“Five years before we took in venture capital in our family owned company, we’d decided that ownership and management had to be kept separate. The chairman of the company was the well known retired Chairman of a very well known publicly listed company. We had independent Board members and the CEO, a family member, was evaluated by the Board regularly and his compensation decided by an independent sub-committee of the Board. There were no other family members employed in the company which was run by competent professionals. This ensured that sticky situations involving reporting relationships, performance appraisals and the like were avoided. Other family members ran their own companies which had to bid for and secure business from this company as any other company would. All things being equal, we gave preference to our family company. But the operative term is “all things being equal” These were the words of the scion of a well known family owned company in India. But then how many co...
Startup Journey is a forum for entrepreneurs catalyzed by Arun Natarajan, Founder of Venture Intelligence