When Kenya supermarket chain Tusky’s collapsed, it was like watching a comet streak across the sky only to crash into the earth.
For years, the
Kago family had built one of East Africa’s most beloved retail brands,
expanding from a modest shop in Nakuru into a regional chain with more than
sixty outlets in Kenya and Uganda.
The problem was
never the customers, nor the competition, but the family itself. Boardroom
quarrels turned into court battles, succession became a blood sport, and the
absence of proper governance left the business vulnerable. In the end, what
destroyed Tusky’s was not the market but the household quarrels that spilled
into the marketplace.
It is easy to
dismiss Tusky’s as a Kenyan misfortune, but a new study of East African family
businesses suggests it is part of a regional story.
The East
Africa Family Business Landmark Study carried out by the Musizi SustainableBusiness Institute, surveyed 40 familybusinesses in East AFrica and uncovered
familiar patterns—enterprises born from grit and risk-taking founders that
stumble when it comes time to hand over the keys.
The importance of the study cannot be overstated: more than nine in ten businesses in Uganda are family businesses. That means when we talk about family enterprises, we are not discussing a niche but the mainstream. And here’s the simplest definition you will ever hear: if your business affairs, when you eventually pass, will have a bearing on your family, then it is a family business. It doesn’t matter whether you run a village shop, a farm, or a portfolio of shares, the overlap between ownership, family, and livelihood makes it one.
The pioneers who
built these businesses—men and women like the founders of Tusky’s were
survivors first, entrepreneurs second. They mortgaged land, dipped into meagre
savings, and worked with grit where others saw nothing. They knew hardship and
endurance, and they were deeply rooted in their communities. Their children, by
contrast, inherit a different reality. They face markets that are saturated and
complex, with razor-thin margins and customers who demand more. Success today
requires professionalism, strategy, and innovation rather than sheer willpower.
The baton may be handed over, but the conditions of the race have changed.
That handover is where the trouble begins. Succession is rarely planned; it is left unspoken until the last minute. Death is taboo, elders are shielded from questioning, and the family fortune is often cloaked in secrecy. This means heirs are thrown into leadership unprepared, sometimes unwilling, with little guidance and less unity. Tusky’s lived this nightmare, and many other families stand on the same precipice. The Musizi Sustainable Business Institute, at its conclave in Kampala, put it bluntly: succession must be seen as a process, not an event. Children must be raised with “batteries included,” grounded in family values, prepared with gratitude rather than entitlement, and trained to take over long before crisis forces their hand. Otherwise, the comet burns too brightly, too quickly, before fizzling out.
Governance is
another missing piece. Family businesses often assume that kinship is enough,
but as enterprises scale, trust without structure becomes fragile. Shareholder
agreements, family councils, independent boards—these are not luxuries but
lifelines. The study pointed out how few advisors are available in Africa, less
than one percent of global family business specialists, which leaves families
improvising with outdated systems to run modern enterprises. Tusky’s is a
textbook case: siblings pulling in different directions, decisions taken on
whims, and no neutral body to enforce discipline.
The mismatch
between global education and local realities compounds the problem. Sending
heirs to prestigious schools abroad looks like prudent investment, but they
return—or sometimes do not return at all, ill-prepared for African realities.
In London or
Boston, they learn about stable currencies, enforceable contracts, and
sophisticated markets. At home, they find volatility, political risk, and
fragile purchasing power. Some heirs never come back, preferring to blend into
the economies where they studied. Those who do often struggle with reverse
culture shock, unable to reconcile textbook theory with gritty pragmatism.
The Musizi
conversation offered a remedy: education must be contextual, teaching heirs to
speak both global and local, and giving them room to experiment without
jeopardizing the family enterprise.
And then there is
inheritance itself, described in the study as both a gift and a burden—a comet,
dazzling but potentially destructive. Heirs inherit not only assets but also
liabilities, resentments, and heavy expectations.
If inheritance is treated as merely a transfer of property, it becomes a scramble for spoils. But when it is understood more holistically—spiritual capital, intellectual capital, social ties alongside financial wealth, then it can be the glue that binds generations. The Musizi framework insists that gratitude is the antidote to entitlement, that children who understand where they come from will value stewardship over plunder.
Still, there are
families that get it right. Those who treat continuity as a project, not an
assumption. Those who welcome innovation, formalize governance, and balance
their legacy with openness to change. These are the businesses that endure,
because they understand that family enterprise is not a private matter but a
public good—an employer of thousands, a stabilizer of communities, a custodian
of capital across generations. When such businesses fail, the shockwaves ripple
far beyond the family.
Tusky’s should
therefore be remembered not only as a cautionary tale but as a lesson. It tells
us that succession delayed is succession denied, that governance ignored is
conflict invited, that education without context is disconnection, and that
inheritance without gratitude is poison.
