Legacy to Innovation: Jill Mayer on Leading a 111-Year Family Business into the Future

111 years in business doesn’t mean playing it safe.

Jill Mayer, CEO of Bead Industries, is proving that legacy and innovation aren’t opposites — they’re fuel for each other.

As the fifth-generation leader of a family company, she’s carrying forward more than a century of history while pushing into new markets, experimenting with technology, and rethinking what it means to build culture in modern manufacturing.

On this episode of 87:60, Jill talks about reinventing perceptions of the industry, creating space for trial and error, and finding the balance between honoring the past and driving toward the next big thing.