Panel will discuss fathers, daughters and businesses

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The Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship will host a Father/Daughter Family Business and networking event from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 11, at Montclair State University.The Q&A Panel will feature three women CEOs who have taken over their fathers’ companies. Their fathers will also be there to contribute to the discussion of how their relationships have changed since.

“With Father’s Day around the corner, this will be a great event looking at the special dynamic between fathers and daughters who have worked together in the family business,” said Dennis Bone, director of the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship.

One of the panelists, Lisa Hirsh of Accurate Box in Paterson, said, “You see a different side of your father when you’re working with him than as you see when you’re growing up.”

“But my father was really great at mentoring and letting us make our own decisions,” said Hirsh, the firm’s president. “I think that’s a huge part of success for the next generation — how much can the previous generation let go and let us learn to be leaders?”

After her older brother decided he would rather be a journalist, Lisa Hirsh became president of Charles Hirsh’s family-owned company Accurate Box in the mid-1990s. Between 2006 and 2009, under Lisa Hirsh’s leadership, the company completed a process to modernize the plant facility and expand its capacity. Today, Accurate Box is one of the largest independent box manufacturers of litho-laminated packaging in the country.

“I was only going to work for the company for a short time after graduating college,” Lisa Hirsh said. “But within a year of me joining the (Newark-based) company, my father purchased a much bigger facility in Paterson and we suddenly tripled in size and space. It became such a challenge that I stayed.”

Lisa and Charles Hirsch will both speak at Wednesday’s event, as well as Courtney Villani and Diodato “Dee” Villani of Villani Bus Company in Linden, and Jodi Solotoff and Steve Solotoff of PIP Printing in Livingston.

Click here for more information on the event, which is sponsored by Sobel & Co. and Greenbaum Rowe Smith & Davis LLP.

The Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship at Montclair State University provides immersive entrepreneurial experiences to any student on campus, with a special focus on encouraging more women to consider entrepreneurial careers.

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