Slip on a pair of Ferragamo shoes, open a jar of Nutella, or cook a box of Barilla pasta, and you’re holding the work of several generations. Between now and the end of 2027, five of the world’s most recognizable family enterprises will celebrate milestone anniversaries, and their stories follow a familiar arc.
Most started small. Barilla opened as a single bread and pasta shop in Parma in 1877. Salvatore Ferragamo returned from America and established his house in Florence in 1927, the same year J. Willard and Alice Marriott opened a nine-seat root beer stand. In 1946, Estée Lauder launched her company with a handful of creams developed in her Queens home, while in Piedmont, Pietro Ferrero created a hazelnut paste.
What turned those beginnings into institutions was what each generation chose to do next. Pietro’s son Michele reworked the paste into Nutella in 1964, and his grandson Giovanni leads Ferrero today. Estée Lauder’s company is now chaired by her grandson. Marriott grew from that root beer stand into a company with more than 10,000 properties worldwide. Barilla’s story holds the most deliberate choice of all: the family sold the company in 1971, then bought it back in 1979. Brothers Guido, Luca, and Paolo Barilla lead it today.
It’s a fitting set of stories for the year the Global Family Enterprise Program marks its own tenth anniversary. Like these companies, the Program began modestly, with a single course, and grew through the people who chose to carry it forward. Their milestones raise the same questions we’re asking this year: what a family inherits, what it keeps, and what it builds for the next generation. To mark the occasion, a plate of Barilla pasta followed by a spoonful of Nutella makes a fine place to start.
Themes: Founding Vision, Generational Stewardship, Family Legacy, Continuity by Choice, Milestone Reflection