published by Forbes India on March 9, 2026; https://www.forbesindia.com/article/life/behind-the-metrics-the-human-story-of-entrepreneurship/2992056/1

Book Review: Unseen: The Untold Story of Deepinder Goyal and the Making of Zomato by Megha Vishwanath

Penguin Business, 332 Pages

In Unseen, Megha Vishwanath tells more than the story of a startup. She traces the making of Zomato alongside the making of its founder, Deepinder Goyal, placing both within the turbulence of India’s startup ecosystem. The book follows Zomato’s journey from an idea to a platform that reshaped urban consumption. Vishwanath attempts to move beyond hero worship (though not always successfully), and instead circles a harder question: what actually sustains a company once charisma alone is not enough?

Restlessness beneath recognition

Early in the book, Vishwanath asks, “…what happens when you finally become visible to the world… and still feel unseen by yourself.” She closes with, “Strangers recognised his face everywhere. But here, where it mattered most… he had disappeared.”

Read together, these lines capture the emotional truth of entrepreneurship: a restlessness that achievement cannot settle, and recognition that does not quiet the inner noise. Even after building at scale, much remains beyond one’s grasp. Vishwanath treats this not as contradiction but as condition, the human cost of ambition. Success does not resolve uncertainty. It merely changes its shape.

This is one of the book’s quieter strengths. It allows us to see the founder not only as builder, but as someone perpetually in motion, driven less by arrival than by unfinishedness.

Talent density, not founder mythology

One of the book’s most compelling insights is that Zomato’s edge was never just its founder’s drive. It was the depth of talent Goyal cultivated. Over time, he built what can only be described as a bench of founder-quality leaders, people capable of matching his momentum rather than merely executing instructions.

The organisation that emerges is not tightly hierarchical. It is loosely networked, powered by ownership and speed. Vishwanath captures this internal architecture well, showing how momentum becomes distributed rather than concentrated.

Yet here the book leaves an unresolved tension. While Vishwanath emphasises distributed leadership, the narrative remains deeply anchored in Goyal’s judgement and instinct. One comes away reassured about talent, but less certain about institutional durability. If the founder’s presence were to recede fully, would the culture hold? 

This feels especially relevant today. As of February 1, 2026, Goyal has stepped down from the executive role of CEO to focus on new ideas. At 43, he remains central to the company’s identity, still perceived as the connective tissue holding things together. Yet the book leaves behind a productive anxiety: who sustains such a fluid organism when its most catalytic presence recedes? Would Eternal endure if, hypothetically, Goyal ever decided to disappear to the mountains?

Capital with conscience

Vishwanath is clear-eyed about the startup ecosystem itself. Funding cycles, boardroom pressures and valuation swings are described without melodrama. In Zomato’s case, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Naukri.com and an early investor, emerges as a stabilising force.

More than capital, he brought governance, perspective and restraint. His role illustrates something important: when ambition is paired with experienced counsel, growth becomes more grounded. 

Communication as leadership

A particularly valuable thread in the book is the treatment of communication as leadership. Goyal’s letters to employees are a master class in clarity and transparency, especially the one outlining the qualities that define a founder’s mindset. Ownership. Speed. Intellectual honesty. Long-term thinking.

There is no ornamental language, no managerial fog. Just shared vocabulary and shared standards. In an ecosystem where ambiguity often masquerades as strategy, these letters show how culture is built deliberately, through words that people can internalise. Institutional depth, Vishwanath reminds us, does not come only from hiring talent. It comes from facilitating that talent to continuously push boundaries.

Risk, relationships, and orchestration

The book also captures the cultural risk embedded in entrepreneurship. For those shaped by predictable career paths, leaving a firm like Bain for uncertainty feels irrational. Vishwanath does not romanticise this leap. She shows the isolation, the strain on family and friendships, and the faith required to persist when outcomes are unclear. She also honours the invisible ecosystem around founders: parents who tolerate risk, friends who absorb volatility, early employees who commit before proof.

Zomato is often criticised for not having “invented” anything. Vishwanath offers a quieter rebuttal. Innovation is not always technological novelty. Zomato reorganised information, reduced friction, and saved time. Today, when bandwidth is limited and traffic relentless, that matters. Convenience, here, is structural.

The unseen work behind endurance

Most founder biographies, whether Ronnie Screwvala’s Dream with Your Eyes Open or global accounts like The Everything Store- Amazon or Shoe Dog- Nike, often reflect on companies that have already stabilised into institutions. They emphasise systems, scale, eventual clarity, and the founder who has himself become an institution or a steward.

Unseen operates in a more unsettled space. Zomato, at 17, is neither fledgling nor fully mature. It behaves with the urgency of a startup despite its scale. Unlike many managerial accounts of company building, Vishwanath goes inward. She examines the founder’s psychology, the proximity to failure, the strain on relationships, and the role of family and friends as silent partners in risk. 

She looks into the mind of a founder, who remains in the restless start-up founder phase. That interior focus distinguishes the book. 

Conclusion

At times Unseen reads like a fast-paced corporate thriller. But its deeper contribution lies in what it says about leadership and institution-building. It shows how governance and chaos coexist, how capital needs conscience, and how communication becomes culture.

And then it leaves you with a harder truth. The real test of ambition is not how brightly it burns in one individual. It is whether it can be distributed, absorbed, and carried forward by many. That is the unseen work behind every enduring enterprise. And that, ultimately, is what this book is really about.

Family Businesses as a Pillar of Viksit Bharat

This article was first published in the Economic Times on January 29, 2026; https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/family-businesses-as-a-pillar-of-viksit-bharat/articleshow/127759602.cms?from=mdr

Introduction: The Missing Big Idea

In a recent letter to the Finance Minister published in the Times of India, Duvvuri Subbarao, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, posed a question that goes to the heart of India’s economic moment. If Viksit Bharat is the overarching vision of this government, what does it mean in concrete terms, and how are annual budgets aligned to that vision? Drawing a parallel with Manmohan Singh’s landmark 1991 budget, where the “big idea” was liberalisation, Subbarao asks what the equivalent organising principle is today.

This article argues that one such pillar of Viksit Bharat must be explicitly recognised and supported: India’s family businesses. The objective here is twofold. First, to situate family enterprises historically and empirically as engines of nation building. Second, to outline what the Finance Minister can do, through policy and budgetary choices, to enable family businesses to contribute responsibly, transparently, and sustainably to India’s development journey.

Family Businesses and Nation Building: A Historical Constant

Family businesses are the oldest and most enduring organisational form across nations. In India, family enterprises have long been builders of physical infrastructure, educational institutions, healthcare systems, and local employment. At India’s current stage of development, where the need for infrastructure, patient capital, and institution building is acute, these characteristics matter deeply.

History offers a useful parallel. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States witnessed massive infrastructure creation led by business families such as the Vanderbilts, the Carnegies, and the Rockefellers. Railroads, steel, oil, and finance were shaped by families willing to take long-term risks at scale. These families helped build the economic foundations of modern America.

India today stands at a comparable inflection point. Large family-controlled business groups are deeply involved in roads, ports, renewable energy, logistics, manufacturing, education, and healthcare. These are sectors where long gestation periods and intergenerational commitment are advantages rather than liabilities.

Lessons from the Robber Barons

Yet history also cautions us. Many of the American families who built that infrastructure later came to be labelled “robber barons”. Some lost legitimacy due to concentration of power, weak governance, opaque practices, and an inability to manage succession effectively. Several family empires fragmented or faded, not because of lack of wealth, but because institutions did not evolve alongside scale.

This is a lesson India must take seriously. The choice is not between celebrating or constraining family businesses. The real policy challenge is to fuel entrepreneurial energy while embedding governance, transparency, and meritocracy. Without this balance, family capitalism risks public backlash and private decline.

Why Family Businesses Matter for Viksit Bharat

If Viksit Bharat is about sustained prosperity, social stability, and institutional depth, family businesses are uniquely positioned to contribute in four ways.

First, they provide patient capital. Family owners are often willing to invest across cycles, absorb short-term volatility, and commit to long-horizon projects that are unattractive to purely financial investors.

Second, they anchor local economies. Family enterprises are embedded in regions and communities, making them critical to employment generation, skill formation, and social cohesion.

Third, they enable institutional philanthropy. Many of India’s educational and healthcare institutions have been built by business families, often long before corporate social responsibility became mandatory.

Fourth, they ensure continuity. In a world of rapid managerial churn, family ownership can provide strategic consistency, provided governance systems are robust.

Policy Lessons from Other Economies

Across several jurisdictions, governments are beginning to recognise family enterprises as distinct economic actors whose long-term orientation and ownership continuity require tailored policy responses. As documented by Tharawat Magazine , this shift reflects an understanding that family businesses contribute disproportionately to employment, capital formation, and institutional stability, yet face structural vulnerabilities during succession and ownership transition that generic corporate policy does not address. The emerging response is not to privilege family firms indiscriminately, but to make them visible within the policy architecture.

This recognition has taken different institutional forms. In the United States, the creation of a bipartisan Family Business Caucus within Congress signals an effort to ensure that family enterprises are explicitly considered in legislative and regulatory debates. In Poland and Canada, legal and tax reforms have focused on reducing the cost and complexity of intergenerational transfers, acknowledging that poorly managed succession can destroy productive capacity and jobs. In the United Arab Emirates, a dedicated Family Companies Law, supported by state-backed institutions, seeks to codify governance, succession, and dispute resolution mechanisms, positioning family firms as long-term partners in national economic strategy. Hong Kong, meanwhile, has focused on building an ecosystem around family capital and family offices, combining regulatory adjustments with investments in institutional capacity for stewardship and legacy planning.

What unites these diverse approaches, as Tharawat Magazine underscores, is a move away from treating family ownership as incidental. Instead, policy frameworks increasingly aim to align continuity with governance, transparency, and professionalisation. The lesson for India is not to replicate any one model, but to recognise that if family businesses are to anchor Viksit Bharat, they must be deliberately integrated into policy design, fiscal incentives, and economic measurement, rather than remaining an invisible yet systemically important segment of the economy. 

Policy Recommendations

If robust family businesses are to be a measurable pillar of Viksit Bharat, policy intent must translate into administratively actionable and fiscally grounded measures.

First, formal recognition of family enterprises: The Union Budget can announce a formal definition of family businesses, notified jointly by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. This would allow family enterprises to be recognised as a distinct category for policy design, without creating a new regulatory burden. Budget documents can mandate periodic data collection through MCA filings, enabling evidence-based policymaking.

Second, governance-linked fiscal incentives: Under the Direct Tax framework administered by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, targeted deductions or concessional tax treatment can be offered to family enterprises that meet specified governance benchmarks. These may include independent directors, documented succession plans, audited family constitutions, and separation of ownership and management. This aligns tax policy with long-term institutionalisation rather than short-term compliance.

Third, succession and continuity financing: The Budget can create a dedicated Succession and Continuity Credit Window, routed through public sector banks and development finance institutions. Backed by partial government guarantees, this facility would support ownership transitions during generational change, preventing distress sales, fragmentation, and employment loss. This intervention sits squarely within the Ministry of Finance’s financial stability and credit flow mandate.

Fourth, targeted public expenditure for family-led nation building: Capital expenditure allocations for infrastructure, education, healthcare, and energy transition can explicitly prioritise public–private partnerships anchored by long-term family ownership. Viability gap funding and concessional finance can be linked to governance and transparency standards, ensuring that public funds support stewardship-oriented capital rather than short-term extraction.

Fifth, next-generation capability development: Budgetary support can be provided under skilling and higher education heads, in coordination with the Ministries of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Education, for structured leadership and governance programmes tailored to next-generation family members. Treating succession as a national economic continuity issue reframes it from a private family matter to a public interest concern. 

Measuring Progress: Integrating Family Business Health into Economic Reporting

If Viksit Bharat is to move beyond aspiration, it requires metrics embedded in official economic reporting. One such metric should be the robustness of India’s family business ecosystem.

The Finance Ministry can mandate the creation of a Family Business Development Index, published periodically alongside existing economic indicators. This composite index could track intergenerational survival rates, governance quality, professional management penetration, employment contribution, reinvestment rates, and participation in national priority sectors.

Such reporting would serve three purposes. It would signal that stewardship-based capitalism matters to India’s development vision. It would create incentives for business families to institutionalise governance and succession practices. And it would give policymakers an early warning system for stress in a segment that employs millions and anchors regional economies.

Conclusion: A Call for Early Attention

Embedding family businesses as a pillar of Viksit Bharat will not happen overnight. It may not be feasible to incorporate many of these ideas in the forthcoming budget. Policy design, inter-ministerial coordination, and institutional alignment take time.

But that is precisely why the conversation must begin now. As an early set of ideas for the next budget cycle, this article urges the Finance Minister to take notice. If India wants development that is durable, inclusive, and institutionally sound, it must look closely at the families that build, own, and steward its enterprises.

Viksit Bharat will not be built by capital alone. It will be built by families who think beyond one generation, supported by policies that reward responsibility as much as ambition.