Fidelity's Abby Johnson: Not the Only Daughter Rising

As Fidelity Investments’ newly named CEO, Abby Johnson is one of the most powerful women in finance. She’s also one of a growing number of daughters who are proving to be as adept at running businesses as their powerful fathers. Caroline Ghosn, the CEO and co-founder of Levo League, is the daughter of Nissan/Renault chief Carlos Ghosn. In the political realm, there’s Lauren Bush, the CEO of FEED Projects, and Chelsea Clinton, who’s now helping to run her parents’ foundation. Producer Megan Ellison, whose Annapurna Pictures backed projects like American Hustle and Zero Dark Thirty, is the daughter of Oracle’s Larry Ellison. The third-generation CEO of the Cisneros Group media and real estate conglomerate is not the eldest son of Gustavo Cisneros, but his youngest daughter.

Some women have famously defied the odds to run their fathers’ companies, from Playboy Enterprises’ Christie Hefner to Carlson Companies’ Marilyn Carlson Nelson. What’s unusual now is the number of daughters on the rise. About 69 percent of business owners no longer see first-born sons as natural contenders for the top job, according to a global study released this month by Pitcher Partners and Swinburne University. As men get more involved in raising children, and more comfortable with seeing women in leadership roles, they naturally exert more influence on their daughters’ career choices.