The Business of Family - Ginny Gilder - Olympic Medalist, G2 Family Office Founder, Social Entrepreneur & Owner of a WNBA Team [The Business of Family]

Ginny Gilder - Olympic Medalist, G2 Family Office Founder, Social Entrepreneur & Owner of a WNBA Team [The Business of Family]

Explicit content warning

01/25/21 • 62 min

The Business of Family

Ginny Gilder, is an American former competitive rower and Olympic silver medalist. As a second generation entrepreneur, Ginny’s day job is running her family investment office, Gilder Office for Growth but her heart leads her to focus on expanding access to opportunity in the realms of sports and education, especially for youth.

A serial social enterprise entrepreneur, co-owner of the WNBA Seattle Storm, and a writer, Ginny continues to look for ways to expand the footprint of women's professional sports in the U.S.

Standout Quotes:

"The way that people really become good at something and grow wealth is by concentration" - [Ginny]
"There are gifts hidden in tough times" - [Ginny]
"You should keep doing something only as long as you're learning and growing" - [Ginny]
"For any family that's lucky enough to have financial wealth you've got to think about whether you are going to insist that people get along, and at what price" - [Ginny]
"The biggest thing that's probably shifted is recognizing what we really want, which is adult relationships with our adult children" - [Ginny]
"If you want to see change in the world, well, you've got to invest, cos nothing's going to happen if you're not going to invest" - [Ginny]
"What's really most important to most people is Human Connection... and if you really want to be connected, you've got to deal with the stuff that's the toughest" - [Ginny]

Key Takeaways:

After making many mistakes starting a nonprofit, Ginny set up a business that helps start-up nonprofits avoid similar mistakes and achieve their goals.
Early in her career, she had goals that were not related to working in the family business.
Having a financial cushion had benefits, like the freedom to work without being tied to a focus on amassing wealth, although it came with less attention from their father.
When the time came for a transition of the family business, she knew she had to step up to the responsibility placed on her despite her lack of knowledge or passion in the family business.
There has to be a lot of very direct conversations if you want to be in business with your siblings.
Ginny clearly explains that she has no passion for the investment business, but got involved, for the love of family, the financial security, and the business relationships that come with it.
Having an investment office rather than a family office with bells and whistles was geared at equipping her kids to be independent, self-sufficient, and capable human beings.
Honesty has been hugely instrumental in navigating the family dynamics in Ginny's family, she also had to understand the importance of having adult relationships with her adult children.
When things go wrong, that's when you have to figure it out and it's also when you find out the relationships that are solid.
The importance of dealing with difficult family relationships: it's so easy when life is good to think everything is fine but as soon as life gets hard if you haven't dealt with challenges and learned how to disagree and resolve differences, you're not going to make it through the hardest parts of life.

Episode Timeline:

[00:49] Meet Ginny Gilder; sharing her personal and professional background.
[01:34] Her family history and the origin of the family business
[08:20] How Ginny got into the investment business.
[22:50] What was your father's position when you started your nonprofit organization?
[29:00] Ginny describes how the family dynamics affected the transition of the business to her generation.
[30:42] What would you say that you've learned from the separation of roles between family and business?
[33:22] What is the family business structure going forward?
[40:05] How do you differentiate your investment office from a family office?
[41:20] About Gilder Office for Growth
[48:56] How do you navigate through your family dynamics in the world of wealth?
[53:15] Tell us about what you're most passionate about in terms of one of the businesses that you own today.
[01:00:40] Ginny's letter to her kids

*For more episodes go to *
BusinessOfFamily.net

Follo...

A serial social enterprise entrepreneur, co-owner of the WNBA Seattle Storm, and a writer, Ginny continues to look for ways to expand the footprint of women's professional sports in the U.S.

Standout Quotes:

"The way that people really become good at something and grow wealth is by concentration" - [Ginny]
"There are gifts hidden in tough times" - [Ginny]
"You should keep doing something only as long as you're learning and growing" - [Ginny]
"For any family that's lucky enough to have financial wealth you've got to think about whether you are going to insist that people get along, and at what price" - [Ginny]
"The biggest thing that's probably shifted is recognizing what we really want, which is adult relationships with our adult children" - [Ginny]
"If you want to see change in the world, well, you've got to invest, cos nothing's going to happen if you're not going to invest" - [Ginny]
"What's really most important to most people is Human Connection... and if you really want to be connected, you've got to deal with the stuff that's the toughest" - [Ginny]

Key Takeaways:

After making many mistakes starting a nonprofit, Ginny set up a business that helps start-up nonprofits avoid similar mistakes and achieve their goals.
Early in her career, she had goals that were not related to working in the family business.
Having a financial cushion had benefits, like the freedom to work without being tied to a focus on amassing wealth, although it came with less attention from their father.
When the time came for a transition of the family business, she knew she had to step up to the responsibility placed on her despite her lack of knowledge or passion in the family business.
There has to be a lot of very direct conversations if you want to be in business with your siblings.
Ginny clearly explains that she has no passion for the investment business, but got involved, for the love of family, the financial security, and the business relationships that come with it.
Having an investment office rather than a family office with bells and whistles was geared at equipping her kids to be independent, self-sufficient, and capable human beings.
Honesty has been hugely instrumental in navigating the family dynamics in Ginny's family, she also had to understand the importance of having adult relationships with her adult children.
When things go wrong, that's when you have to figure it out and it's also when you find out the relationships that are solid.
The importance of dealing with difficult family relationships: it's so easy when life is good to think everything is fine but as soon as life gets hard if you haven't dealt with challenges and learned how to disagree and resolve differences, you're not going to make it through the hardest parts of life.

Episode Timeline:

[00:49] Meet Ginny Gilder; sharing her personal and professional background.
[01:34] Her family history and the origin of the family business
[08:20] How Ginny got into the investment business.
[22:50] What was your father's position when you started your nonprofit organization?
[29:00] Ginny describes how the family dynamics affected the transition of the business to her generation.
[30:42] What would you say that you've learned from the separation of roles between family and business?
[33:22] What is the family business structure going forward?
[40:05] How do you differentiate your investment office from a family office?
[41:20] About Gilder Office for Growth
[48:56] How do you navigate through your family dynamics in the world of wealth?
[53:15] Tell us about what you're most passionate about in terms of one of the businesses that you own today.
[01:00:40] Ginny's letter to her kids

*For more episodes go to *
BusinessOfFamily.net

Follo...

Previous Episode

Khalid Muhmood - Using the Family Holding Company to invest in Education [The Business of Family]

Khalid Muhmood is from the UK and through the family business holding company Dragonfly Education Group, is an operational investor in education.

He has been active in the business of education since 1994 when he and his wife, Arabella Peters, co-founded Apollo English and then the British University Vietnam. Since then they have invested in a number of businesses all focused on education.

Khalid and Arabella see themselves as the founding generation of their family enterprise and intend to never sell their Dragonfly Education hold co. They’re actively involving their young children in business conversations and laying the foundation for generational wealth, legacy and impact.

Standout Quotes:

"What's your biggest headache?"
"Learning from successful family businesses; so many of them do not load up on debt" - [Khalid]
"The future of education is blended, that means you've got to incorporate online with offline" - [Khalid]
"Sophisticated multi-generational families.. have taken generations to figure out that they need to separate the Governance from the Operations, and that the family needs to be excellent stewards and owners first before they can consider playing an active role in Operations" - [Mike]
"A well-run family business is difficult to beat, especially during downtimes" - [Khalid]
"Why trade anything in, when we've found purpose?" - [Khalid]
"If you’re building any business, I'd say that 'Focus' is the thing that's often lacking, especially if the entrepreneur at the beginning thinks they have to say yes to everything" - [Khalid]
"Look for the good in life... because it really helps you enjoy the journey" - [Khalid]

Key Takeaways:

If you want to be truly in control of your journey in a business, you need to be the owner, not the manager.
At the very beginning, the vision was simply to get the business to survive.
It's only when you move from surviving to thriving that you can ask, "what do you want to do?"
When asked "what is your biggest headache?" at an event, many of the entrepreneurs answered "My father".
If you're not happy with 60000 pounds per year, then any more money might not change anything.
Khalid describes the challenges of Covid-19 as a learning period for the business as a whole.
Finding a way to create balance and incorporate online with offline learning is pivotal, that will be the future for the family business.
Khalid and his wife, Arabella involve their kids as much as possible in the family business even at the early ages of 8 and 10, with some tests to determine their level of interest and perception of the business as a whole.
In the future, the key role for the kids is going to be "Good Owners"
The stewardship role is critical
One of the tips to help foster togetherness among children is that if one of them does something wrong, punish them all.
Other points to note is to never elevate one sibling above the other and to always leave them to sort out their arguments without being the judge.
Khalid shares that the preferred investments taken by DragonFly are those in which a controlling stake can be bought.
A major mistake that was made at some point was accepting an offer from Nokia when it should have been turned down because it was distracting from the core competency of the business.
Khalid shares that his source of knowledge includes mentors, peer to peer learning, and mistakes.
From Khalid to his kids: Look for the good in life because it really helps you enjoy the journey.

Episode Timeline:

[00:49] About Khalid Muhmood and the inspiration for starting the business of education
[06:01] Khalid explains some of the reasons behind the choice of Vietnam as a location for starting the business
[08:59] What was the vision at the time of starting the business
[15:03] The new vision for Dragonfly Education Group
[19:41] How did the business hold up in this period of Covid19, do you have an interest in online learning?
[24:34] Is there a vision of bringing your kids into the business if they're interested?
[31:20] Do you have any other family structures aside from stewarding Dragonfly as the main asset?
[32:53] Khalid shares some of the values, principles, and parenting approaches to raise well-rounded children amidst wealth.
[36:37] Where does this family business DNA come from?
[41:17] Where do you think you'll make the next operational or financial investment?
[43:01] ...

Next Episode

Mitzi Perdue - Matriarch of the Sheraton Hotels and Perdue Chicken Families [The Business of Family]

Mitzi Perdue is the daughter of one family business titan (her father founded the Sheraton Hotel Chain) and the widow of another, (her late husband was the family business poultry magnate, Frank Perdue), and she is also a businesswoman in her own right. She started the family wine grape business, now one of the larger suppliers of wine grapes in California.

Mitzi likes nothing better than to share insider tips for successful family businesses. Her family of origin (the one that started the Sheraton Hotels) began with the family business, Henderson Estate Company, in 1840, and her Perdue family started in 1920 in the poultry business. These two families have a combined tradition of 276 years of staying together as a family.

Standout Quotes:

"The odds of a family business lasting 100 years are 1 in 1000" - [Mitzi]
"The families who put a lot of effort into designing their cultures are the ones that survive, the ones that let things happen as they may, that rarely supports keeping the family business together over the generations" - [Mitzi]
"70% of family businesses won't make it to the next generation, so if you want your family to last, put a lot of intentionality into letting the family members know from the youngest age that they're part of something bigger than themselves" - [Mitzi]
"The biggest reason families don't last is family quarrels" - [Mitzi]
"So a big piece of advice I'd have for every family is, deal with the problems, get them out, come to a resolution but don't go the press, don't go to adversarial lawyers" - [Mitzi]
"We're measured by what you can give, not what you can get" - [Mitzi]
"I don't think you can be happy if you're not part of something bigger than yourself...
If you want to be happy, think what you can do for somebody else, if you really want to be miserable, think what's owed to you" - [Mitzi]
"In general, your family will be better functioning the more it knows its stories" - [Mitzi]
"If your children turn out right, nothing else matters, if your children turn out wrong, nothing else matters" - [Mitzi]

Key Takeaways:

Mitzi is a part of two multi-generational business families, each of which has lasted for over 100years and over 5 generations.
Mitzi explains that a lot of conscious effort was put into strengthening the families over the years, noting in particular one of the strategies being the "Service to the Family" award.
Every single family that exists has a culture, but is it a culture that came about by accident or by design?
It is critical to be intentional about designing and maintaining family culture as it plays a major role in the success of a family business over generations, rather than just allowing things to happen as they may.
People need a lot of guidance to be steered away from selfishness, and that takes intentionality.
Separating Ownership and Control helps create a perspective of the family as an entity bigger than any one person, and consequently gives a better understanding of the role of stewardship.
Mitzi explains her innovative idea to inculcate the family values in family members, right from childhood.
Noting the importance of knowing how to handle family quarrels, Mitzi strongly emphasizes avoiding the press or lawyers but rather encourages outspokenness within the family.
Three ways that a family can intentionally stay together: Family Newsletters, Family Reunions, and Philanthropy.
Mitzi highlights the positive effects of connecting with both present and past members of the family on the well-being, physically and mentally, of the family.
As a personal preference, Mitzi would rather use books as a means to archive family history compared to other forms of technology, as it may be difficult to access the archive in the future if the technology used to archive it is outdated by that time.
Mitzi recommends entering a new family with humility, observing them, noting what gains you points and what doesn't, also pointing out that while the two families had very different values, the values were very compatible.
Mitzi's letter to her kids: Be generous, be kind, be honest, work hard but be a good steward.

Episode Timeline:

[00:49] Introducing Mitzi Perdue, to discuss actionable advice on how her family has maintained their businesses and family dynamics for generations.
[02:28] Mitzi shares the origin stories of both business families she is a part of.
[04:46] What generation are you in eac...