Nike Anani - Building a Generational Bridge in African Family Firms The Business of Family

Nike is the founder and CEO of Nike Anani Practice, Ltd., in Lagos, Nigeria, where she helps second-generation family business members collaborate with the founding generation in an effort to build sustainable family enterprises in the region. No more than 2% of African family businesses successfully transition power to the second generation, and Nike has made it her mission to facilitate this generational merge.


With over a decade of experience working with select business families in Africa, Nike Anani helps owners lead their family organizations to long-term impact and legacy.


Her clients choose to engage her, not only because of her extensive professional training, but also because of her practical experience as both a business founder and a NextGen. This allows her to uniquely empathise with both generations and act as a connector to the Founding generation.


Standout Quotes:



"And that's an observation I have of founders and entrepreneurs, they're just amazing people that have an eye for opportunity" - [Nike]
"As most founders do, it was about giving me the best opportunity to set me up for success and often in their minds, success is going as far away from the business to get the best experience...so they can come back" - [Nike]
"In Nigeria, 90% of indigenous businesses are family businesses, but only 2% survive beyond the founder" - [Nike]
"Family businesses are so key to the community, if they keep failing after a generation, then what's that doing to the economy?" - [Nike]
"I think that starting from a relatively small base, the best way to build anything is with community, and actually building what that community wants rather than just dictating something that you found off the shelf from another culture" - [Mike]
"If you've seen one family business, you've seen one family business" - [Nike]
"A friend of mine says whenever you wake up is your morning, some people don't wake up until they're 85, they don't know what they want" - [Nike]
"I need to be in the best version of myself so I can serve people to the best of my ability" - [Nike]
"There's always something new to learn, we've never arrived, we're just on this ongoing journey of endless learning, in my view" - [Nike]
"There's no position that's guaranteed in life, whether it be a position of material success or honor, today you might be celebrated but it doesn't mean tomorrow you will be" - [Nike]
"It is important to ensure that people's external projections don't become your internal story, because your story is the most powerful thing that you can give yourself" - [Nike]


Key Takeaways:



Nike is a 2nd generation family business owner, and she narrates how her father started the family business initially as a side-hustle.
Describing events around her entry into the business, she shares the plan was to only stay for a few months in Nigeria, gain exposure to business in general, and move back to the UK eventually. However, she was drawn to the spirit of entrepreneurship there and felt more liberated as a young black female.
Nike explains that while her father had expressed general support for her in any field she was planning to go into, she had never expected she would work in the family business.
A glaring disparity in the decision-making process between her former place of work and the family business was the time taken which could be much shorter or longer in different scenarios, leaving her befuddled about family business as a whole. This encouraged her to get professional education at the Family Firm Institute in Boston.
Employing her knowledge in her family business, Nike started the process of "Governance" which involved her siblings more, intending to avert the typical dissolution that plagued most Nigerian family businesses after the founding generation.
Another strategy adopted involved starting the conversation by creating a community called "African Family Firms" for African families facing similar challenges to meet and navigate throug