How Henry’s Has Stayed Focused across Four Generations: The story of a non-traditional family business that’s still thriving after 112 years

When talking about family businesses, you often hear the expression “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” It says that the first generation makes sacrifices, rolls up their sleeves, working very hard to achieve success. The second generation reaps the benefits, but, having lived through those early hardships, knows what it takes to keep a business going. The third generation, however, grows up knowing nothing but prosperity, so struggles to understand the value of hard work. Inevitably, the saying suggests, it’s that third generation that brings about the family business’s demise.

 As part of the fourth generation leading Henry’s—a Canadian icon that’s still going strong after 112 years—I’m here to tell you that nothing in that story rings true for us. We’ve had our ups and downs like any business, but every generation has put their stamp on the business to help it survive and thrive.

Is that a weight on my shoulders? Definitely. But with the history that’s behind me, and the smart business lessons I’ve learned from my predecessors, I’m confident about our future.

 Henry’s Beginnings as a Mom-and-Pop Shop

My great-grandfather’s name was Harry (nope, not Henry). He moved to Canada before WWI from Russia. With no business experience but having learned to fix watches on the Siberian railroad, he set up a little one-man repair shop in 1909 when he was only 19 years old. It was tiny, but it was enough to put food on the table for his small family.

Eventually my grandparents bought the store from him in 1958. They turned that little shop into, well, a slightly bigger little shop, selling second-hand goods, musical instruments, jewellery and more. They got into photography almost by accident as affordable Japanese cameras emerged in the late fifties. They bought four rolls of 8mm film—and sold out that day. The next day they doubled their order, and the seeds of a specialty retail business were planted.

Growing Through Partnership

Henry’s has never been “handed down” from generation to generation, gifted to the children because they shared the family name. There just wasn’t money for that. So, just like his parents before him, if my father wanted to take over the business, he had to buy it out. And he couldn’t afford to do it alone.

My father bought it with my uncle and three other partners. At that point it was still a one-shop operation on Church Street in Toronto. It had a great base of loyal customers and strong vendor relationships that my father and his partners built on, leading the business to tremendous success in the seventies as a photographic retailer. They renamed the business from Henry & Company to simply Henry’s (it sounded much more modern) and moved to a big new space at 119 Church Street—a massive leap!

Speaking of those ups and downs I mentioned, Henry’s went through a tough time in the early eighties as a recession gripped the country and interest rates skyrocketed. We had also invested in a photofinishing business but didn’t communicate clearly with the bank about the acquisition. When the foray into photofinishing wasn’t successful, the bank pulled the company’s credit line, which forced Henry’s to file for bankruptcy in 1982. That’s been an important lesson for me as I’ve navigated our more recent challenges—always nurture the relationship with your bank, communicating openly with them.

But my dad was an astute businessman. He understood that the core business was healthy. The areas of the business that were challenged needed to addressed but there was no reason to shutter everything. He also understood you will make mistakes in business; you learn from them and move forward.

Drawing on his excellent relationships with his vendors and creditors, he and my mother were able to buy back the parts of the business where they saw potential. From that point, the strategy was to focus. They got out of the distribution and photofinishing businesses and zeroed in on the store, continuing to grow the iconic, beloved photographer’s destination in Toronto.

Throughout the nineties and early 2000s, Henry’s expanded to several new locations, first in Ontario and then across the country, and adopted the well-deserved tagline “Canada’s Greatest Camera Store.”

Success Takes Its Toll

Growing from a single store to a multi-location business took a lot of work. My father worked 16 hours a day, six days a week (luckily there was no Sunday shopping back then, so he was forced to take a break one day out of seven). I saw the toll it took on him—he had a heart attack in his late forties. I loved the family business, and it gave me a great part-time job in my teens, but I sure didn’t want that for my life.

Here’s another way that Henry’s departs from the usual family-business narrative: my parents brought in an outside COO who ran the business for seventeen years, eventually becoming CEO. My dad stayed involved but he stepped back from the day-to-day, for the sake of his heart.

Stepping In as the Fourth Generation

For my part, I went out in the world and gained experience in what I was passionate about: corporate social responsibility, community, diversity. Only once I had that under my belt did I see that there was a place for me to bring my passions to Henry’s. I came back to the business to lead strategic initiatives that would break down silos, get departments working together, and enhance our commitment to community.

After spending six years deeply entrenched in the business and bringing a strategic lens to multiple aspects of Henry’s, I took over as CEO in 2015. Many entrepreneurs struggle to let go of the reins in their business, but because I took over from the previous CEO rather than directly from my father, the transition was much easier. Since then, as I talked about in my last article, I’ve joined the generations before me in leading the business through ups and downs. I’ve led the company through a strategic transformation (another tick in the ups column), through restructuring during COVID (a difficult and scary down), and through newfound success (up, up, up!). As part of the restructuring, members of my family and I pooled our personal resources to buy back the business—even after four generations and expansion across the country, there are still no hand-outs in this business.

How We Avoid the Shirtsleeves Curse

Yes, there’s a certain weight on my shoulders in being the fourth generation. But I’ve always believed that when you’re running a family business, you must think “business first.” You can’t let emotion creep in.

I have dinner with my extended family every Friday night, and even though my father is the chair, my sister runs the foundation, and I’m the CEO, we deliberately choose to put Henry’s aside on those evenings. On those evenings, we are a family first; Henry’s can wait for Monday.

These are our key ingredients to success: A solid family that believes in and supports each other, big thinkers who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo, and strong leaders who confidently dive in to handle whatever ups and downs are thrown at us. That’s how Henry’s has thrived across four generations. It’s very gratifying to know that each generation has had to work hard to keep building this business—together, our collective contributions have turned my great-grandfather’s little shop into a proud legacy.