Choosing Successors in Asian Enterprising Families

Annie Koh talks about the impact of generation gaps and the rise of meritocracy in Asian Enterprising families.

In our culture you’d be quite interest[ed] to know, that it is not always the natural order, the big brother, who is the successor. I’ve actually studies a couple of families and the successor usually is the last son, in many of the families. And sometimes that’s because the older members of the family, there’s a big age gap. So the older members of the family could be almost a little bit younger than the parents, and by the time they built the business with the parents, they found that they have become quite worn out, and leave to the next gen. And the next gen need not be their children, but it’s actually the youngest brother. So that could be another way in which a succession plan comes in place. We have also seen that meritocracy is becoming the way to decide who is the best successor. So in Asian families right now it’s never automatic that it’s the number one son who is going to take over. And we are actually starting to see the most capable son or daughter may be the one taking over. So we are already seeing some of this magic taking place and it’s not about birth order anymore.