Chapter 1: Are You Ready to Serve on Your Family Business Board? Women Directors’ Governance Succession Insights

How do families-in-business deal with intergenerational female succession in their company’s corporate governance structures, i.e., the board of directors? How is female boardroom capital built up? This chapter explores the boardroom immersion processes and mentorship programs followed by 44 Mexican and Spanish next-gen women owners of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation, privately-owned, national and international firms, who were appointed for the first time to their family business’ board of directors between 2005 and 2020.

Our outcomes show that intergenerational female corporate governance succession is driven more by particular families-in-business matters, like the inheritance of ownership rights, than by corporate governance codes or soft legislation. We discovered that next-generation women owners are more likely to be appointed for the first time to their family business boardroom when they’re between ages of 38 and 47. Ninety percent (90%) of them will be appointed at or before 57. Our findings also reveal that 4th generation female owners are immersed in the boardroom at a younger age.

When analyzing the immersion processes, we noticed too that due to limited business socialization during their upbringing, some of these well-­educated, professionally qualified females had to cope with holding legal ownership (potestas) in the family firm but missing business decision-making legitimacy (auctoritas) in the governance structure. Based on our results, we developed a families-in-business female boardroom capital development framework to help them achieve both: potestas and auctoritas, as well as to facilitate next-generation women owners’ boardroom incorporation in family enterprises.