Why these scions decided it was the best career choice after all

By Jeff Wuorio

JASON ZICKERMAN  - President and Chief Operating Officer, The Alternative Board, a $21 million, 32-person consulting firm in Westminster, Colo.

Jason Zickerman, 40, had more than a few misgivings when his father-in-law, Allen Fishman, invited him to become chief operating officer of The Alternative Board, the Colorado consultancy Fishman had founded in 1990. For one thing, Zickerman already had a job in accounting some 2,000 miles east in New York. But more than that, “I was worried how it might affect my marriage, the great relationship I had with my father-in-law—everything,” Zickerman says. “The business is an economic unit, the family a social one. Mixing them together can really muddy the waters.”

Fishman, who had long been impressed by his son-in-law’s smarts and drive, worked with Zickerman over the course of several months to draw up vision statements that addressed goals and potential issues in exhaustive detail. “We talked about the number of hours we would work, what precisely each of us would do, how it would affect our quality of life with children and grandchildren,” says Fishman, 67. “We basically covered everything and anything that the other person needed to know.” They even agreed on limited participation in the business from other family members, solidifying Zickerman’s authority.

But it was the escape clause that proved most important to Zickerman. If, after one year, either party determined that things weren’t working out for any reason—lack of chemistry, family friction, or something else—their arrangement would terminate. “We came in with a very clear understanding that we would talk after the first year was up,” says Fishman. “If either was unhappy, it would be over.” Seven years later, the escape clause is dusty and unused.

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