Gordon Food Service’s two-tiered governance

In 1987, Paul Gordon, third-generation leader of Gordon Food Service, paid a visit to the University of Michigan's business school, seeking guidance on a bold initiative. He and his brother, John—respectively president and secretary/treasurer of the Grand Rapids, Mich., company—wanted to create a governance structure that would help their company to thrive in perpetuity.

Gil Whitaker, then Michigan's business school dean, introduced Paul to B. Joseph White, who at the time was a professor and associate dean at Michigan's business school and is now president emeritus and James F. Towey Professor of Business and Leadership at the University of Illinois. As White recalls it, Paul, a Michigan alumnus, asked for help with his “quote-unquote, little family business.”

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