Asia’s business heirs look beyond profits, hoping to escape parents’ shadow

Second- and third-generation family businesses say sustainable investments are a priority like never before.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – From Malaysia to Singapore and the Philippines, second- and third-generation family businesses in Asia are charting a different path from their forefathers as they seek out greener and more sustainable investments.

For some millennial business heirs, the journey is smooth. For others, the gap between their comfortable lives – which gave them the space to learn about socially conscious “impact investing” – and their parents’ experiences of growing up poor has led to conflict.

Malaysian Abe Lim, 27, grew up under circumstances far removed from those of her father, who quit school as a teenager to work as a mechanic to support his family.

Lim’s father went on to build a business producing lubricants, soap and dish-washing liquid and recruited her into the company as a young woman in the hope she would take the reins one day.

But Lim’s youthful idealism soon clashed with her father’s traditional profit-focused business model.