Companies still run by their founders have a certain magic. That’s not just a hunch — among public companies since 1990, returns to shareholders were three times greater at firms where the founder is still part of the management team. In an upcoming book and in a recent article in Harvard Business Review, my coauthor Christopher Zook and I identify the qualities of “the founder’s mentality” and show how all organizations, even those whose founders have long retired, can harness its vitalizing effects. We believe that a company’s best hope to sustain profitable growth is to stay true to the characteristics that great founding management teams naturally possess.
Great Companies Stay True to the Spirit of Their Founders
Examples from Nando’s Chicken, the Oberoi Group, and more.
March 14, 2016
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