May 12, 2022
Creating a family business and a legacy is at the heart of this story which is why Bigelow Tea, a 3rd generational company gets better every year. It all started in a kitchen in a New York City brownstone where Ruth Campbell Bigelow was inspired from an early Colonial recipe. Ruth saw a need and was able to capitalise on it. Needless to say, Ruth and her husband David experienced many hardships early on that would have stopped most people.
Cindi Bigelow, President and CEO, joins Karen and Ted for a conversation that helps listeners understand the inner workings of a family business over 3 generations. Karen realises and touches on the foresight needed early on while Ted finds out about other family members' involvement from the beginning. Cindi shares how her father (the 2nd generation) helped bring BIgelow Tea to what it is today and shares 3 important tips she learned. Karen is able to get fantastic insight on Cindi’s involvement in the family business at the start and why she was interested in continuing with it. When Cindi first joined after schooling, she quickly learned a lot of important lessons including how different the environment was, what she needed to do in order to succeed and realised that people are going to judge you simply because of your name.
A huge part of Cindi’s success, as she shares, is the fact that she took her time with each position, learning it from the inside out and understanding the fundamentals of the business which is still very important for anyone joining the company. Ted enlightens the listeners about the difficulty to give younger generations more control while Cindi provides fantastic insight on how her father passed the baton down to herself. At the end of the day, a company needs to be run with hundreds of employees depending on leadership so Cindi shares 4 super helpful tips on how to lead. Karen inquires about other Bigelow's working in the business and Ted wants to know if family members can join. Cindi is very clear on the next steps of the business and shares what this will look like for the next generation, her children.
Connect with Karen & Ted: https://www.thefamilybusinesspodcast.com/
Connect with Cindi: https://bigelowtea.com/