Family-owned businesses are uniquely placed to shape the fourth industrial revolution to ensure it is empowering and human-centred, rather than divisive and dehumanising, Badr Jafar, CEO of Crescent Enterprises and managing director of the Crescent Group, told delegates at the World Economic Forum, which concluded in Davos on Friday.
Jafar said that family businesses are the epitome of human commerce and tend to be deeply connected to "our employees, stakeholders and communities".
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According to the Family 500 Index, the world's 500 largest family businesses produce $6.5 trillion per year in sales and employ over 21 million people - enough to make them the third largest economy in the world behind the US and China.
In the Middle East and North Africa, 85 per cent of non-oil GDP is generated by family businesses that are set to hand down assets totalling more than $1 trillion to the next generation within the next 10 years.
By Waheed Abbas
