Family Business Successors Who Made Their Own Mark

An inherited company can provide capital, contacts, skilled colleagues and a recognised name. The question here is what a successor did with those advantages. These biographies centre on consequential choices: changing products, entering another industry, reorganising management or finding a new way to earn revenue. Start with Azim Premji and Kiichiro Toyoda for changes of industry, Katharine Graham for a difficult publishing decision, or Miuccia Prada for a new creative direction. Some took over directly from parents; others followed a wider family line or a period of outside management. This is a selection of instructive business histories, not a ranking of wealth or an endorsement of every decision and practice associated with them.