More and more women are taking on leadership roles in companies - now almost 30 percent in Germany. But when it comes to succession in companies, especially those that do not come from their own family, women are still underrepresented. “It is not yet commonplace for women to buy external companies,” says Prof. Dr. Manuela Weller, who teaches and researches in the economics department at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen ( THM ). Her focus includes small and medium-sized family businesses as well as women in business succession and as founders.

One problem that Prof. Weller identified in her research is the lack of information about vacant company successors. Women often receive the information that a successor is possible only late or not at all because they do not always have access to the networks in which such information is exchanged. Financing also represents a hurdle: “When talking to banks, women sometimes encounter prejudices, especially with regard to their life plans,” explains Weller. She emphasizes that it is not justified to exclude women from leadership positions due to family considerations, especially in times of skilled labor shortages.

The importance of this problem is underlined by the numbers: According to the Bonn Institute for SME Research, around 190,000 family businesses in Germany are due to be handed over between 2022 and 2026 - 53,000 of them in Hesse alone. A report from the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry from December 2023 also shows that 40 percent of entrepreneurs in Germany cannot find a suitable successor.

Weller encourages women who want to pursue an entrepreneurial career to seek support and role models early on. She also recommends contacting institutions such as the Chamber of Industry and Commerce or the Chamber of Crafts and the THM before actually looking for a company in order to obtain comprehensive information about the process of taking over a company.

At the same time, she also focuses on the perspective of entrepreneurs: “For many company owners, it is difficult to openly address the question of succession, especially if their own children show no interest in taking over. This often leads to vacancies not being made public.” Prof. Weller therefore appeals to family-run companies not to shy away from looking for an external successor and to view this as an opportunity and not as a flaw.

Prof. Dr. Manuela Weller spoke about this topic in the IHK Kassel-Marburg podcast series “Succession is a matter of trust”. The entire podcast is on the Website of the IHK Kassel-Marburg to find.