Next-Generation Leaders in Asian Family Businesses: What Surveys Show

Plenty has been written about what the next generation of an Asian family firm should do. Far less is built on what heirs and their parents actually report when asked. A handful of large surveys now give a usable picture, and the picture is more specific than the usual story of a reluctant heir or a stubborn founder.

This article sticks to that evidence. It covers what the 2024 PwC NextGen survey found among Asia-Pacific heirs, how trust between generations looks in the numbers, what the 2026 KPMG report says about readiness and leadership models across six Asian markets, and how earlier survey cuts on sustainability and growth compare. For every figure it names the edition, the year and the population, because a global sample, a regional cut and a group of incumbent leaders are different things.

For the background, see the role of family businesses in Asian economies, and for the preparation process itself, preparing the next generation to lead.

Who Was Asked: Reading Survey Populations Correctly

Before the numbers, a note on whose voice each survey captures. Mixing them up is the most common way these statistics get misused.

Two things follow. The NextGen surveys report what heirs say about their parents' firms, so they show the successor's view. The KPMG report asks the people in charge, so its confidence figures about "the next generation" are the incumbents' view. And none of these is a random sample of all Asian family firms. They're self-selected respondents reached through PwC and KPMG networks, and heirs who answer a consultancy survey may skew toward larger, more institutionalised firms. Treat the numbers as indications, not census data.

Ambitious and Learning: The Heirs' Own Picture

The 2024 Asia Pacific cut paints a generation that mostly wants to be there. According to PwC's Asia Pacific highlights, 70% of the 310 Asia Pacific respondents have a clear idea of their personal ambitions for a future role in the family business, and 74% feel they have an opportunity to learn and grow within it.

That sits awkwardly next to the common narrative about heirs who'd rather leave. A clear ambition can be a specialist role as easily as a CEO seat, so this isn't proof that every heir wants the top job.

The 2022 edition points the same way on drive. In PwC's 2022 Asia Pacific and ASEAN findings, over 98% of Asia Pacific NextGens, against 88% globally, reported actively engaging with measures to achieve business growth. The question wording matters here: it measures engagement with growth measures, not an intention to take over. Still, it's consistent with the later ambition figure.

The Trust Gap Between Generations

The sharpest finding in the 2024 Asia Pacific cut isn't about ambition. It's about trust. PwC reports that only about a quarter (24%) of Asia Pacific NextGen believe there is an acceptable level of trust between the next generation and the incumbent generation. Put the other way, 76% believe trust between NextGen family members and the current generation is low. Almost 80% also feel there's a lack of trust between family and non-family members in the business.

PwC notes that Asia Pacific heirs report more pronounced trust problems than their global counterparts, and that trust has fallen since the 2022 survey, when heirs in the region reported better communication during the pandemic. The PwC report links the deficit to practical problems: communication, integration of new technology and succession planning.

A few cautions on reading this:

• It's perception, from one side. These are heirs' views of the relationship. The survey doesn't tell you whether founders would score the same relationship the same way.
• The cause isn't tested. PwC offers interpretation, but the survey itself doesn't isolate why trust is low.

The practical reading is that the relationship, not the heir's skills, is often the constraint. That's a governance question as much as a family one. The tools for it, such as a family employment policy with clear entry and review rules, exist to make trust less dependent on goodwill.

Succession Readiness: Plans, Dates and Retirement

If trust is low, the handover itself is where it shows. The same 2024 cut reports that 60% of Asia Pacific heirs are aware of succession plan development, while 15% do not know whether a succession plan exists. And 57% say the ability or readiness of the current generation to retire is a difficult aspect of succession.

PwC's own interpretation is that heirs worry the longer the current generation delays retirement, the harder it is to make an impact later, because a longer runway shortens the time for learning the role. That's PwC's reading of the data, not a measured effect, but it matches how succession researchers describe the incumbent's role in letting go (covered in next-generation leadership).

There's also a structural gap. In the same survey, only 55% of Asia Pacific NextGen believe roles and responsibilities are clearly defined in their family enterprise, against a global average of 63%, and just 40% see a robust governance structure, where around half of family businesses globally have one. Governance isn't a separate topic from succession. A handover with no defined roles has nothing to hand over to. The broader process of passing leadership and ownership is laid out in family business succession.

What Incumbents Say: KPMG's 2026 Asia-Pacific Cut

The 2026 KPMG report adds the other side. It asked family and founder-led business leaders, not heirs, and its Asia-Pacific data covers 577 businesses with country detail for Australia, China, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.

The headline for this article is how differently leaders rate their heirs. KPMG asked respondents to rate confidence in the next generation's readiness to lead on a 0 to 10 scale. According to KPMG's talent and succession analysis, the share scoring 9 or 10 was:

KPMG points out something counterintuitive: the markets furthest along in building non-family and blended leadership, Japan and South Korea, report the least confidence in heirs, while markets where family control is most concentrated report the most. KPMG suggests confidence may track familiarity more than evidence of capability. That's an interpretation, and the survey doesn't test it. It's a useful flag nonetheless: a leader's confidence in an heir isn't the same as an assessment of the heir's readiness.

Other figures from the same report:

• Next-generation readiness and capability development is a top talent concern for 31% of Asia-Pacific respondents, behind building future-ready skills (38%), attracting external talent (34%) and upskilling the existing workforce (33%).
• In India, business succession and next-generation readiness is the number one long-term concern, cited by 38%, second only to AI.
• Succession and leadership transition ranks lower on anticipated board agendas (31%) than AI governance (46%), talent attraction and retention (41%) or cybersecurity (41%), though India's succession figure is 44%.
• By 2035, Asia-Pacific family businesses expect to increasingly blend family and third-party professionals. China is the market where family-led leadership remains the plurality expectation (39%), while South Korea is the only market where outside professional leadership alone is the most-cited (40%).

The blended-leadership finding changes the question for heirs. If the expected model is family plus outside professionals, then the next generation is being asked to lead alongside non-family executives, which is exactly where the 2024 PwC survey found trust at its weakest. The roles of non-family executives are covered in family and non-family employees.

Priorities: Growth, Technology and Sustainability

The NextGen surveys also show what heirs would change. Two themes recur.

Technology. The 2024 Asia Pacific edition was built around generative AI. PwC reports that 73% of NextGen are upbeat about its transformative power, both in Asia Pacific and globally. But only 22% of Asia Pacific respondents have faith in their family business's digital capabilities, against almost a third globally. The same page says nearly 70% of regional heirs (66% globally) find it hard to keep up with AI's growth. Heirs see themselves as the technology advocates and their firms as not yet ready. How firms turn that into practice is covered in family business innovation.

Sustainability. This one needs a date. In the 2022 edition, PwC reported that 67% of Asia Pacific NextGen said business has a responsibility to fight climate change, against 48% for the figure it labelled CurrentGen, and 57% wanted more focus on sustainable practices, against 49%. Those are 2022 numbers from a sample of about 380 Asia Pacific and ASEAN respondents. The 2024 report concentrates on AI, so this article doesn't extend the sustainability figures into a trend. One reading across editions is safe: in 2022, the gap between heirs and their elders on climate was visible, and PwC itself cautioned that overall differences between current and next generations weren't large on other ESG measures.

Board Seats: Where the Young Aren't

One more cut shows how structurally far heirs are from decision-making. In the 2023 Asia Pacific cut of PwC's Global Family Business Survey, which asked business leaders, 57% of Asia Pacific family businesses have no one aged below 40 on the board, and 34% have no women on the board. The same page reports only 61% have a clear or formal governance structure.

It's a different population and year from the NextGen data, so it shouldn't be merged with it. But read together with the 2024 finding that only 40% of heirs see robust governance, it suggests a consistent picture: heirs are asking for structure and the boards they'd sit on are, in many firms, built around people over 40.

What the Academic Work Adds

Survey data describes attitudes. Academic studies test outcomes. Bennedsen, Fan, Jian and Yeh's 2015 paper in the Journal of Corporate Finance, "The family business map," proposes a framework in which families manage firms because they contribute things non-family managers can't, while roadblocks from within the family, markets and institutions challenge that. The authors support it with evidence from Chinese family firm succession and conclude that family firm organization is an adaptation to environmental opportunities and constraints, per the published abstract.

It doesn't say family succession is inherently risky or safe; it says the right design depends on the environment. Widely repeated claims about how much value Asian family firms lose at succession aren't backed by primary sources, so none are used here. For the long-run odds argument, see shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves.

What the Evidence Doesn't Tell You

Gaps matter as much as findings. Several questions readers often ask aren't answered by the surveys reviewed here:

• Whether Asian heirs are less willing to join than Western ones. The surveys sample people already engaged, so they can't speak to heirs who declined and never answered.
• The effect of overseas education. None of the sources above measures it.
• Country-by-country heir attitudes. The PwC Asia Pacific cut is a regional aggregate of 310 respondents. KPMG's country detail comes from incumbent leaders, not heirs.
• Whether low trust causes failed successions. The surveys measure perception, not outcomes.

Key Facts: Next-Generation Leaders in Asian Family Businesses

• In PwC's 2024 NextGen survey, 310 Asia Pacific heirs were interviewed across 13 territories, within a global sample of 917 interviews in 63 territories (PwC).
• 70% of those Asia Pacific heirs have a clear idea of their ambitions for a future role, and 74% feel they can learn and grow in the business (same PwC source).
• 76% believe trust between NextGen and the current generation is low, and only 24% believe it is acceptable (same PwC source).
• 57% say the current generation's readiness to retire is a difficult aspect of succession, and 15% do not know whether a succession plan exists (same PwC source).
• 55% of Asia Pacific NextGen see clearly defined roles in their firm, against 63% globally, and 40% see robust governance (same PwC source).
• In KPMG's 2026 Asia-Pacific cut of 577 businesses, the share of leaders scoring heir readiness 9 or 10 out of 10 ranged from 7% in Japan to 67% in China (KPMG).
• In PwC's 2023 Asia Pacific family business cut, 57% of firms had no one under 40 on the board (PwC).
• In PwC's 2022 survey, 67% of Asia Pacific NextGen said business has a responsibility to fight climate change, against 48% for the current generation (PwC).

Using This Evidence

For an heir, the numbers suggest two jobs beyond the technical ones. First, treat the relationship with the incumbent as a managed project with explicit conversations about dates, roles and decision rights, not something that will sort itself out. Second, build trust with non-family executives early, since the expected leadership model in the region is a blend.

For an incumbent, the KPMG finding on confidence is the useful one. A high sense of confidence in an heir is common where family control is concentrated, and it may reflect familiarity. A written development plan, outside experience and an external assessment, as covered in next-generation leadership, replace that feeling with evidence. Regional context for these patterns is in family business in Southeast Asia.

Related Reading

• Family business in Asian economies
• Family business in Southeast Asia
• Preparing the next generation to lead
• Family business succession
• Family employment policies
• Family business innovation