Women in Family Business

Laura Meyer Ahlström: Sustaining a 170-year Legacy Through Storytelling

Maintaining cohesion and connection in a vast, globally distributed family business while honouring its 170-year-old history is no small feat. Yet for Laura Meyer Ahlström, Family Functions Manager of Finland’s Ahlström Corporation, a multi-generational enterprise with over 420 family members, fostering unity and connection through the art of storytelling is a gratifying challenge. Laura’s connection to her family’s past deepened during childhood visits to their ancestral home in Norrmark, Finland, where she uncovered historical letters and photographs. These discoveries revealed the powerful resource the family archive represented and how it could inspire and excite both current and future generations. Today, Laura harnesses this rich legacy — blending tradition with innovation — to unify the family’s voice and articulate its values across generations. In this episode, Laura Meyer Ahlström reflects on her role as Family Functions Manager for Ahlström Corporation, a global leader in fibre-based specialty materials. She shares her experience using the family’s films and biographies to create multilingual narratives that resonate with and unite family members at home and abroad. Laura also discusses her family’s belief in entrepreneurialism and individuality, and how passion is always prioritised over obligation.

Nadine Karadag: Climbing the Corporate Ladder, Honoring Family Legacy, and Building Startups

What do a corporate career, working in a family business, and founding a startup have in common? Surprisingly, more than you might think! Nadine Karadag’s journey is a fascinating blend of these diverse environments, and in this episode she reflects on how her approach to leadership and innovation has varied in each setting. Nadine began her career in finance, excelling at Dubai’s NASDAQ and quickly climbing the corporate ladder. However, she soon pivoted to join her family’s engineering business, eager to apply her corporate knowledge in a new setting. After completing her MBA, she returned to the financial sector, fulfilling a dream by working at a private equity investment firm. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted significant health accessibility challenges, sparking Nadine's entrepreneurial spirit. In 2021, she co-founded Valeo Wellbeing with her venture partner, Sundeep Sahni. Valeo Wellbeing offers holistic healthcare solutions, diagnostics, medication, supplements, consultations, and medical history all through a user-friendly app. In this episode, Nadine Karadag, COO and co-founder of Valeo Wellbeing and board member of the INCO Group, shares her remarkable journey from corporate success to family business and, finally, to launching a tech startup. She discusses how the lessons from each phase of her career shaped her trajectory, the challenges and rewards of founding a tech firm today, and the importance of fostering a culture of innovation for business survival.

Christina Wing: The Art of Having Difficult Conversations in the Family Business

The art of communication is the glue that holds family businesses together, yet it's often the toughest nut to crack. Why do families in business dance around the conversations that matter most? Conflict, relationships, illness - these topics are the bedrock of our family dynamics but are often shrouded in silence. This silence can ripple through generations, affecting everything from who holds the reins to how decisions are made. Enter the world of open dialogue, where honesty and a united front can transform uncomfortable chats into pivotal moments of growth. But how do we get there? The path might be smoother than we think, built on the straightforward principles of honesty and the collective pursuit of a brighter future. On this episode we are joined by Christina Wing, the founder of Wingspan Legacy Partners, a seasoned faculty member at Harvard Business School, and a business owner herself. Christina unlocks the transformative power of tackling tough conversations head-on in family businesses. From the nuanced role of timing in broaching sensitive issues to the enlightening impact of the COVID lockdowns on our understanding of mental health and the need to set personal boundaries, Christina sheds light on the conversations that can redefine the future of family enterprises.

Samira Zakour: Flexible Mindsets and the Development of Leadership in a New Era

Passion, vision, and leadership play critical roles in determining the success or failure of every family business. However, while passion and vision remain constant sources of inspiration across generations, leadership styles vary and yield diverse results. Often a product of their era, culture, and economic environment, successful business leaders also possess strong strategic compasses that enable them to balance current priorities with long-term objectives. In today’s business landscape, that means maintaining a global perspective while adapting to local contexts – and successful leaders must find the courage to navigate and take decisive action in both environments. Constant shifts, geopolitical instability, technological disruptions, and economic uncertainty will shape leadership in the 21st century. The next generation of leaders will be defined by their ability to chart a course through turbulent periods and their readiness to adapt to the growing drivers of significant global change.

Meghan Juday and Marina Vaughan Spitzy: How Women in Power Balance Bias with Opportunity

Interview with Meghan Juday, Chair of Ideal Industries Inc., governance advisor, and founder of The Lodis Forum, and Marina Vaughan Spitzy, founder of legacy planning firm, Tecolote Advisory, and fifth-generation family business stakeholder Whether gender bias exists within the world’s family enterprises has been unequivocally answered.  Yet, despite the gender barriers they face – or possibly because of them – women are amplifying their voices and advocating for themselves within their family enterprises and the male-dominated boardrooms of businesses globally. Many women are actively demanding the change they want to see, and the resources they need to excel, as they increasingly recognise and understand the value they bring to every organisation and, maybe most especially, the family business. In this episode, Meghan Juday, Chair of Ideal Industries Inc., governance advisor, and founder of The Lodis Forum, and Marina Vaughan Spitzy, founder of legacy planning firm, Tecolote Advisory, and fifth-generation family business stakeholder, and Ramia El Agamy, Co-Founder of WiFB, discuss the results of their recent study entitled ‘Women in Power’ for which they interviewed near a dozen women who told their stories of bias and success in the family enterprise. In this episode, we discuss the emotional and professional challenges women confront when first taking on a leadership role in their family firms, as well as the strategies that can help empower them. We also talk about how the boardroom has become the final frontier of diversity in many organisations and emphasise the importance of continuing the conversation surrounding workplace bias for everyone in a family business, regardless of gender.