Editor’s note: Stella Zhang is a partner at Irvine-based Sunstone Management Inc., a private capital firm that invests in early-stage technology entrepreneurs, and is the chief operating officer at Irvine-based American Lending Center, which provides SBA loans. Patricia Wellmeyer is an associate professor at UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business, where she is the co-founder and director of the Master of Professional Accountancy program. Both are featured speakers at UCI’s The Future of Private Business, scheduled for May 6. Other speakers will be Dean Ian Williamson, Dipak Shah, a board member of the Private Directors Association, Tammy Cooper, CEO/CFO of Technologent, and John Page, EVP of Irvine-based Golden State Foods. Sunstone and the ALC are sponsors of the Private Business Initiative.

Private businesses are having a moment, but who is paying attention?

According to the Census, Orange County has an estimated 411,000 business establishments. Private and family-owned businesses are not a side story; they are the backbone of our region, driving economic growth, job creation and community engagement.

In Orange County alone, private enterprise supports roughly 1.58 million jobs and nearly $118.7 billion in annual payroll. These numbers are not just impressive; they are a reminder that when private businesses grow, communities grow with them.

The impact of private businesses on our local economy mirrors a broader national pattern.

Middle-market businesses, in particular, have consistently outperformed larger firms on key measures that matter in uncertain environments, including year-over-year revenue and employment growth. These patterns show that private businesses do not simply participate in the economy, they often help lead it.

The Private Business Initiative

This is why the UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business is launching its Private Business Initiative, designed to help privately held businesses enhance long-term success and community impact by focusing on the issues they are actively navigating now: governance, workforce, AI and technology adoption, access to capital, sustainable growth, succession planning and community impact.

The Initiative will support private businesses by providing thought leadership, capacity and leadership development opportunities and talent pipelines. One of the most exciting elements of this initiative is the planned launch of a new faculty-supervised, student-employed Accounting and Audit Readiness Clinic.

Through this Clinic, graduate accounting students will serve the community by assisting private businesses and entrepreneurs in addressing accounting-related issues, including compiling GAAP financial statements, supporting audit documentation readiness and implementing effective internal controls.

The launch of the Private Business Initiative begins with a Future of Private Business event taking place on May 6th at the UCI Paul Merage School of Business. This event will bring together leading voices from industry and academia to explore the evolving landscape of privately held and family-owned enterprises.

The Private Business Superpower

In today’s rapidly changing and uncertain business environment, private businesses have a distinct competitive advantage over their public company counterparts—agility. They can move faster, make decisions closer to the customer and respond to changing conditions without waiting for layers of approval or a quarterly earnings call for validation.

Recent survey trends reveal that private businesses are exercising this superpower by scaling their technological capabilities—68% of private businesses expect IT and digital transformation spending to increase over the next year, and 79% of private companies report their organizations are already using or piloting generative AI.

Successful private and family-owned businesses don’t just move fast because they can or lean into technology just because everyone else is; they link scaling and growth opportunities to their organizational structure and purpose.

This means supporting innovation and capacity building with robust risk and financial management and protecting the businesses’ legacy through responsible governance and succession planning.

Agility, not Autopilot

While the ability of private business to move fast in this rapidly changing business environment is a clear advantage, speed alone does not guarantee success (anyone remember a little company called Theranos?). Private businesses best positioned for the future will be the ones that combine speed with discipline and accountability.

Businesses that scale on autopilot without focusing on credibility and long-term/multi-generational planning risk diluting their competitive advantage and resilience. In this time of increasing uncertainty, companies that thrive will treat governance not as a luxury but as an important enabler of strategic growth and long-term success.

What Private Businesses Should be Focusing On

The future of private business will bring both significant promise and pressure for companies as they seek to position and grow their market and community presence.

As both the business climate and organizations responding to it become more complex, a shift is underway that cannot be ignored—the distinction between strategic success and infrastructure readiness is diminishing. Successful companies will be those that recognize they cannot separate innovation from governance or enterprise value from data/reporting quality and protection of institutional knowledge. Private businesses can assess their ability to adapt to this shift by asking the tough questions:

Do we have disciplined agility, or are we just reacting faster? As companies begin making decisions about AI adoption, capital sources or operational scaling, governance quality begins to shape which opportunities are realistically available to them.

Do we have visibility into the risks that may prevent us from achieving our organizational objectives and are we effectively managing them? One of the most underestimated risks in growing private companies is a lack of visibility. Revenue may be growing while margins quietly drift. Cyber risk may sit outside the CFO’s dashboard. New AI tools may be deployed before governance catches up.

Are we appropriately measuring, reporting on and controlling the economics of the business? Too many companies think they are managing by numbers when they are really just collecting numbers. If a lender, investor or buyer asked hard questions tomorrow, could management explain performance clearly and credibly?

As our reliance on technology grows, how are we ensuring our people grow too? Leadership transitions are an inevitability; a loss of organizational continuity is not if companies invest in formal processes and employee development designed to preserve institutional knowledge and important stakeholder relationships.

To learn more about the May 6 event, go to: https://merage.uci.edu/events/2026/05/Future-Private-Business-050626.html