The founder is leaving. Will the company remain?

Source: This article is a translation of content originally published by The Total Business. The original article is available on the publisher’s website, here.

What international research says and what Greek and international cases reveal about the most difficult transition of a family business.

Two Dates

In 1973, Aristovoulos Petzetakis died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of fifty. He had built what went down in history as the first Greek multinational: a plastic pipe manufacturing company with its own patent and subsidiaries throughout Europe. His son, his natural successor, was still a child. Forty-two years later, in 2015, Petzetakis was declared bankrupt. A lot happened between those two dates: debts, expired patents, competitors from Asia. The passage of decades does not prove that the founder’s death caused the bankruptcy. It does, however, raise the most puzzling question a family business will ever face. It is not how it will grow or how it will raise money, but what will happen on the day the person who created it is no longer there.

Succession rarely kills on its own

If one looks at the major Greek family collapses, it is hard to find even one that ended simply because a new generation took over. They will find debt, crises, bad bets, and changing markets. That is why the stories that follow do not prove that succession caused their downfall. They illustrate something more useful: when a business enters a crisis without clear governance, without prepared leadership, and without clear decision-making centers, generational change can function as a multiplier of weakness. The founder is not merely the owner. He is often the company’s compass, its relationship with the banks, and the instinct that says “no” to the next acquisition. When all of this has not been passed on to institutions and people before they leave, the company retains its name but becomes more vulnerable.

What Research Says

This topic has been studied outside of Greece for fifty years. In 1978, at Harvard Business School, Renato Tagiuri and John Davis outlined three overlapping circles: the family, ownership, and the business. The son who works at the company, the daughter who owns shares but does not work there, and the experienced manager who is not a relative all view the same company from different perspectives and with different interests. Problems arise when family members make decisions that belong to the business. Twenty years later, the book Generation to Generation (Gersick, Davis, Hampton, Lansberg, Harvard Business School Press, 1997) added to the dimension of time. Family businesses typically go through three stages: first a single owner, then siblings, then cousins. For the founder, the risk is that everything depends on one person. For siblings, the challenge lies in maintaining power and fairness among themselves. With cousins, the number of owners increases, and they become more distant from the business itself.

Many people have heard that only 30% of family businesses survive in the second generation, 13% into the third, and 3% in the fourth. This figure comes from a single study by John Ward in 1987, covering approximately two hundred businesses in Illinois. Those who have examined his work from the outset point out that Ward was referring to businesses that survived until the end of a generation, not until the beginning of it. They also point out that he counted a sale as a failure, even when the family sold at a profit. In other words, the famous figure is more alarming than the study itself justifies.

Three of the studies that have shaped the current debate shed light on the same problem from different angles. In Denmark, researchers from the Copenhagen Business School, Columbia, and NYU examined thousands of CEO changes. They found that, in their sample, operating profitability fell by at least four percentage points when a family member took the position instead of an outside executive. In the U.S., a study by Villalonga and Amit (NYU and Wharton)  showed that a founder at the helm adds value, while a descendant in the CEO role reduces it. A study by Pérez-González (Columbia) found something more nuanced: the decline was particularly pronounced when the heir had not attended a selective university. Some international research has thus linked automatic family succession to lower performance, especially when the choice of successor is not based on qualifications and preparation. More recent research rounds out the picture. When the successor’s education and experience are taken into account, being a family member is not a disadvantage and can even become an advantage (Ahrens et al., 2019).

Equally critical is how the founder leaves. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld studied dozens of top executives who retired and categorized them into four types. The “monarchs” never leave on their own, but either die in office or are ousted. “Generals” are forced out and plan their return. “Ambassadors” leave peacefully and remain nearby as advisors. “Governors” serve for a specific period and then move on to something else. His conclusion is that the way a leader departs determines both the succession and who comes after him.

It is not about bloodlines. It is about preparation.

If one were to summarize decades of research in a single sentence, this would be it. The problem is not that the successor is the founder’s child, but that all too often they become the successor simply because they are the founder’s child. Where the selection is based on merit, where the successor has learned the business before taking it over, and where the founder truly steps aside, family succession can be an advantage. It is worth reading Greek business stories through this lens—both those that failed and those that endured.

Greek Stories Where the Continuity Was Broken

Petzetakis: The Sudden Loss. George Petzetakis took over management shortly after turning twenty. He inherited a company that had lost its founder years earlier and where debts had already begun to pile up. Then the patents expired, Asian competitors entered the market, and the final rescue effort—financing from a Swiss entity—never materialized. The lesson to be learned from the Petzetakis case is that when a business depends heavily on its founder, the unexpected can turn into a succession problem.

Lanaras: When the ambition to expand exceeds the company’s capacity. Since 1928, the Lanaras family had been synonymous with the textile mills of Naoussa. During the stock market boom, Thomas Lanaras controlled other publicly traded textile companies and acquired them one after another; according to the press at the time, he was even considering the acquisition of Benetton. The collapse began in the mid-2000s. A few years later, the family had permanently exited the industry, and he himself died in 2011. This case shows that legacy is not only threatened by inaction. It is also threatened by expansion that outpaces the capital and the market that supports it.

Marinopoulos: the crisis that caught the group off guard. The family had over a century of business history behind it, ranging from pharmaceuticals to supermarkets. When the crisis hit, the third generation was at the helm. In 2016, the chain collapsed, leaving hundreds of suppliers unpaid and thousands of employees in limbo, and whatever remained was taken over by Sklavenitis. The public debate that followed focused on excessive expansion, heavy borrowing, and gaps in the group’s management practices. This case highlights the importance of oversight regarding expansion, borrowing, and management accountability, especially when ownership of a large company has changed hands multiple times.

Hondos Pallas: When Brothers Part Ways. In 1967, five brothers from Agrafa opened a cosmetics store on Omirou Street, and that is where the Hondos Center was born. In 2004, one of the brothers left and started his own company under the same name, while the other four brothers cut him off professionally. In 2017, his company, Hondos Pallas Department Stores, was declared bankrupt, while the Hondos Center continued to operate as usual. There was no generational change here. History shows that the “brothers’ stage” is a trial in and of itself, exactly as described by the Harvard model.

Greek examples that show what is needed

TITAN. Its history began in 1902 with Greece’s first cement plant, in Elefsina, and more than a century later, the company remains under the control of the Kanellopoulos and Papalexopoulos families. The most recent generational transition illustrates how this can be done gradually. Dimitris Papalexopoulos joined the company in 1989, held various financial positions, and became CEO in 1996. He remained in that position for over two decades. In October 2022, following consultation with the family of the major shareholders, Marcel Cobuz, an executive from the international sector who is not a member of the family, took over the group’s executive leadership. Papalexopoulos assumed the chairmanship of the board of directors on January 1, 2023.

Karelias. The company was founded in 1888 in Kalamata by two brothers who sold tobacco in paper bags. The second generation purchased the first cigarette-making machine in 1916; the third took the company public; and today, the fourth generation runs it. It is a low-key family that measures time in generations rather than quarters.

Sklavenitis. It was founded in 1954 by brothers Yiannis and Spyros Sklavenitis, along with their friend Miltiadis Papadopoulos. In 2006, Spyros Sklavenitis’s children acquired a majority stake, thereby gaining control ahead of the major steps that followed. In other words, they resolved the issue of shared ownership before it became a problem. The Sklavenitis family’s succession was ultimately linked to the rescue of the retail chain of another historic family business, Marinopoulos.

Angelikousis. The group was founded in 1947 by the grandfather of Maria Angelikousi, who was a doctor in London before joining the family business in 2008. She became vice president in 2020 and took over as CEO in 2021, following her father’s death. In other words, she spent thirteen years with the company before taking the helm.

Motor Oil. When Vardis Vardinoyannis died in November 2024, his son Yiannis was already CEO, and six days later he also assumed the presidency. The company did not experience a power vacuum, as the two generations had worked together in management for years.

The Mirror of the World

Gucci. After his father’s death, Maurizio Gucci inherited the largest stake in the company and became embroiled in a years-long legal battle with his uncle over control of it. In the early 1990s, Gucci was in the red, and in 1993, he sold what remained of his stake to the investment fund Investcorp, bringing the family’s history with the company to a close. Gucci’s major turnaround came after the family’s departure.

Hermès. The company has been in the same family for six generations. In 2010, Bernard Arnault’s LVMH revealed that it had quietly acquired nearly one-fifth of the company. The family responded as one: more than fifty members pooled their shares into a joint holding company, H51, and pledged not to sell for decades. The French securities regulator later fined LVMH; LVMH distributed its stake among its shareholders, and Hermès remains independent. It is also worth noting that during those years, Hermès was led by Patrick Thomas, the first CEO who was not a member of the family, before the baton was passed to sixth-generation heir Axel Dumas.

The Cost of a Family Feud

The Murdoch family did not lose its empire, but it demonstrated just how costly a succession battle can be. Its story became so well-known that it was openly compared to the TV series “Succession.” Rupert Murdoch had established a family trust that controlled Fox and News Corp. Under its terms, it could not be altered, and it gave equal say to his four oldest children. When he attempted to amend it to transfer control solely to his son Lachlan, three of his children took the matter to court, and in December 2024, a Nevada court rejected his attempt. The conflict ended in September 2025 with a settlement: the three siblings left, taking billions of dollars from the sale of shares, and Lachlan gained control through a new trust that will remain in effect until 2050. The empire remained united, but the family did not. The succession issue, which was not resolved in a timely manner, turned into a year-long legal and financial conflict.

The exception that proves the rule

The Japanese Kongō Gumi had been building temples since 578 AD and was considered the world’s oldest family-run business. It was run by approximately forty generations, and the secret to its longevity was that it did not automatically pass the reins to the eldest son, but to whoever was most qualified. In fact, sons-in-law often took the family name to join the business. Nevertheless, by the early 2000s, the company could no longer service its debts, and in 2006 it was acquired by a larger construction conglomerate. Forty generations of family continuity could not overcome a weak balance sheet. A long tradition of succession does not protect a company from excessive borrowing. Succession is a necessary condition for longevity, but not a sufficient one.

The Third Path: Ownership, Management, Control

The discussion about succession is usually framed as a dilemma: Will the child take over, or not? But there is also a third path. Succession is not a single decision but three: who inherits the shares, who manages the business, and who oversees management. For the founder, these three roles often fall to the same person. In subsequent generations, they can—and often must—be separated. A family can retain ownership, capital, and long-term strategy, while entrusting day-to-day management to a professional manager. Children can be shareholders without being executives, or work at the company with clear responsibilities and objective performance evaluations. Hermès, with Patrick Thomas at the helm during its most critical years, demonstrates that this does not weaken a family. This is the greatest taboo of the family business: accepting that the best next CEO may not share the same last name. The right to inherit shares does not automatically qualify one to inherit the CEO’s office.

What They Did Differently

Four key factors emerge from these cases and international literature. The first is time: the transition did not happen overnight, but took place over years of intergenerational collaboration, as seen at Motor Oil, the Angelikousis Group, and TITAN. The second is preparation: the successor worked within the company before taking it over, so as not to inherit it but to learn it as a profession. The third is clear lines of authority: where ownership was shared among siblings or cousins, they resolved these issues before taking major risks or before an outside party could disrupt them, as happened with Sklavenitis in 2006 and Hermès in 2010. The fourth is independent oversight and accountability: a management team, whether family-owned or not—that is supervised by a board of directors with a meaningful role and that is accountable for expansion and borrowing. In cases where continuity has been broken, one can see just how critical these elements can become in times of crisis.

The Next Decade

Most Greek family businesses are still in their first or second generation. In EY’s 2026 survey, one-third of the family business leaders who responded said they had not yet addressed succession planning, and 16% said they were only discussing it informally. This means that in the coming years, many founders will hand over companies they built from scratch without a plan in place for this day.

Herein lies the real story. Any family business without a designated successor may face a change in ownership or management. It may be sold to a competitor, acquired by a private equity firm, merged, or entrusted to professional managers. And not every sale is a failure. A family can transfer ownership of its company and channel its capital and experience into a new venture. Business continuity is not always synonymous with maintaining the same company. If hundreds of Greek businesses face such decisions at the same time, succession ceases to be a matter for the family dinner table and becomes a wave of market restructuring. It changes who owns the businesses, who manages them, and where the next generation’s capital is directed.

The Thought That Lingers

Companies are defined by their people. That is why the hardest decision a founder faces isn’t how to build the company, but how to make himself no longer indispensable to it. The true measure of his success is not just how much the company grew while he was there, but whether he created the conditions for it to continue—and grow even larger—without him. Shares can be inherited. Leadership ability must be proven.