Salvatore Sciascia

Recent events in the US Presidential race have focused people around the world on the topic of leadership and age. When is a leader, whether of a country or a business, too old to do the job? When should this aging leader recognize that he or she must make way for a like-minded and competent younger person -- as outgoing President Joe Biden did when he dropped out of the race for re-election and anointed his younger vice president, Kamala Harris, in his place? As a family business professor, working in Italy but internationally oriented, I’ve seen family firms grappling with this question too. I always noticed that in my own country CEOs looks particularly old. The latest report of the AUB observatory, the Italian official family business monitor by the Association of Italian Family Firms (AIDAF), Unicredit and Bocconi, confirms that 27% of Italian family businesses are led by people over 70. You may think, as I have thought, that people should retire by age 70. However, if so many companies are led by relatively old people, there must be good reasons. And indeed, there are many advantages related to having an older leader.

Millennials, those born between the end of the ‘70s and the beginning of the new millennium, are accustomed to the limitless possibilities of the online world, where local or even country borders are no barrier. They are now the largest living generation, according to the Pew Research Center. As they begin moving into the management ranks of their family firms, they can be more fearless in helping family firms expand their customer base worldwide. But our study of 92 Italian family firms revealed an important caveat: Millennials work harder and more successfully to expand their family firm globally if their CEO is a fellow millennial and is not a family member. Our research, published in the Journal of Family Business Strategy, suggests that non-family peers can motivate millennials better than parents or other older relatives in the firm, and help increase “export intensity,” or the weight of international sales to total revenues. Our research takes place during a time when many family firms are seeking to expand their markets, but older generations may be more hesitant to do so because they are newer to technology and have grown up with a different worldview. Italy is the perfect setting because family businesses are the backbone there, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all companies with annual sales of more than 20 million euros (nearly $21 million.) Millennials also account for about 28 percent of the Italian population.