For a family business to thrive, the family itself must have strong teamwork and harmonious relationships. Eric Anderton seeks how this can be done with award-winning family business strategist, speaker, and author, Nike Anani. She discusses how first-generation owners can smoothly pass down a growing business to the next generation while preserving harmony among members. Nike emphasizes how the younger generation should approach business innovation and the right way to build an efficient sibling dynamic. She also talks about her own experiences as part of their family business, particularly insights about working with her father.
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Nike Anani On The Secrets Of Building And Sustaining A Successful Family Business
If you own a family business, how do you balance the prosperity and success of the business with the harmony and unity of your family? As a first-generation founder, do you develop your family members into roles of leadership? How do you identify the talents that they possess and utilize those talents? How do you deal with issues of underperformance with your family members? Is it best to send away family members to get experience in another business and then bring them back or should it be a more organic thing where they just start off on the shop floor or out in the field and earn their bones?
All these questions and more we will cover in this episode with my guest, Nike Anani. She has personal experience working in a family business, and that family business is a construction company. She knows what she’s talking about. She brings to the show here insights that you will find tremendously helpful if you have a construction business.
I’d like you to make sure that you stick around all the way through to the end of the interview because at the end, she gives three specific insights for the dads and the moms and three specific insights for the sons and the daughters to consider when they’re involved in a family business. I know you’ll find this particular episode tremendously helpful if you have a family business. Feel free to share it with other people. Give us a rating or review wherever you get the show and give me some feedback. Did you find this interview useful? If so, let me know. As always, I deeply appreciate you reading this.
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Nike, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Eric. It’s awesome to be here.
You are an expert in the realm of family businesses. I’m delighted to have you on the show because I know many of my readers have family members in their businesses. They want to pass their businesses on potentially to the next generation of their family. What common challenges do you find in your work that family businesses face?
Quite often, folks in construction are family business earners. I’m from a family business myself. We have a construction business, so I have a lot of inside experience in this space. Thinking generally and broadly, family businesses tend to struggle with generational transition, handing over from founder to the next generation in a way that will allow for the business to continue to prosper whilst also keeping the family unity and harmony intact. It’s a very delicate transition.
Often the analogy that’s given is passing on the baton. We’ve heard that a billion times. As we’re passing on the baton, there is so much that can go wrong. For instance, from the founding generation trying to and wanting to retire from the business, it is difficult to emotionally let go and pass on the responsibility to the next generation. A lot of entrepreneurs and business owners don’t have retirement savings or an investment plan in place and then grapple with, “How will I actually retire? My retirement plan was dividends from the business and continue to get salaries from the business.” It can get very tricky in that regard.
On the side of the next generation, they’re suddenly thinking about responsibility for this huge business that mom and dad built together, “How do I make my stamp on it? How do I have my voice be heard? How do I champion change and move things in a slightly different direction from how it’s been done traditionally? Maybe, for instance, infusing more tech, thinking through sustainability or thinking through diversity and inclusion. How do I move things and affect change so that we are able to be future-proofed?” Those are typically the common challenges that I find my audience struggle with.
We’ve got a ton to dive into so let’s start with some definitions, this balance between the prosperity of the business and the harmony of the family. Tell me what you mean by family harmony.
I see family harmony as not necessarily uniformity but unity. I see family harmony as the absence of squabble of deep riffs and conflict. We all have some level of dysfunction in our families. There’s no perfect family. Where there’s a deep trauma, conflict and repeatable issues is not harmony. That usually speaks to a need to have an expert conflict resolution person come into the room or a therapist to address some family issues.
Let’s explore it. Why is it that you think family businesses struggle with being harmonious?
There are so many moving parts and different people with different preferences, priorities and perspectives. In a non-family firm, you’re not as emotionally invested in the people you’re working with or even in the entity itself. You don’t come with as many expectations. I started off my career in London at Deloitte’s Corporate Tax International. I was very oriented towards the functional, technical and just me being a worker. Whereas when I moved to my family enterprise, I came with very different expectations. You got a blend of roles.
I had a dad, boss and partner. That duplicity of roles can give rise to challenges because we’re navigating family relationships, at the same time, business relationships. That kept me in that. Through a generational transition, it moves from mom and dad running the ship to the kids and their spouses and their kids. Now, you’ve got more combinations and permutations of priorities, preferences, perspectives, the potential for rifts, misunderstandings and lack of unity. It can give rise to a lot of conflicts.
You started off at Deloitte. Deloitte is the place where, if you want, you can just spend your whole career there, make a boatload of money and have some degree of a fulfilling career. What led you to get back or go into the family business?
My personal journey is a bit complex. I grew up in Lagos in Nigeria. That’s where we’re I’m from and my family enterprise is. Halfway through my childhood, my brothers and my mom moved to the UK. Our dad stayed back in Lagos, building out the business. He was this learned founder with no distractions and just beasting it.
My mom and I were the first who moved back to Lagos years later. At Deloitte, I started off my career there. I was there for three years. I trained up as a tax accountant. I ticked all the right boxes of what was expected of someone of my status from a family and the kind of career I should be in, but I honestly have found it extremely dull and hollow.
I had very little touchpoint with the family business at that point. I was too young to remember the business. I was never taken to work. I remember things like dad would bring work home and he would make comments like, “Our business is doing well. I need to travel,” or “I’m broke and I need to get more clients.” I had very little exposure at that point. I was 24 when I was like, “Where am I going with my life? What do I want?”
I remember having a conversation with dad. He was like, “Maybe you’re just bored. Maybe you need to get out into the real business world and come home and see what I’ve been doing a bit in the family business.” He had also been doing a lot of investing locally in Nigeria, like VC and Angel stuff. I was like, “I can do that. I’ll come home for three months.” At the same time, I’ll put it in my application to a business school. I was like, “I’m only going to apply to one school,” and that’s London Business School because I loved London.
I didn’t want to move my life drastically and move to the States or go to another city or an environment I wasn’t familiar with, which is super funny because three months into my career break back home in Nigeria, shadowing my father, I decided to make a permanent move. I moved permanently from the UK to Nigeria. I started working with my dad in our construction company. Why I chose that was because I loved being closer to the action.
As much as you have desires and expectations of your children, they have the same for themselves. Click To Tweet
I was born in the city of London. I felt far removed from the decision-making from entrepreneurship. What was exciting for me was seeing the impact that entrepreneurship made on a micro level on suppliers, communities and the local economy. It made me come alive and that sitting in an office in the city of London wasn’t for me.
That began my journey back home, working in the family business. I then set up the family office as well and ran that for ten years. I moved to the US and stopped working in the family business. I have deep insight from an insider family business owner’s perspective and from a professional’s perspective.
Let me ask you. As you were working at Deloitte, growing up and observing your dad, what was it about him specifically that made you want to go and work with him?
I didn’t know I was going to work with him. I wouldn’t say I chose it. I came to a crossroads and I didn’t know where to go. It was, “Come home for three months. Maybe you’re bored in your industry and I can introduce you to a few friends. You can learn more about the investments we’ve been doing or you can help us out a little bit in the family business.” It was very organic. I got home. I was like, “This is cool. I could do this. This is fun.”
Your dad wasn’t saying, “Come home. I want you in the business. I have grand plans, all this kind of stuff.”
We never ever had that conversation with any of us. I’m the oldest of three. There was never, “One of you would take over this business.” There are comments here and there like, “We’re building this business for your future,” but there was never any explicit, concrete conversation about, “We want you to be in this role to take her over and work in it.” It was always, “What are your career objectives? What are your plans? Which company do you want to work for in London, New York or Singapore? How can I use my network to help you in achieving your goals?”
Your parents were generally supportive of you, but they weren’t insisting in terms of coming into the family business?
Yeah, and there are benefits to that. I never felt trapped by my parents’ journey and felt like I had to retrofit my plans into those, but in a way, I also didn’t factor in the responsibility or future ownership of a business into my life. It was so organic the way I chose to then come back. I fell in love with the space and took the lead in structuring the family business and the entities, leading the family office, and managing the investments. However, the lesson from our journey is it’s important that families have specific conversations on the expectations of the next generation and the responsibility that does come with future ownership. It’s not like earning shares in Apple.
Let me ask you this. I know that some readers are construction company owners who have put 25 or 30 years of blood, sweat and tears into building a business. They have family members, sons, daughters that are either in the business or could come into the business. They might be filled with a thought that, “This person is a great fit for this business.” How does a parent bring their children into the business without driving them away? How does a parent who sees so clearly that this person could be a good fit here negotiate that with their children?
Negotiate is a great word because it’s important to understand. Just as much as you have desires and expectations of your children, they have the same for themselves. In an ideal world, you would have been exposing the kids and having conversations from an early age about their roles, how they see the business fitting into their lives, etc., but where that hasn’t happened.
You’re now thinking, “I’d love for Johnny to come in as CEO or successor.” How do you bridge that conversation? It’s understanding what Johnny wants for himself and understanding that the role your children can play in your business goes beyond the role you’ve played in your business now. It’s to offer them a menu of options.
It’s not the CEO that’s important in the next generation. Also, being an advisor is important for entrepreneurs seeking new opportunities, ventures, markets, services, and investments to grow the family enterprise and future-proof or set up a family office and a family foundation. It’s not binary where Johnny’s in the business or not. It’s very possible Johnny can work in New York in financial services or set up his tech company, as well as advise the family business. The important thing to understand is that, at the minimum, your children will be future owners of the business.
They may then be leaders of the business that we need to think about ownership at the very minimum and prepare them for ownership to those that are willing and interested. I believe in free choice and not imposition because it will create a lot of bad blood and fractions with the siblings. It creates a different dynamic with the kids who probably saw each other as all the same, but now Johnny’s preferred one and going to take over the business. At the very minimum, we’re preparing kids for ownership, where there’s a good fit, willingness and ability. We then want to think about leadership.
This is a critical thought here. I know family businesses in the second generation have been torn apart by the conflict between the siblings. What can a parent do to manage that conflict that may occur? How have you seen family businesses best deal with that?
It’s important that families, in general, have the three Cs, Clarity of mission, vision, conviction and Communication and Collaboration. They need this as a family unit and also as siblings. When we think about it, the siblings you’re alluding to will be the next generation of earners, at the very least and/or crew leaders.
Becoming an owner and a leader takes intentionality, time, and practice both individually and collectively as a team because you’re meshing as a team. It’s understanding each other’s respective strengths, weaknesses, and roles. You’ve had immense practice as siblings. You bicker, squabble, go out for drinks, you help each other, but you haven’t had any experience as business partners and that takes time. Ideally, we want to start that sibling’s team formation during the lifetime of the founder.
Give good headroom of 8 to 10 years for them to go through that teething process and understand for themselves that clarity of vision, mission, conviction and gain an understanding that unity is not uniformity. We’re different. We have different perspectives. We see things differently. What is that unifying thread that ties Johnny, Tracy and Linda together? What is that compelling reason for them to stay in business and invest together? They need to get to that place whilst the founder is in the room because the founder acts like a moderator.
Whilst he or she is alive, they’re able to say, “This wouldn’t work because these are our values. This is the direction.” That helps. In the absence of that, what usually happens is when mom and dad pass away, the siblings get together for the very first time. They’re suddenly trying to steer the ship without having leadership capabilities, understanding ownership capabilities and understanding themselves as crew leaders and earners, having not meshed and gained full clarity of that vision, mission and conviction. That leads to so many cracks and issues like you alluded to and, unfortunately, conflict.
This is so vital. I’m going to use a sports analogy here. You have a dad who’s coaching a team. He has a couple of sons who are on the team. It’s natural for dads to want to promote their sons. If they’re being objective, they can see that perhaps one son has more ability than the other or there are other people in the business who have more ability than the family members. In your experience, how does a first-generation founder negotiate that dynamic of wanting to bring his siblings into the business, perhaps even promote them into leadership and yet understand that they’re either not ready or not capable?
It speaks to this conflict between dad’s objective as a dad, family member and founder of a business or as a business leader. In family, it’s unconditional love, equal treatment and trying to ensure that your role as a protector or as a dad comes into play. In business, it’s performance, productivity and profitability. It’s not equal treatment of all workers. It’s, “Who’s the best and how can we reward them and support them on that upward mobility within the firm?”
The younger generation often doesn't understand the journey that brought success to a business. Most of them think that embarking on a new tech business would make millions overnight. Click To Tweet
It can be difficult to maintain objectivity and distinguish between these conflicting objectives as a father boss. Firstly, one has to be aware that this dynamic is at play. Secondly, once one is aware, it might be helpful to bring a third party into the room to do evaluations and look at the next generation. As I said, they need preparation at the very least for that ownership and for their leadership.
We then can come up with customized development plans for each of them, but as you’ve alluded to, not neglect the ecosystem of core players in the firm that may be talented and have the capacity to lead the organization. In family businesses, we need to embrace more inclusivity and the broad sense of the word, including non-family staff. They are the best for the job, so be it and be the CEO.
In moving the business into the next generation, like I alluded to, we need to think bigger than the existing construction business. We also need to think about how we grow our wealth, so it grows faster than the rate of the family. We need to get more strategic and think about new opportunities, whether it’s new markets, geographic, new backward integration, vertical integration, new joint ventureship and get more strategic. It might not be a bad idea to have a non-family staff lead the construction business whilst the family generally takes more stewardship, ownership, and strategic role in growing the family wealth.
I would like to ask you about how you’ve seen family businesses handle the mindset of the first generation that says, “I know what works. It’s worked for me,” and the tendency of the next generation to want to branch out into new areas and be a little more innovative in either the projects they’re taking on or geographies they’re going into. How does that dynamic get worked out?
It’s the balance between the two. It’s holding on to what’s tried and tested and what we knew, but also being experimental to give rise to new opportunities. Particularly when we think about this disruptive era we are in and the Fourth Industrial Revolution world. Construction has not been as impacted as in other sectors. However, it still may be. There’s still an opportunity to enhance the family’s wealth and not just manage wealth but multiply it.
In cases that have been best handled, I see a true collaboration between the two generations. There’s a need for the elder generation to learn the new and novel and understand from the digitally native generation, who have a pulse on the tech and disruption and where industries are heading towards. There’s also a need on the side of the next generation to not always embrace new, novel and risky but also learn from the tenacity and resiliency of the old generation taking stuff through.
The entrepreneurial lessons that the founder has been through, quite often failure, are part of that journey and not failures shape the business’s success. Often, the next generation doesn’t understand that trajectory or journey and sees the success. Imagine that embarking on a new tech business would make them millions overnight.
The way I see it is there’s the path that you took where you were not intending to get into the business, but you got into it. The other path that I’ve seen family businesses do is, “Suzy, go away for a year or two, or even five. Either within the industry or outside of the industry, specifically construction. Go work for another company.”
You then got the other path where the child is in the business from day one and they worked their way from the shop floor to the executive office. Different paths, different strokes and different people. What do you think is the best approach, as you’ve observed family businesses and have been involved with them?
From my observation, the next gens that have had external work experience, whether in the same industry or not, is the most beneficial to the interest of the family and the business because next-generation family members typically live in the shadow of the founder who has been successful. They may not verbalize this to mom or dad, but they are intimidated and question whether they are competent and have it in them to create as much success as their parents.
That can hinder their confidence and, thus, their ability to lead effectively. It’s important that they get away from that world controlled by mom and dad and see what they’re capable of outside of that world. Get a new perspective from how another company is handling things so they can bring that new perspective and confidence to make an impact in the family enterprise. Those are the cases that I’ve seen that have been most successful.
How have you seen a family business handle the incompetency of one of the kids when it gets to the point where the kid has to be exited not from the ownership necessarily, but from the leadership or even being employed by the business?
I’ve seen bad and good examples.
Give me the bad examples.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen a situation where one of the kids had an addiction problem and then led to him doing fraud in the business. Mom and dad had kept a hush for a while and didn’t want to address the situation because of the implications of their relationship with him addressing the addiction and the reality of dealing with it. Eventually, they had to put him and get him a therapist. In the end, that led to fractioned relationships with the son and the siblings.
Let me ask you about that. As the family was dealing with that, what was the impact on the other non-family employees?
This is where it gets tricky. Since I engage with the family, I’m not sure, but I would imagine that there would be a lot of whispers. They would see a lot of signs, but there wasn’t the best of my knowledge, explicit communication from the family as to what was going on and the reasons why they took the steps they took. Quite often, what happens in family firms is on family stuff. Spectators are a fly on the wall watching all the drama happen. I perceive that’s how they felt.
What is interesting just speaking as a parent is that many times as a parent, you’re blind to what your kids are doing because you get used to certain behaviors, but other people can see it clearly. I would imagine that in a family business situation, that happens quite frequently where a child in the business is not behaving or performing in a way that is up to par. The parents, for whatever reason, are blind to it, but everybody else knows the truth. Do you ever see that?
One hundred percent. That’s why it’s important to have a third party in the mix, someone that’s objective and can be honest, truthful, and find solutions to address some of these issues.
As you’re balancing the idea of prosperity and harmony, I’m picturing one company that I worked with many years ago. They knew that their son was not a top performer, but that son was going to keep getting a salary, despite the fact that he wasn’t a top performer and was actually hindering the business. It wasn’t like they didn’t understand that, but they just didn’t care. They wanted to continue to support that person. What do you do in your role as an outside advisor when you’re faced with that with a client? How do you help them in that situation? What do you think your duty is to them?
The next generation who have had external work experience is the most beneficial to the interest of a family business. Young people must escape living in the shadow of their founders. Click To Tweet
To explain to them the distinction between their roles as a parent, a business leader and the implications of their decision. In that instance, the wider family enterprise system versus in the business and the family and to show them an alternative. That is to separate flows of money in a family business setting from boss dad to kids.
Flows reverse with respect to, “I’m giving you this as my role as dad. I’m giving you a gift or an allowance to support your lifestyle. Also, as CEO of X company, I’m remunerating you for the value of the services you’ve rendered as an employee or as a contractor and/or company is declaring and giving you a dividend based on your ownership of the business.”
It’s important to distinguish the different flows of funds because it not only impacts the dynamic between boss dad and employee son. We keep going back to the non-family stuff. You were like, “How come he continues to get promoted every year when he’s crap? I put in all the work and I’m not getting anything.” It leads to moral issues and productivity. You may lose key talent. In a family business, talent is everything.
Before, I’ve never heard that distinguishing between the money you get for your work performance and money that I may give you because I’m your dad.
Quite often, as a parent, I’ve seen this where, “I’d like to give each of the kids $10,000 a month. Two of them don’t work in the business and one of them works in the business.” It could be a different scenario where the one working in the business is the stellar performer and then feels resentful, “Why in the world are my siblings getting the same amount I’m getting when I put in all the work?”
That is something for business owners to think about when working with their kids in terms of that aspect.
It’s delineating and distinguishing between the flows, purposes and who pays them as well.
Let’s say I’m a dad and my kid is an absolute knucklehead. Not only is he not going to work in my business, but he’s not going to get any money from me either. How’s that been handled? What have you learned as you’ve observed that or as you’ve counseled people through those situations?
Usually, that’s as a result of the conflict. Dad and son are not in each other’s lives as a result. I do think that there’s a way to negotiate a new season for one’s child in a way that will be amicable and positive for the business and family. It may require coaching the son to understand what he wants his next step to be or suggesting other alternatives and preparing him for that next step. As a family business, it’s weird. You’re constantly blending two roles as a leader and as a parent. You don’t want to lose out on the family relationship because you took a decision that was for the business. There’s a way to make that decision in a way where you balance the interests of both sides.
Let’s say you’ve had a bad week, the project is going south, Johnny is running the project and you have all conflict all week. The weekend comes, it’s time to barbecue and it’s time to have Sunday lunch or whatever. How do you handle that?
It’s difficult because you carry the pains and the stresses of Monday to Friday to Saturday and Sunday. It’s like, “I didn’t want to go for Thanksgiving dinner with mom and dad because there was this issue that happened.” It’s even more important for families to create intentional spaces to bond outside of the business. I’m from an enterprising family. Business is our hobby. I get it. Also, the business can be a source of stresses and strains that are not expressed.
Let’s talk about that. How do I create that intentional space? Tell me about that.
Quite simply, a family vacation is the best way. On vacation, what happens is you’re not limited by time, you have the presence of mind, you’ve got space in your head to think and you genuinely enjoy each other’s company. You get to know each other, not just from talking about the business and the decisions we need to make, but we go personal. We talk more about the grandkids, upcoming family events, and family issues. We bond.
We can also, on vacation, use the opportunity to have a family meeting for half a day after we’ve been distressed from the stresses of our entrepreneurial lifestyles and general 21st-century living and start to co-create together, “What do we want for this business? Where’s it heading? How do we each fit into it? What is the future looking like? What are the issues?” These are not conversations we have on the fly. We have to be intentional about them. You have to plan the time, the headspace and the heart space to have these conversations as a family.
You went to London, Lagos and now you’re in Austin, Texas. What led you to Austin?
My husband is from Lagos and North Carolina. He is similar to me. We always meet after we move to the States. In 2021, we were frustrated with the way things were in Lagos during the pandemic and decided it was time for us to move. Austin seemed like it was an up-and-coming city, so we came out on Easter, fell in love with it and decided to move in July 2021.
Are you still involved in your family business?
Not as an operational leader, but I’m on the board. I also chair the family council.
How did your father handle that? Tell me about that.
We went through the four stages of grief. There was a lot of denial, bargaining and negotiating. I’m not running a construction company remotely. It’s not possible. I feel like my time as an operational executive leader of a family office is done and the next non-family staff has the capacity to lead executive function-wise and I will be a board member.
On my part, there was no budging. I knew what I wanted. It was for him to come to terms with the decision. Now, he sees the value in the work that I do consulting families. My antennas always opened towards opportunities for investments back home, so how can I use my social capital out here to enhance what we have back home through strategic partners, potential investors, general learnings and things like that. He has accepted it now. He just left Austin not so long ago. He came out to visit us for a couple of weeks and he’s very supportive.
The next generation of business owners cannot fall in love with what they don't know. Start exposing them to the business from an early age. Click To Tweet
This leads to an interesting question. We can wrap up with this. Was your move precipitated as a result of your marriage?
If I weren’t married, I would not be in the US because I’m not an American citizen. My husband is. If I was going to move as a single lady, I probably would have moved back to the UK. The UK is in the same time zone as Nigeria and it’s a five-hour flight. I would still be involved in the business. That’s an added dynamic that happens to dad boss, who he had expressed a couple of times, where he’s no longer the man in my life.
That’s such a tremendous challenge for some companies. You have your kids and perhaps you’re on the same page with your kids and then a spouse comes in. That affects the family dynamic, whether or not the spouse is involved in the business itself.
They have a very good relationship, but that was standing. This is the first time I’m thinking about it. I am sure that on his part a loss.
It’s interesting how many different aspects of relational life you have to negotiate when you’re involved in a family business. As we’re wrapping up then here, can you give us three specific things that a first-generation family business owner should be doing to prepare the next generation?
Start early. Expose them to the business from an early age. They won’t fall in love with what they don’t know. There may be legal owners of a business, but you want them to be emotional owners where they take ownership, want the best for the business and seek to add value to the business. Start having these conversations as a family as to where all of this is heading, where we are going, what this is for, and be very intentional about it. Carve the space and the time in the diary, head and heart to bond as a family, and lastly, understand that the way things have been is not the way things will be. If we want the family business to succeed over time, it has to change by its very nature. It will change the family’s relationship. Change is necessary. The sooner you embrace and prepare for that, the better.
Let’s flip it the other way because you personally have experience here. What are three pieces of advice you would give to a child who is observing their family, considering whether or not to get into the business, stay in business or grow into the business?
Be patient. The room is not built in a day. As the next generation, we can be quite flighty and impatient. We want instant results, but there are many moving parts and different players when you’re working in a family enterprise. Influencing does take time. We spoke about getting external experiences, whether that’s career experiences or in the community. Joining associations of other next-gen is like yourself that have navigated going through family business dynamics and come out the other side is important.
Thirdly, embrace and understand that the founder of the business has a different perspective, priority and preference to you. In trying to affect change and influence, you have to speak in a language that resonates with their preferences, priorities, and perspectives. That may take you reflecting, listening and observing for a while to get to understand the way they see things in their psyche so that you can communicate in a language that they will understand.
I appreciate your time. How can people get in touch with you?
You may check out my website, www.NikeAnani.com. On there, you’ll see links to my social media. I’m most active on LinkedIn and also super active on Instagram. My email address is there if you want to reach out and have a chat.
Tell our audience specifically, what is the one thing you do to most benefit the family businesses you work with?
Get them to understand one another, that empathy. Get them to understand the preferences, perspectives and priorities of one another so they can communicate better.
The experience that you have both entering and then exiting the business as far as the operational aspect is concerned would be tremendously useful for people in terms of being able to get some outside help as far as the general dynamic of a family business is concerned. Nike, I appreciate your time. I’ve very much enjoyed this conversation. We’ll have to do it again sometime and get you back on the show.
Thanks so much. I enjoyed it myself.
It’s my pleasure. Thanks very much.
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Thank you for reading. This show episode was brought to you by the free report, 7 Qualities of Highly Successful Emerging Leaders. Go to my website, ConstructionGenius.com/emergingleaders. Many construction company owners struggle to attract, develop and retain young leaders. If that is a struggle you’re having, read the short report, 7 Qualities of Highly Successful Emerging Leaders and discover the qualities that successful emerging construction leaders have in common.
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- https://Wavve.link/connectedgeneration
About Nike Anani
With over a decade of family business expertise in Nigeria, Nike helps owners lead their family organizations to long- term impact and legacy. Her inside experience as a second generation family business owner birthed a passion to help other families in building legacy enterprises that would outlive them.
Nike is an accountant (ex-Deloitte UK) and a top-rated family business expert, with a Family Business and Wealth advisor qualification from Family Firm Institute. She is the co-founder of African Family Firms, a pan-African association of family businesses, and the host of “The Connected Generation” podcast – a top-10 Family Business podcast globally.
Nike’s clients choose to engage her, not only because of her extensive professional training, but also because of her practical experience as both a business founder and a NextGen. This allows her to uniquely empathise with both generations and act as a connector.
Nike is a champion for diversity and celebrates the uniqueness in every individual, family and business.
