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 The New York-based development company, which was started in 1900 by
Donald's father, Frederick, and grandmother, Elizabeth, is at the
forefront of one of the big changes at small companies: Women are
increasingly taking over top leadership roles, even in traditionally
male-dominated businesses.
Ivanka Trump, 33, is part of a fourth generation working their way
up the company's leadership ranks, waiting for the day when their
father hands over the reins. So far, she has made it to become an
executive vice president of development and acquisitions.
"I don’t think too much about the role of being a female in terms of
my own company," she said. "I just look at it as growing and
learning."
She said her father never treated her differently from her two
brothers at the company, Donald Jr. and Eric.
"There are probably plenty of patriarchs that don’t think their
daughters are as capable as the sons," she said. "That’s not the
case in my family."
These attitudes are increasingly common, said Walter Kuemmerle,
president of Boston-based Kuemmerle Research Group, adding that 20
years ago, there was basically zero preference for women in family
businesses.
"I see more women interested and more older generations receptive to
the idea of the best person taking over, rather than having a gender
bias," Kuemmerle said.
Kuemmerle has run annual meetings for young executives in family
businesses for Citi Private Bank for the past few years, but this
year's was the first where more than half of the people in the room
were women.
But he cautioned that the evolution was not yet complete. His best
advice for women joining family businesses is to get a great
education, get outside experience and do more homework than their
competitors.
"As unfair as this sounds, you should be better prepared than you'd
think a male would be," he said.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School,
Ivanka Trump said she had encountered only subtle forms of gender
bias.
"Certainly when people enter a negotiation with my father, they come
incredibly well-prepared," she said. "With me, particularly early in
my career, that wasn’t always the case."
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OBSTACLES TO ASCENSION
When Julie Smolyansky took over as chief executive officer of her
family's Lifeway Foods Inc in 2002 after her father died suddenly,
it was his senior advisers who presented the biggest obstacles to
her ascension. She had been working for the kefir yogurt maker for
years but was only 27.
"His friends and advisers told the family, there's no way a
27-year-old can run a company," she said. "We needed some gray hair
in the leadership."
Wayne Rivers, president of the Family Business Institute, based in
Raleigh, North Carolina, was not surprised by this viewpoint.
"One dirty little secret is that the advisers don't like family
businesses successors; they perceive that they are spoiled and
entitled," Rivers said. "It's awful to watch, because they are
prized by senior-generation family members as professional and
objective. But they are human beings like everyone else, and they
sometimes have an agenda."
In the next generation, the challenges for young women entering
family business may come from within themselves.
That is the view of 23-year-old business analyst Leah Klein of
Chicago-based Klein Tools, which has been in her family since 1857.
"I think a lot of women think it's a barrier if it's a
male-dominated business, but I think it's more about them," said
Klein, who is among the sixth generation working at her company. "If
a woman is interested, they have to make their choices about what
they want to do for their life."
(Editing by Lauren Young and Lisa Von Ahn)
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