At the head of the initiative is Jerica Rodríguez, a lawyer with experience in the world of corporate law
Attorney Jerica Rodríguez is a person with extensive experience in corporate law and is used to offering services to family businesses of various kinds.
He has always explained to clients that when the family is healthy, the company will also be healthy. It offers comprehensive services for management succession planning of what is the generational change and for the organization of assets.
Seeing the need to educate about managerial succession, he is in the process of creating the Association of Family Businesses (Asodemfa) that seeks to protect the interests of family businesses in society, the State and the media and support them so that their succession generational is positive and contributes to sustainability.
In a visit to Nelson Rodríguez, director of elCaribe, he explained that the Dominican Republic is young but has companies that are past the third generation and adds that -according to international statistics- in general, from the first to the second generation, more than 30% manage to survive. of family businesses, approximately. In the third generation it is 12% and the main cause for this to be the case is the lack of management succession planning.
“For this reason, we as a legal firm have wanted to focus on providing services -normal within corporate law- identifying the needs as a family business. When we see it like this, it is more complex than seeing it as a simple business or a commercial partnership, ”he said.
From his point of view, seeing it as a family business allows seeing several edges and providing a better service, helping it to transcend.
According to the figures it handles, family businesses contribute 90% to the Dominican gross domestic product, and that is why it is so important to preserve them. “And one way to achieve this is by guaranteeing its sustainability and transcendence; that they pass from generation to generation,” he noted.
And he added: “This is exactly what Asodemfa is looking for… how we preserve the family business, taking care of its image. That is why we want to be the voice in front of the media and in front of society, guaranteeing that the next generation will take over the managerial management satisfactorily and favorably”.
The question of who will be in charge of corporate governance could give rise to difficulties within a family business. Precisely, this type of situation is what the association that Jerica Rodríguez works to preside tries to avoid, through effective planning and educating the legal successors in what corresponds to the fact that everyone has a right to arrive, but not everyone, necessarily, They have the right to lead.
She indicated that in order to manage or supervise a company, capacity or what she calls aptitudes and attitudes must prevail. “Within succession planning, certain features and qualities of what would become legal successors are taken into account, where the right to be an heir and shareholder is never taken away, but management management would be limited,” he states.
He attended the meeting in the company of the Director of Communication of Asodemfa, José Vicente Melo. For the creation of the association, it has been taken into account that there is currently no such association in the Dominican Republic that watches over the duties and rights of family-owned companies.
The data offered in the conversation indicates that 90% of the country’s companies are family-owned, which contribute with their taxes and employment, in an active way in the economy.
what is sought
The objectives of Asodemfa are to guarantee a viable and positive generational change for the company, protect the image of the family business, ensure fair competition between members of the same economic area of the association and promote female leadership within family businesses. .
The Association will have a group of 10 founding members/partners who, together with their board of directors, will govern its destiny. The Founders will have access to all the benefits and will also have VIP access, within the web portal, to effectively monitor all the local and international events that the organization manages.
Each founding member will have access to a local and international “networking” to publicize their career, experience and business model, within a group of entrepreneurs and associations, from Latin America, the United States and Canada, who will participate in alliance with Asodemfa
The motto that the organization upholds is “Promoting the prosperity and importance of business families as the engine of development in the Dominican Republic.”
The organization will have its web portal www.asodemfa.com, as well as social media platforms, such as Twitter: asodemfa, on Instagram: @asodemfa and on Facebook as the Association of Family Businesses RD
These digital channels will serve to stay in contact with its members and at the same time transmit valuable information to all its collaborators and the community in general.
Focus on Social Responsibility chapter
As part of the Corporate Social Responsibility chapter, the association will support the Resurge Foundation, which helps women victims of domestic violence to become economically empowered and independent, through the search for decent jobs and psychological help for these women. This was reported by Jerica Rodríguez. It is a foundation that provides its services free of charge to all women who need to get out of a negative environment and where they are not valued.
In terms of communication, the asodemfa already seeks to generate consistent positioning in the key media in the Dominican Republic and internationally, to increase awareness of the organization in the community. “We want to go beyond what a legal study allows; we want to reach all family businesses”, assured Jerica Rodríguez.
