Just because you're a Wharton student doesn't mean you'll be working at Morgan Stanley or JP Morgan.
David Baiada, for example, hopes to work for his dad when he graduates.
The second-year MBA student plans to work at Bayada Nurses, his father's company that provides care for the elderly. The name is spelled differently from his last name so that customers can more easily pronounce it.
Baiada says he depended on the Wharton Global Family Alliance -- a research center to help better understand family businesses and wealth management -- to learn from peers working in older businesses.
The vice president of the Wharton Family Business Club, Baiada said he hopes his club members will "participate in WGFA research efforts," noting that "family business issues are pervasive across all industries."
But the WGFA does more than help tomorrow's leaders of the family business industry.
"By marrying a network of business-owning families with top faculty, Wharton will be able to produce some fantastic research and thought leadership," Baiada added.
According to a University of North Carolina-Asheville Family Business Forum study, working in a family-owned industry is picking up momentum.
More than 90 percent of all business enterprises in the United States are family owned and nearly 35 percent of Fortune 500 companies are family firms, according to the UNC study.
And helping students like Baiada jump on this bandwagon is becoming a top priority for Wharton.
The WGFA emerged in January 2004, program Director Todd Millay said.
And this type of programming, Millay added, couldn't come at a better time.
According to the UNC-Asheville study, 30 percent of family-owned businesses will experience a change in leadership due to retirement or semi-retirement over the next five years.
As a result, the WGFA is working to expand its influence in the Wharton curriculum, Millay said.
A major goal of the WGFA is to bring in full-time faculty and create a sub-concentration devoted to family businesses.
But for now, semester-long courses -- like Strategies and Practices of Family-Controlled Companies, taught by Management professor William Alexander -- are the only ones offered.
Still, many students are taking advantage of the WGFA.
Wharton senior Carlos Salame -- who plans on entering his family's home appliance business a few years after he graduates -- said that his family business class supplied him with "many governance tools and strategies ... for family businesses."
The WGFA also works with companies that don't send their future CEOs to study at Wharton. In the past, WGFA has hosted events and global conferences for big name families to discuss business strategies.
Last March, for example, Wharton held a major summit in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Smaller regional events also took place in Asia, Latin America, Europe and the U.S.
And while many born into their family's company plan to carry on that tradition, others are eager to pave their own path and pursue other interests.
College sophomore Abigail Huntsman said that she tries to stay involved with the programs that her grandfather, Jon Huntsman, established at Wharton -- like the Huntsman Program, a four-year program which combines a business education with a liberal arts one -- but has no plans to enter her family's chemical business.
Huntsman, who plans to go into political journalism, hopes to establish an identity independent of her family's by majoring in communication.
