The Jamaica Observer Business Leader Awards has this year made a major shift from its tradition of honouring individual entrepreneurs and is focusing instead on the contribution that family-owned businesses have been making to the country, especially in the current economic crisis.

The prestigious Observer Business Leader programme, now in its 13th year, was officially launched yesterday at a news conference at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue headquarters where journalists were told that 10 families have been nominated for this year’s awards.

Their stories will be published in the Business Observer each Wednesday, starting today, in the run-up to the gala awards banquet on June 11.

According to Moses Jackson, founding editor of the Business Observer and a member of the Business Leader Awards Selection Committee, the challenges facing businesses in the current economic crisis were instrumental in shifting the focus of the awards programme from individual entrepreneurs to families. He said that a solid family structure is the backbone of most businesses and will indeed act as a catalytic force towards their success in the challenging economic climate.

“We saw some parallels between what happened in 1996 with the financial sector meltdown and what is happening now,” said Jackson, in reference to when the Business Leader Awards programme was founded, at a time when indigenous companies faced some of the gravest challenges ever.

“We feel that there is potential now for far deeper problems (but) we think that families could be the foundation for any kind of social and economic transformation,” continued Jackson. “We want to urge the media to join the Observer in creating a conversation around families in business because we believe that families are the foundation of society.”

Observer Chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart agreed. He said that this year’s Business Leader Awards programme will provide the “examples and experiences of how we are going to dig ourselves out of this period”.

“We are going to dig ourselves out of this crisis by fertilising, nurturing, building and strengthening businesses because it is the businesses that are going to employ the people and pay the taxes that in turn fix the roads, provide medical services, security, etc,” said Stewart.

In an effort to show the amount of sustainable commitment and passion needed to run a viable business enterprise, and to highlight that success is not achieved overnight, Jackson said that the programme will analyse the entrepreneurial struggles of the nominated families.

“One of the assumptions that people make when they see a successful family in business is that they started off rich,” said Jackson. “You will be shocked to know how many times those families have gone bankrupt in their journey towards success.”

President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) Christopher Zacca lauded the initiative as “extremely timely”. Using statistics to support his assessment, he said that it is instructive to note that between 65 and 80 per cent of all businesses in the world are family-controlled.

“The family business has a unique opportunity to nurture entrepreneurial talent and cultivate values that are not always evident among other businesses,” said Zacca. “We feel that we need to nurture family businesses, especially at this critical time where the economy of the world is down.

“Jamaica is no exception,” continued the PSOJ boss. “The salvation to Jamaica’s economy must come from entrepreneurship, particularly family entrepreneurship.”