Today we welcome Nike Anani, an award-winning family business strategist, entrepreneur, and consultant. Rated as a top-100 family business consultant globally, Nike’s mission is to help her clients bridge the gap between senior and younger generations. As a result, her clients walk away with better communication skills and are able to collaborate collectively to gain clarity.
To increase client profit and productivity, Nike works privately with select business families who choose to engage with, her thanks to her extensive professional training, which is backed by over a decade’s worth of experience. Over the past ten years, Nike has been deeply involved as a business founder and a next-gen, which gives her a unique ability to empathize with both generations and to act as a connector.
She is passionate about diversity and celebrates every individual, family, and business and the uniqueness of each. Nike’s approach is tailored to each client and creates a personalized and detailed experience for them.
In this episode, Nike shares her own family business experience, her methods of engaging with family business clients and describes the nuances of cross-generational family businesses.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Get to know Nike Anani a little better as we introduce her as today’s guest.
- Nike tells us about her earliest experiences in a family-owned business.
- Hear about Nike’s experience moving to the UK when she was nine years old.
- What encouraged Nike to spend time in Lagos, and the effect it had on her.
- Nike tells us what inspired her to work with next-gens and their family businesses.
- How Nike helps next-gens future-proof their family businesses.
- How a lack of education and training can impact family business success.
- Sometimes there isn’t interest in continuing the lineage within a family business.
- Nike shares how she engages family business members in the process.
- Nike touches on her own experiences with tricky family dynamics.
- How ideas of philanthropy are changing among next-gens.
- Hear about how next-gen perceive legacy.
- Ways to get young children curious about business and personal finance.
- The importance of giving children, particularly young girls, exposure to business.
- Hear Nike’s parting advice for listeners.
Tweetables:
“Lagos lit me off in a way that the city of London did not. I really saw that there was so much potential to create meaningful businesses that would really make an impact in people’s lives.” — @NikeAnani [0:05:04]
“It’s two years now that I have been consulting next gens; helping them with writing their potential, so they can really be equipped with the skills to be future-proofed.” — @NikeAnani [0:08:45]
“It’s been a great journey being a family business owner. I feel that it really does add color to my work, being able to advise other families, because I have a reference point.” — @NikeAnani [0:10:26]
“Having that honor and that humility and being a better listener — those were the ways that I was able to then make change in a more effective way.” — @NikeAnani [0:24:04]
Facebook Posts:
“My entrance into the family enterprise advising world has been inspired by my personal journey, along with our family enterprise. When I was born, my parents set up a family business. As my dad was a young doctor and my mom was a young teacher based in Lagos, Nigeria can be quite a difficult economic environment for professionals to be able to afford what would seem to be a normal standard of living. They found themselves setting up a side hustle — as we call it these days — to supplement their income.” — Nike Anani [0:02:55]
“I’m an economist by training. My passion has always been sustainable economies in Africa. Being on the ground, working in the business, being in Lagos, it became so clear to me that our economy is so hinged on business activities and family businesses.” — Nike Anani [0:07:11]
“How I typically work is we start with a bridging session. I call that, with both generations, really gaining that clarity on — what is the vision for the business? What are the shared values? What is the purpose? Where do we all really see ourselves in the midst of all of this, to really gain clarity? Because I think working in a family business is hard work.” — Nike Anani [0:18:40]
Additional Resources:
Website: https://nikeanani.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikeanani/?originalSubdomain=ng
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikeanani/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nikeanani?lang=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1sKSoLVye4VtRA-Sj9WD9g
Sharon Spano:
Website: sharonspano.com
Book: thetimemoneybook.com
Events: sharonspano.com/workshops
Contact: sharon@sharonspano.com
Twitter: twitter.com/SharonSpano