Our "Generations of Leadership" panel shared fantastic insight from fourth and fifth generation, family-owned Chicago food companies. Jeremy Anderson, CFBN Board Member and Founder of Fifty Gazelles moderated the panel, which featured Dave Miniat, CEO of Miniat Holdings, Dave Gonnella, VP Marketing for Gonnella Baking, and Peter Rose, VP Product Development for Rose Packing Company.  Organizations like these are the backbone of Chicagoland’s food & beverage industry, as they make up the majority of the the industry, and represent the lion’s share of the employment here in the region.

These mid sized companies (only in Chicagoland would we call companies that are $200 million to $1 billion in annual sales “mid sized”!) have unique issues and challenges as they grow and evolve across generations.  Dave Gonnella shared his personal experience, "every generation has to reinvent the company, and it takes guts to escape the comfort zone of what came before." Adding to this sentiment, David Miniat shared that, "years ago, we had more money than ideas. Today we have more ideas than money. They're not all winners, but that's where you want to be."