2020 and Beyond
Strengthen Family Enterprises
Motivated by Babson’s founding mission to prepare the next generation of family business leaders, the College launches its second century with a dedicated focus on family entrepreneurship. As such, Babson will help ensure more jobs and opportunities are created globally.
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Why Babson
Matthew Allen, faculty director of Babson’s Institute for Family Entrepreneurship, shares that “an estimated 70 to 90 percent of global GDP annual is created by family businesses. At Babson alone, 50 percent of undergraduate students, and a similar percentage of graduate students, come from family businesses–and this does not yet account for the many who come from what we more broadly define as entrepreneurial families.”
Babson’s Advantage
- Strengthening family businesses was the core of Babson’s founding mission in 1919.
- Today, a significant number of Babson undergraduates—and the majority of our international students—come from a family business.
- Babson is a founding member of the STEP Project (Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices), a global applied-research project involving 175+ researchers, 34 academic affiliates in 24 countries, and 132 cases.
- Babson is home to the Institute for Family Entrepreneurship, an opportunity to extend our expertise, including a new Bertarelli Foundation faculty chair.
Why the World Needs Babson
- Family firms account for two-thirds of all businesses around the world.
- Only 30 percent of family businesses survive to the second generation.
- In the majority of countries worldwide, 50 to 80 percent of jobs are created by family businesses.
- For marginalized communities in particular, family businesses are the building blocks of community development.