Sometimes going outside the family is the only way - bizjournals:

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But maybe not. A number of senior ownerzs of family companies who find themselves withou a successor in the younger generation come up with ways to keep businesss ownership in the family even if the management has to go Think about the midwestern family that has ownee and operated a chain of small market newspapers for more than 160 Thefamily — we’ll call them the Smith — has had very few internal business and no one has ever electee to cash out of the In addition, there’s usually been a placde in the business for any qualified and committed family memberr who applied. How have they managef that?
Well, about 120 years ago, the widow of the founder’w son found herself the sole owner of the growin andsuccessful business. She was decidedly unimpresseed with thenext generation’s pool of managemen talent, including her own children. She also heardx some rumblings about splitting up the company so that everyone who wanted his own newspaper couldhave it. Not a said the gritty and she put the whold kit and kaboodle intoa trust. She made a provisio n that if the trust were ever the company would have to be sold out of the familgy with the proceeds goingto charity.
And if that wasn’yt enough to scorch some bonnets, she also insistecd that all future CEO’s be hired by the trusteees and that nary a one of them be afamilyh member. A few feathers were ruffled atthe time, but todayg the Smiths have a very profitable and satisfying familty newspaper publishing business, and they spend a lot of time singin g great-great-grandma’s praises. Another family in business — call them the Johnsonw — reached the end of their successor string with the second generation offamil owners. Instead of calling it quits and selling theirmanufacturing company, the shareholdin g members of the familyh agreed to bring in professional management.
They conducte a global search and hired an experienced seniorf executiveas president. The Johnson family retained their representation on the boarrd and a couple of upper levelmanagementr jobs, but they let their new CEO stafdf the executive suite with qualified people he couled work with effectively. And they providexd compensation, severance and retirement packages for their outsidew executives that equaled the industry standard and then The Johnsons will continur to owntheir company, confident that although management is out of the family’a hands, it’s in good hands.
John and Jenny Carter’s best hope for a family successotr to take over thecompany they’s built to operate their six “down home” restaurantxs in the Washington, D.C., area was their youngest Wanda. But Wanda, who’d worked in the business sincer shewas 15, announced that she nevert wanted to cook another pot of greensw as long as she and off she went to law school. Two nationaol food service corporations had alreadh made offers for the Carterfamilyh company, with plans to keep the restaurant name but standardizde the menus and recipes to cut costsd and appeal to a broader rangre of customers.
The Carters knew that after standardization would come serving burgers out aside window. So they lookedf for a way to bring in new managementf while retaining family ownership of the When they tried to envision a dream team that knew theie operation and had a stak e in holding onto the traditions that had made it they found themselves looking right at the roster of managere who had been running the individual restaurantsfor years. Well trained, experiencede and used to working together, the store managerd were a natural talentpool — and they were the next best thingv to family. The Carters worked out ownershi p and profit sharing for the new president and otheersenior executives.
The plan gave their best qualifiedc employees a great chance to move into corporate management with a little equity to sweetenthe deal. And it gave the Cartert family business a long new leaseon