Left to right: Sydney Alexanian, her father Andrew and brother Braden are part of Alexanian Carpet and Flooring’s streamlined management team that allows for nimble day-to-day decision-making, while major changes require unanimous approval from the wider family board.Thomas Bollmann
Aris Alexanian understood the power of a good story. After opening his Hamilton-based rug-importing business in 1925, the Armenian-born entrepreneur began capturing his sourcing trips through Asia and the Middle East on a 16-millimetre camera.
“He would film the pyramids and the camels – stuff nobody had ever seen before,” says Aris’s great-grandson Braden Alexanian, general manager of Alexanian Carpet and Flooring. “[He’d] host community nights where he’d gather people and play these videos and really drum up interest in the store.”
A century later, the human connection and tales of adventure that helped build the four-generation family business are being tested by rising interest rates, slowing home sales and a steady decline in homeownership. Those forces are reshaping the renovation market that has long sustained the company, while digital platforms also put pressure on a category forged on in-person relationships.
According to trade journal Floor Covering News, industry executives expect only modest growth of 2- to 3-per-cent in 2026 as the pandemic-era renovation boom has softened. At the same time, business intelligence platform Statista says e-commerce entrants such as Wayfair and Ruggable have eroded floor-covering market share in Canada, straining bricks-and-mortar retailers such as Alexanian.
“We haven’t been disrupted the way department stores were,” Braden, 33, says. “But we know it’s coming.”
Preserving the market’s attention has required continual adaptation, starting when Aris’s three sons Aram, Armen and Albert joined the business in the postwar years.
They expanded Alexanian beyond imported rugs and each brother took on a distinct role: one focused on buying, another on customer relationships and a third on finance and operations. “They all did very different functions,” says Andrew, 52, Albert’s son and Braden’s father. “And they never overlapped.”
Major decisions required consensus. “If one didn’t agree, we didn’t move forward,” Andrew says.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Alexanian grew rapidly and became a familiar presence across Southern Ontario, building large-format stores helped by heavy advertising and a booming housing market.
But the formula was under strain by the early 1990s. Consumer tastes were shifting from wall-to-wall carpet and a recession dampened renovation spending. Additionally, the death of the eldest brother and Alexanian’s president Aram at age 61 in 1988 removed a key voice from the leadership team.
“He was the visionary guy,” Andrew says. The remaining brothers “just kept running the business, but I think it was tough for my father and uncle to make massive changes.”
Alexanian has expanded from its roots in 1925 as a rug importer to also offering everything from hardwood and luxury vinyl to carpet and window coverings at its 18 stores across Ontario.Thomas Bollmann
Andrew left a job at accounting firm KPMG in the mid-1990s to join Alexanian’s leadership in a role that mixed finance and operations. “I didn’t have the glasses on of ‘this is how we used to do it,’” he says. “I had no history. So it was easier to say, ‘Let’s try something new.’”
Andrew closed unprofitable stores and introduced hardwood, luxury vinyl, laminate flooring and window coverings. He took over as president in 1999 and revived the carpet-cleaning service that the company had stopped offering in the late 1970s. The business also launched Signature by Shelley Alexanian, a boutique flooring store in Toronto’s interior design district named for Andrew’s wife.
Dean Martin, chairman of Mississauga-based flooring supplier Melmart Distributors, has worked with Alexanian since its second generation ran the business. “They were always shrewd, tough buyers and also people of integrity,” he says.
Part of the company’s success has been its market awareness, tracking evolving customer habits and spotting underserved niches ripe for expansion, Mr. Martin adds. “They’re really invested in raising the bar,” especially as large multinational players and short-lived entrants have intensified competition, he says.
That adaptability stems partly from a deliberately streamlined governance structure. Fourteen relatives were involved in the company when Andrew took over, creating what he describes as “management by committee.” Consequently, decision-making slowed and strategic change became harder, which is a common challenge for family firms as they scale, says Peter Jaskiewicz, director of the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute at the University of Ottawa.
Sustaining growth often requires building systems that allow new leaders – family and non-family – to challenge established practices and bring in specialized skills, Mr. Jaskiewicz says. “Every next generation is also an opportunity to rejuvenate,” he explains. Often that means professionalizing the business through developing advisory boards or a board of directors that can help guide strategic direction without involvement in daily operations.
In Alexanian’s case, day-to-day management was consolidated under a small leadership team that, in addition to Braden, includes Andrew’s brother, a cousin, and his daughter Sydney, who serves as spokesperson and manages the Signature by Shelley Alexanian store. “We got out of [the mentality of] ‘just because you were an owner, you were an operator,’” Andrew says.
Major financial decisions or changes still require unanimous approval from the wider family board, adds Braden, who joined Alexanian a decade ago after working at a flooring distributor in Quebec.
Ownership is split into thirds between Andrew, now-retired Albert, 82, and a group of Andrew’s cousins. Today, Alexanian operates 18 stores across Ontario and employs about 110 people.
Andrew and Braden work together closely as part of a deliberate succession planning process. “There was a ton of trust from day one,” Braden says. “The big question Andrew would always ask was, ‘What do you think we should do?’ And most of the time, whatever I answered, I got the support to execute.”
That structure, he says, has preserved momentum. “Every day is like a case study,” Braden says. “You’re presented with problems and you’ve got the leeway and the trust to solve them.”
Have a suggestion of a Canadian multigenerational family business for this regular series? E-mail smallbiz@globeandmail.com.