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14 n e w h a v e n B I Z | J a n u a r y / F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 9 n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m Kristin Geenty believed she was too risk-averse by nature for a career in a sales-driven industry. But over time working with her father Kevin helped her to see things differently. F a t h e r / D a u g h t e r T oday women in business enjoy more opportunities for leadership roles than ever before. at's no secret. But female professionals also en- joy greater opportunities for career advancement in family businesses Like Father, Like Daughter How some of New Haven's most success- ful female CEOs learned at the feet of entrepreneur fathers By Karen Singer than in other organizations. A recent Ernst & Young survey reveal that women comprise 22 per- cent of top management positions at the largest U.S. family businesses, compared with 13.8 percent of female CEOs at Fortune 500 com- panies. In addition, fully 60 percent of all family businesses expect to consider a woman as the company's next CEO. e findings apply to small family businesses, according Carrie G. Hall, Ernst & Young's Ameri- cas Family Business Leader, who oversaw the research. Paul Sessions also has seen a growing number of women "step- ping into positions of authority" in family businesses, including traditionally male-dominated areas such as farming, marketing and manufacturing. "It's much more a recognition of ability and availability, and less about gender," says Sessions, who heads the Center for Family Business at the University of New Haven. Females have occupied prom- inent positions of power at some of greater New Haven's largest organizations since at least the 1990s — women such as Yale New Haven Health president Maria P. Borgstrom. In the family-business arena, Lynn Fusco became the third-generation of her family to ascend to the top in a traditionally male-dominated industry for New Haven's Fusco Constriction Corp. e following is how several oth- er highly accomplished business- women in the greater New Haven and beyond have became leaders of their family businesses — business leaders both admired and respected by their peers through southern Connecticut's business community. 'The Harder I Work, the Luckier I Get' B arbara Pearce was in college in Cambridge, Mass. when her father, commercial real-estate entrepreneur Herbert H. Pearce, first broached the subject of succes- sion for the family firm. It did not go well.

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