FOXCast

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Sharon Schneider, founder of Integrated Capital Strategies. She works with families and foundations to align all of their activities with their values, expanding from philanthropy and impact investments to advocacy, operating businesses and property management/household operations. She is the author of "Handbook for an Integrated Life: A Practical Guide to Aligning Your Everyday Choices with Your Internal Compass". Previously Sharon served as Executive Director of the Telluray Foundation and was the founding Director of the Walton Personal Philanthropy Group. She was also co-founder and CEO of the for-profit social enterprise Moxie Jean, a Chicago Innovation Award winner in 2013 and a 2012 portfolio company of renowned tech accelerator Excelerate Labs (now TechStars Chicago). Moxie Jean was acquired by Schoola in 2015. Before starting Moxie Jean, Schneider spent 12 years as a staff member and consultant to private foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and dozens of small family foundations, working on issues ranging from strategic planning and outcome management to engaging your family in philanthropy. Sharon wrote a highly regarded book about the concept of an “Integrated Life”, and she shares with our audience the meaning of this term and its key takeaways for UHNW families. In her writings, Sharon posits that these is a “3rd Gen Problem” – that by the time G3 steps into the leadership role, the family office structure begins to strain. She describes this problem, and illustrates how it is manifested across families, why it occurs, and most importantly, what to do about it. Through her work with families, Sharon has formulated 8 principles for a values-aligned family office, and she unpacks her thinking and practical insights related to the 8 principles. She then provides some specific practical applications of the principles, and shares some use cases that can help bring the principles to life for our audience. Enjoy this informative conversation with one of the best recognized philanthropy advisors and practitioners in the family wealth space.

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Drew McMorrow, President & CEO of Ballentine Partners, an independent wealth management firm providing comprehensive investment and family office services to wealthy families and entrepreneurs. In addition to being responsible for the day-to-day management of the company, Drew also continues to consult with families on all aspects of their financial lives. Prior to joining the firm in 2002, Drew worked at Mercer Management Consulting, where he advised technology companies on their strategic plans, and before that, he was the Director of Business Operations at Oracle Corporation, where he directed financial and business analysis for procurement and distribution operations. Drew, and his firm Ballentine Partners, are valued members of the FOX MFO Council and we are very proud to have their expertise as part of the FOX membership community. As family offices become increasingly popular and as families look to them for an ever-broader range of services and expertise, many families are weighing the pros and cons of in-housing vs. outsourcing vs. partnering as they try to decide on the optimal operating model for their family office. Drew shares his perspectives on the tradeoffs between in-house and partnered design options for SFOs and explains when and what should families consider outsourcing when building our their SFO, highlighting the functions or situations that lend themselves better to one model vs. another. Drew and his firm Ballentine Partners have built the Center for Family Wellbeing as a practical resource to help families make the best resourcing choices for their FOs. He tells our audience about the Center, its mission, and how it serves multigenerational families of wealth. Another practical insight Drew offers is regarding the often-neglected qualitative disciplines in support of the family's long-term success – functions such as family communications, education and learning, and next-gen engagement and preparation. He provides his practical recommendations on how families can utilize internal resources and external partners to develop and deliver these mission-critical services to the family. Do not miss this engaging conversation with one of the most prominent thinkers and leaders in the UHNW family wealth management space.

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Anne Rappa & Alex Glauber. Anne is the fine art practice leader for Marsh McLennan. She provides risk management advice and assists clients by negotiating risk and insurance solutions related to fine art collections and transactions. Anne has 30 years' experience representing the interests of both individual and institutional collectors, institutions, art dealers, auction houses, art logistics companies and other fine art focused businesses. Anne, and her firm Marsh McLennan, are a valued Advisor member of the FOX community, and we are grateful to have their expertise and thought leadership in our membership community. Alex is an art advisor, curator, and educator based in New York. He is the founder and principal of AWG Art Advisory, where he works with private individuals, corporations, and institutions in the conceptualization, building, and management of fine art collections. Prior to founding AWG Art Advisory in 2009, Alex served as an assistant curator for the Lehman Brothers and Neuberger Berman art collections from 2006 to 2009. He has curated monographic and thematic group exhibitions at venues as varied as the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, Phillips auction house, and Bryant Park, New York, as well as at galleries such as Lisson Gallery, Andrew Kreps Gallery, Chapter NY, Dickinson, David Lewis Gallery, and Casey Kaplan. Art is an increasingly popular investment asset among enterprise families and family offices – both as a passion investment and an alternative asset in their diversified portfolios. Anne and Alex talk about what is going on today in the world of art investing and highlight the latest trends that have been shaping the space over the recent years. They also explain how art is different from other investment assets, describing the unique attributes and market structures that set art apart from other investments and even from other alternative assets. One practical piece of advice Anne and Alex have for our listeners is to consider and understand the role of a professional art advisor. They describe the role of the art advisor and share their views on why families and family offices should be working with one and what value they can extract from such a relationship. With the unique attributes and value of art come also some unique risks. Anne and Alex shed some light on the major risks art investors should be aware of and how family offices and their clients can manage and protect themselves against those risks. Don't miss this deeply instructional conversation with two of the leading experts and advisors in the world of art investing.

Today, I'm excited to speak with Jennifer Laurence, Founder and President of Luxury Lifestyle Logistics, a luxury home management and hospitality consulting firm. Jennifer has 25 years of expertise in luxury hospitality and private estate management and is a certified Butler, a trained Protocol Officer, holds a Wine Sommelier certificate, and is currently writing her doctoral research study on estate management communication. Through her consultancy, Jennifer specializes in service assessments, staff training, and operational strategy, ensuring estates function with seamless precision. We delve into the world of luxury estate management serving UHNW individuals and multigenerational families, and Jennifer provides an overview of the estate management sector and gives our listeners a sense of the scope of client needs and operational services that are common in this space. One unique aspect of the estate management space is that the asset being managed also happens to be the home of the UHNW family clients. Jennifer talks about some of the common challenges and best practices in luxury estate management today. We go over some of the practical tips Jennifer has for UHNW families and their family offices when it comes to managing their residential estates or considering the services of a professional estate manager. She also shares her insights on how families can protect against the risks that come with having a professionally managed luxury residence and describes how they can guard the family members' privacy, safety, and personal space, while enjoying the benefits of professional estate management. Enjoy this informative conversation with one of the foremost thought leaders and practitioners in the UHNW luxury estate management space.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Volker Then, an independent Senior Impact Analyst who is launching a start-up company on Comprehensive Impact Measurement together with a coalition of impact partners. From 2022 to 2024, Volker was Founding Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Executive Board of Fondazione AIS (Advancing Impact and Sustainability) in Bologna. Earlier in his career, Volker was Executive Director of the Centre for Social Investment at Heidelberg University for 15 years and also served as Director Philanthropy and Foundations at the Bertelsmann Foundation. He is a former member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the OECD's Global Action “Social and Solidarity Economy” and served on the National Advisory Board of the G7-Social Impact Investment Task Force. Impact is a big word nowadays – maybe even a buzzword – and people in our space are using it broadly and frequently. But it's not clear that everyone has a clear shared definition of the term. Volker provides his definition of “impact”, especially as it relates to enterprise families and the objectives they set for themselves with regard to fulfilling the purpose of their wealth and their family capital. One of the greatest challenges, and opportunities, in the world of impact is the measurement of the effectiveness and outcomes of impact initiatives. Volker talks about the latest thinking and work that is being done in this area, especially the thought leadership and development he has been spearheading in his prior role at Fondazione AIS and now in his current venture. Volker offers his tips and suggestions for enterprise families who are just starting or are early in their impact journey, focusing on what he recommends they do to get better educated and equipped to realize their impact ambitions. He then turns to enterprise families who are more advanced and have a developed impact framework and strategy, sharing his advice on what they can do to further the reach and consequence of their impact programs and strategies. Don't miss this enlightening conversation with one of the foremost thought leaders in the realm of impact definition and measurement.

Today, I am delighted to welcome Chris Koenemann, a family advisor and coach specializing in spiritual coaching and accompaniment. Chris served as Prior and Cellarer of a monastery of 20+ monks that owned and operated a school and operated a parish, and prior to that Chris was a Catholic monk for seventeen years, including five years in Rome, and as a Catholic priest. He studied organizational design and worked in that field with PwC Consulting and IBM. Of all the 5 capitals Jay Hughes defined, spiritual capital is probably still the least frequently discussed in our field. In this conversation, we focus entirely on this important and oft-neglected form of family capital. We start with a definition of define spiritual capital and how you Chris sees the importance of spirituality in today's modern, technology-driven world. Chris describes the reality today in the wealth management space, including how well spirituality is understood, appreciated, and incorporated in the work enterprise families undertake to manage their family capital holistically. He also talks about how well family advisors understand and engage in this field. Chris has created a framework he calls “8 Conversations” for families to co-create a culture that sticks. He tells us about this framework, defining the 8 Conversations and showcasing how to apply them to help families in transition. Helping families understand and develop their unique culture is at the heart of Chris's work. He points to Harrison's model of culture as a useful tool to achieve these objectives. He also shares his insights about the model and how he applies it with families. Please enjoy this enlightening conversation with an expert and practitioner who spans both the technical and spiritual dimensions of building a strong family culture that lasts across generations.

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Bruce Benesh, Managing Principal at Benesh Consulting Group. Bruce has more than 40 years of experience in executive compensation, tax planning relating to compensation arrangements, and international human resource consulting. He formerly served as the national partner- in-charge of the Human Capital Services Practice at Grant Thornton, and prior to that was the partner-in-charge of Arthur Andersen's Americas Human Capital Services Practice. Bruce, along with his firm Benesh Consulting Group, is a distinguished and generous advisor member of FOX, and we are fortunate to have his expertise available to our membership community. Bruce begins with an overview of the family office executive compensation landscape today. He describes the current state of affairs in the space, the established practices, and the latest trends pertaining to compensating key staff at family offices. Bruce then talks about some of the challenges family offices are facing when looking to create total compensation structures for their key employees and executives, highlighting the issues they struggle with the most. Bruce has worked with dozens, if not hundreds, of family offices over the years, helping them design attractive and effective compensation packages for key hires. He summarizes some of the best practices he has observed most frequently and would recommend to our listeners. Beyond hiring a compensation expert with experience in the family office space, such as himself, Bruce provides a summary of the other resources and practical tools family office owners and leaders should be aware of that can help them understand, plan, and design best-in-class compensation structures. Do not miss this highly relevant and instructional conversation with one of the foremost thought leaders and practitioners in the family office compensation space.

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Betsy Erickson & Joseph Brooks, Co-Heads of Family and Individual Services at Arabella Advisors, a leading philanthropy services firm supporting individual, family, institutional, and corporate donors worldwide. Prior to joining Arabella, Betsy worked for eight years in the nonprofit sector with groups focused on cancer research. She provided independent consulting services to national and regional nonprofit organizations such as CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Prior to joining Arabella, Joseph led the philanthropic advising team at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and was a fundraising strategist for Marquette University and the country's largest HIV/AIDS service organization. Betsy and Joseph, and their firm Arabella, are valued Advisor members of FOX, and we are privileged to have their knowledge and expertise in our membership community. The role of philanthropy within enterprise families is evolving – in some cases, philanthropy becoming the primary activity of the family enterprise. Betsy and Joseph talk about what is happening today in the world of family philanthropy and highlight the latest trends that have been shaping the space over the recent years. These trends are inevitably affecting the role and design of the family office. Betsy and Joseph explain how family offices are transforming to respond to the importance of philanthropy and how they should be redesigned to support the family's evolving needs and activities. Arabella Advisors has put forth a body of thought leadership on the barriers to philanthropy that constrain enterprise families. Betsy and Joseph provide an overview of the most common barriers families face and how they can practically overcome them. Philanthropy is often one of the most common activities families undertake together after they have evolved beyond being fully focused on their business – and as a result, it often is the training ground for other joint activities by the family. Betsy and Joseph share their views on the role of philanthropy in helping families work together and its broader practical implications on fostering lasting collaboration and unity among family members. Don't miss this highly informative conversation with two of the leading experts and advisors in the realm of family giving and philanthropy.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Cassandra Levene, Managing Director of Alpine Homes and Co-Founder of Swiss Homes. Cassandra is a multilingual real estate expert specializing in luxury Alpine properties. She took over her family business five years ago, bringing innovative leadership to Alpine Homes. Her firm offers concierge-style services to UHNWI clients and family offices around the globe, helping them invest in Swiss real estate—particularly in the iconic Swiss Alps. The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on demand for secondary residences outside of the major global metropolitan areas, and Alpine homes in Switzerland were no exception. Cassandra talks about how the market for second homes in the Swiss Alps has developed and evolved over the recent decades and since the pandemic. Beyond just secondary or vacation homes, Switzerland is also becoming a choice destination for many wealth families who are relocating either their primary residence or family office to the country. Cassandra highlights the factors that are driving this increased interest and causing Switzerland to be such an attractive destination for wealthy individuals and enterprise families. Cassandra offers practical tips and suggestions for families who are looking to invest in Alpine vacation homes or even considering a primary residence in Switzerland. She also describes some of the risks families should beware and local peculiarities to watch out for when exploring an investment in primary or secondary homes in the Alps and elsewhere in Switzerland. Please enjoy this highly informative conversation with a uniquely positioned expert in the fast-evolving market for Swiss Alpine homes.

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Kasia Flanagan, founder of Everyday Legacies, a boutique personal history firm. Kasia and her team help high-net-worth families capture the experiences, values, and wisdom that define their legacies. Through bespoke memoirs, family story books, and legacy films, they help clients create lasting qualitative assets that complement their financial wealth and preserve their true legacies. Kasia is an award-nominated historian, entrepreneur, and keynote speaker specializing in legacy preservation for exceptional individuals and families. Kasia and her firm, Everyday Legacies, are a Specialist Advisor member of FOX, and we are happy to have her expertise and thought leadership within our membership community. Kasia's mission is to help families preserve and grow their qualitative wealth, primarily through the power of storytelling, and she talks about why the family story is possibly its most powerful capital and how shared stories strengthen and enrich the family and its individual members. Kasia describes the prevailing practices today among families who are looking to pass down their shared stories and legacies, highlighting the best practices and areas where there is room for improvement – where families could do better with this important dimension of their accumulated wealth. Kasia and her firm have formulated a clever and compelling tagline: “Preserve your values, not just your valuables.” She shares her view on how families can and should be doing that and lists many of the practical tools and mechanisms she recommends to families, family offices, and their outside advisors. Kasia also speaks to the families who are not yet ready to work with a specialized advisor, such as Everyday Legacies, and offers a broad array of DIY tools and readily accessible resources they can rely on. Please enjoy this highly instructive conversation with one of the leading practitioners in the family history and values preservation space.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Quinn, founder and president of Legacy Counsellors, an estate and business planning law firm serving successful individuals and families throughout New England. Kevin is a former Fellow of the Esperti-Peterson Institute and a member of the WealthCounsel, LLC, and a former member of the National Council on Planned Giving and the Connecticut Planned Giving Group. He is a co-founder of the Wealth Legacy Development Project, an organization dedicated to helping non-profit organizations develop planned giving programs. Kevin is the founder and an instructor of the Wealth Strategies Institute, a professional education institute that provides continuing education to certified public accountants, certified financial planners, attorneys, development officers, and insurance professionals. Kevin focuses his practice and work with families on the goal of “maximizing the utility of everyone in the family”. He talks about the meaning of this objective and how he approaches it in practice with UHNW families. Kevin describes the outcome of his work with families often being that they together identify underutilized resources and capital within the family and redeploy those in a timely, effective, and collectively fulfilling ways. He describes how this happens, where this pent-up energy is usually hidden within families, and how they can unlock it. Kevin created an intergenerational family wealth program, which he named “My Family My Wealth” that helps families structure a process to collectively talk about and share their abundance. He walks us through this program and highlights how it creates value for enterprise families. Another practical resource Kevin has formulated and recommends to families is the “Top 5 Ways to Use Your Family Wealth to Help Your Family Flourish”. He shares with our audience this framework and its components, and highlights how families can benefit from it. Enjoy this informative conversation with a successful practitioner in the UHNW family wealth space.

Today, I'm excited to speak with Michael Liebeskind, founder and principal at Golconda Partners, an independent firm that serves as a guide and service platform for ultra-affluent clients who are seeking to effectively navigate the sophisticated and financially powerful applications of life insurance and annuity investment account policies. Michael started his career with the accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand and today is the founder of several operating businesses in the financial services space. He is a member of the New York State Society of CPAs, the Estate Planning Council of New York City, The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), and the Yale Insurance Study Group. Michael and his firm Golconda Partners are valued advisor members of FOX, and we are very fortunate to have their knowledge and expertise as part of our membership community. In today's conversation, we focus on the topic of private placement live insurance (or PPLI) and the many ways enterprise families and their family offices can deploy this versatile tool. Michael starts us off with the basics, providing an overview of how PPLI works and why wealthy families should consider exploring PPLI policies. There are multiple ways PPLI can create value for wealthy families, and Michael goes over the different use cases and strategies families and family offices can pursue to deploy PPLI, either as a traditional life insurance product or as a vehicle to optimize returns, wealth transfers, or income. Michael offers some practical tips for UHNW families, family office professionals, and external family wealth advisors for how to best leverage PPLI policies. He then covers the common cautionary tales and watchouts, describing what could go wrong and sharing his insights on the what families and their advisors should beware when utilizing PPLI policies for the different risk management and tax optimization use cases they can serve. Don't miss this highly instructive conversation with one of the best recognized PPLI experts and insurance entrepreneurs in the UHNW space.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with David Yeager, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and cofounder of the Texas Behavioral Science and Policy Institute. David is best known for his research conducted with Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, and Greg Walton on short but powerful interventions that influence adolescent behaviors such as motivation, engagement, healthy eating, bullying, stress, mental health, and more. David recently published his latest book “10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation―And Making Your Own Life Easier” which quickly became a national bestseller. Here's a universal truth: Parents and leaders alike constantly worry about their next generation – are they ready, are they responsible, will they be able to make it on their own, etc. It's a tale as old as time. David shares his views and research on what is going on there and why that dynamic is so universally present across time, cultures, and socio-economic contexts. This dynamic repeats itself again and again, and so many parents and leaders fall into this trap repeatedly. But is there a solution? Is there a better way to interact with and motivate young people, and if so, what is it? David illuminates these questions from the perspective of his life's work and his most recent research. One critical and powerful practical tool David talks about in his book is language and communication style. David shares his observations on the importance of language and how parents and leaders can communicate more effectively with the younger generation. An important practical topic David emphasizes to parents and leaders is the very real and notable rise in stress and anxiety among young people. He provides his insights into what both next-gen members and the older generation and those in positions of power should know and be doing to manage and alleviate this rising and damaging trend. Enjoy this informative conversation with a leading researcher, adviser and best-selling author in the field of next-gen engagement and motivation.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Basil Mohr-Elzeki, Managing Partner & Head of the Americas for Henley & Partners, the global leader in residence and citizenship by investment. Basil travels extensively throughout the Americas, providing strategic direction and expert insights to staff, ensuring they deliver exceptional advice to clients on residence and citizenship by investment programs. As a recognized subject matter expert in investment migration, he regularly contributes to his firm's thought-leading publications and is frequently interviewed by top media outlets. Basil starts by offering a quick background on the residence and citizenship by investment space and the various programs that have emerged over the past decade. He then outlines the most prominent trends he sees in the migration of wealthy individuals and their capital, providing an account of which countries' visa programs are rising in demand, and where this demand is primarily coming from. Basil offers some of the practical strategies he recommends to UHNW families and individuals who are interested in exploring global residence or citizenship programs, including how to prepare for the process and what pitfalls to avoid. Basil then turns his attention to the trusted advisors who are supporting wealthy families and are helping them with tax and estate planning, investment management, and all the other aspects of their complex family enterprises, sharing his tips for family wealth advisors whose clients are thinking about or pursuing various global visa programs. Do not miss this highly topical and informative conversation with one of the leading experts on global wealth migration and investment residency and citizenship programs around the world.

Today, I am delighted to speak with Alexandre Lin, co-founder and CEO of SumIt Software, a simple, yet sophisticated solution for complex family office accounting. Alex is a second-generation leader of his family's real estate ventures in France and China, and he now dedicates himself to SumIt. Before founding SumIt, Alex was an active investor, advisor, and partner in multiple entrepreneurial ventures, and a management consultant with IBM and Kearney. Alex and his family office are an associate member of FOX and SumIt Software is a FOX technology partner, and we are thankful to have his expertise as part of our membership community. As a G2 rising family leader, Alex has first-hand experience with the challenges of family transitions and of rising-gen members taking over responsibility and control of their family enterprise. He shares his views and experiences with this intergenerational transition process and the factors that make it challenging for the incoming younger generation. One of the key challenges Alex believes G2 leaders face is the ability to make good decisions, especially in the face of incomplete information and fragmented data. He elaborates on this issue, shedding light on the reasons why next-gen owners are challenged by poor visibility and bad data. Alex founded SumIt Software out of frustration with existing solutions he tried to deploy for his own family office. He talks about the specific challenges he encountered and the practical solutions he set out to create with his product. Looking ahead, Alex provides a vision for how technology solutions for the family office space will develop, and offers practical tips for family owners, family office professionals, and wealth advisors on how they should think about and prepare themselves for the changes that will impact the tools they will need and use in their family offices and firms. Enjoy this illuminating conversation with an entrepreneurial G2 owner, technology founder, and forward thinker in the family office technology space.

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Kim Kamin, partner and Chief Wealth Strategist at Gresham Partners LLC, an independent multi-family office serving about 120 separate families nationally. At Gresham, she leads the development and implementation of estate, wealth transfer, philanthropic, educational, and fiduciary planning activities. Kim is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School and is on the faculty for the University of Chicago Business School in executive education. She is on the UHNW Families & Family Offices Committee of the Trusts & Estates Magazine Editorial Advisory Board and is a Regent for the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, Past President of the Chicago Estate Planning Council, Planning Chair for the annual ALI-CLE Large Estates program, and Estate Planning & Legal Issues Domain Chair for the UHNW Institute. Trusts are one of the most popular estate planning vehicles, especially in the US and a few other international jurisdictions, and Kim shares her views on how and why trusts came to be so widely used to plan and execute intergenerational wealth transitions, and how trust documents and the associated estate planning strategies evolved in the past few decades. We are at the outset of the “Great Wealth Transfer” and trusts – both ones that have been in place for decades and ones that are being newly created – are once again at the center of wealth planning conversations. Kim offers her thoughts on some of the current trends and developments in estate planning and how thinking and usage of trusts is changing or evolving. One practical advice Kim puts forth is to pay attention to the “the small things” when creating or working with trusts and estate plans, and highlights some of the frequently neglected details our listeners should be mindful of. Another valuable tip Kim recommends is to draft trust documents for flexibility. She talks about what that entails and what both wealth owners and family advisors in our audience should consider to be able to make better use of trust documents and other estate planning tools. You would not want to miss this conversation with one of the most knowledgeable, respected, and active thought leaders in the family wealth and estate planning space.

Today, I am delighted to welcome Dave Furneaux, Founder & CEO of BlueIO, an innovative, mission-driven builder capitalist investment company. Dave is a co-founder and investor in a number of innovative companies, such as Blaze (acquired by Akamai), Cybersaint (a leading Cyber Risk Management company), Greenlight Biosciences (EPA approved breakthrough RNA bio-chemical platform for clean food), Lufa Farms (a leading agricultural technology company), Lumicell (an FDA approved platform for Cancer therapy) and Virsec (a breakthrough cyber protection company). He has been a driving force behind many breakthrough technology, health, and food companies as a founder, operator, investor, and active board leader. Some notable examples include Watchfire (acquired by IBM), Skystone (acquired by Cisco Systems), Application Security (acquired by SingTel) and Aironet (acquired by Cisco Systems). Earlier in his career, Dave founded and led Kodiak Venture Partners, which went on to invest in and build companies such as Appnexus (acquired by AT&T), Channel Advisor (NYSE: ECOM), Extreme (acquired by Microchip), Enfora (acquired by Sierra Wireless), IM Logic (acquired by Symantec) and WHERE (acquired by Paypal). David believes, and we at FOX agree, that families are uniquely positioned and endowed to create, build, and innovate by putting their family capital, their entrepreneurial spirit, and creativity to work to solve the big problems our world is facing. He talks about why he has this conviction, how he sees it play out today, and why and how families play this key role in innovation and building new solutions and products. The topic of our conversation with Dave is encapsulated in a relatively new term: “Builder Capitalism”. Dave defines Builder Capitalism for our audience, describes the tenets of this investment philosophy, and outlines the mindset and skills it requires. He also paints the picture of how Builder Capitalism is manifested in reality through the activities and behaviors of entrepreneurs. Dave offers many practical tips and suggestions to the different market players who are interested in Builder Capitalism, starting with what investors need to know or do if they want to participate in this movement and allocate their capital (financial and non-financial) to Builder Capitalist ventures. He also provides his advice to entrepreneurs and founders who share this belief system and see themselves and their startups as members of this Builder Capitalism economy. Finally, Dave offers his insights into the resources available to both investors and founders to become better educated about Builder Capitalism and to be better connected into the emerging ecosystem of this rising entrepreneurial movement. This is a must-hear conversation with one of the leading thought leaders, practitioners, and innovators in the Builder Capitalism movement, who is also a family principal and leader of his own multigenerational entrepreneurial family.

Today, I am delighted to welcome Sophia Ruffolo, General Counsel and Head of Compliance for the Zell Family Office, a division of Chai Trust Company, LLC. With over 20 years of experience in Estate and Tax Planning, Investment Management and Fiduciary Oversight, Sophia is a seasoned leader in law, fiduciary risk management, compliance, and governance. Sophia is a member of the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of Metropolitan Family Services and co-founder of femmebought, a social enterprise dedicated to supporting women-owned businesses and promoting gender equity in the global marketplace. Sophia and the Chai Trust Company are long-time valued members of FOX and are very generous and insightful contributors to the FOX community. In the family wealth and family office space, most of the advisors and family office professionals serving multigenerational families are acting in a fiduciary role on behalf of their clients. Sophia talks about what it means to be a fiduciary and how this concept and its practice have evolved over the recent decades and years, as families and the world around them have evolved. One challenge fiduciaries and their clients face is an ever-changing external environment and an ever-evolving and more complex families and family enterprises. Sophia shares her thoughts on how fiduciaries can keep things evergreen in the face of all this change and disruption – how they should think about the design of their role and how they perform their duties day to day in service of the family. Sophia offers some practical suggestions and tips for advisors, and especially those in a fiduciary role, to ensure they are fulfilling that role in the best possible way for the families they serve. She then tuns her focus on the clients themselves and provides useful advice for family principals on how they can best engage with their fiduciary advisors to ensure the family goals are achieved and the family and its members are happy and flourishing in the long run. Don't miss this deeply insightful conversation with a uniquely experienced expert and family office professional serving one of the most prominent and sophisticated enterprise families in the US.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Janet Arzt, Founder and Managing Partner of Parere Advisory, an independent consulting firm guiding clients across all stages of family office strategy, development, operations, and implementation. Prior to founding Parere Advisory, Janet served as Chief Executive Officer of a newly launched family office in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she built out and oversaw investments and operations for the family and its businesses. In 2020, Janet was named one of the “Top 50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds” by The Hedge Fund Journal in association with Ernst & Young. In this episode, we'll talk about the role and experience of women in the world of family wealth and wealth management. Janet shares the historical perspective of how women have been involved and positioned in the enterprise family and family wealth space, both as wealth owners and as wealth manages or advisors. The environment today is transforming quickly, and Janet describes what is happening now in the family office field and the changes she is seeing that impact women in wealth. Janet offers her tips and suggestions for women who are wealth owners, or who are stepping into family leadership or family office principal roles in the midst of the “greatest generational wealth transfer” that is already under way. We also talk about the “supply side”, i.e., the family wealth advisory firms and the women who are family wealth professionals. She provides some tips for wealth advisor firms about serving female clients and to women who are in wealth management, family office, and wealth advisory roles at external advisor firms. Please enjoy this informative conversation with an experienced and successful professional in the family wealth space.

Today, I am delighted to welcome Dennis Passis, Founder of the Family Wealth Library. He spent nearly 40 years working in his family's business, founded by his father, where he was eventually joined by his son. Dennis is a mediation practitioner, a family business consultant, and a fellow at the Family Firm Institute (FFI). He is the author of the recently published book Founder Paralysis: A Family Business Fable about a Founder's Loss of Identity. Dennis explains what “founder paralysis” means and tells us about the concept, the book, and the body of work it is based on. Dennis also talks about the concept of “eldership”. He shares what he means by this term, why it is important for families to internalize, and how well he thinks it is being understood and practiced today. The most fundamental practical tip Dennis suggests to families undergoing transitions and succession is to address the loss the founder is experiencing. He elaborates on this process and how multigenerational families can apply it to successfully address founder paralysis. Beyond addressing the loss and overcoming the state of paralysis, Dennis points out that it is important to define and develop the next phase of the founder's life, in which he/she can continue to be a highly functioning, productive, and purpose driven individual. He describes how this is best done and goes over some of the pitfalls to avoid and tips to take advantage of. Enjoy this informative conversation with a veteran of and distinguished practitioner in the family wealth space.

Today, I'm excited to speak with Chris Volpe, Managing Director of Zephyr Financial Solutions, an award-winning asset and wealth management software platform. Zephyr is part of Informa, a leading global provider of digital-first and data-driven products and services. Chris and Zephyr Financial Solutions are FOX Technology Resource Partners, and we are happy to have the unique tools and expertise they bring to our membership community. Alternative investments are an increasingly meaningful component of family office investment portfolios, and this segment of the investment landscape is also rapidly evolving. Chris shares his views on what is happening in the world of alternatives and what trends are shaping this unique space. Separately managed accounts (SMAs) are becoming increasingly popular for a multitude of reasons, especially in the realm of private and alternative investments. Chris talks about the latest developments in the SMA space and highlights the challenges and opportunities investors face when comparing, selecting, and evaluating different SMA options. Chris offers his practical tips and suggestions for our listeners on how to gain access to and navigate data on private and alternative investments that is available out there in the marketplace. Chris and his firm developed and launched Zephyr, and its PSN Data tool, specifically for the purpose of allowing investors to compare SMAs and to make dynamic data-driven investment decisions. He describes how Zephir works, the benefits the PSN Data tool offers, and how family office investors can leverage this new technology platform. Enjoy this insightful conversation with one of the leading players in the fast-evolving space of alternatives and SMAs.

Today, I am pleased to welcome David MacMahan, founder and president of FairSplit.com. Over the past twelve years, David has worked with families dividing estates and is now widely recognized as the leading industry expert on estate division of tangible assets. He is often hired to serve as Administrator of the FairSplit process, but also as an independent third-party mediator to help keep tensions down between family members and reduce the pressure on executors of the estate, by providing an independent, third-party role and the experience to help guide the family members and executor or trustee. David focused his entrepreneurial creativity and energy onto the field of estate distributions or dividing personal property among heirs after their parents pass. He shares the reasons that made him focus on this space and describes are the challenges that exist with dividing personal property among inheriting relatives. David shares his insights on how estate distribution works today, what the common methods families use currently to divide personal property, artifacts, heirlooms, etc. among themselves, and what the tools are emerging that help this process. The company David founded, FairSplit, created a technology-enabled set of tools to help families, as their marketing tagline says, “Divide Things, Not Families.” He talks about the FairSplit solution, its components and functionalities, and how families and their advisors can make use of it. Finally, David offers some pointers as to some of the other resources, knowledge libraries, or tools available to families, family offices, and family advisors to assist them with estate distribution processes and help them avoid the pitfalls and potential conflicts that can arise during these emotional undertakings. Enjoy this fascinating conversation on an important and overlooked area of estate planning and family transitions.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Betsy Miller, Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. Betsy teaches leadership development, change management and negotiation skills, and her research and writing focus on Polarities (“Both/And” thinking), which is the study of opposite forces that need each other to succeed. Betsy's 25-year career has spanned positions in federal and local government, defense and plaintiff law firms, and academia. Through 2023, she was Chair of Cohen Milstein's' Public Client practice, where she represented state Attorneys General as their lead outside counsel in investigations and litigation involving large-scale consumer fraud and privacy violations, including the national opioid litigation that delivered more $25 billion in relief, and the $2.2 billion resolution of federal and state litigation against the largest credit rating agencies for their misconduct in connection with mortgage-backed securities. Betsy was the 2021 recipient of the Givens Visionary Award from The National Law Journal, was awarded a Wasserstein Fellowship by Harvard Law School, and was named Special Advisor to the Commission on Women in the Profession by the President of the American Bar Association in 2023. Betsy offers an introduction to the idea of polarities and “Both/And Thinking” and a high-level overview of these concepts and the science behind them. There are numerous such baffling polarities in the family enterprise and family office world. Even the name “family office” is a bit of an oxymoron encapsulating the polarities it contends with. One common polarity of diametrically opposed forces enterprise families experience is the importance of preserving and growing the family capital vs. putting it to work to make a positive impact. Another one is the tension between the desire to learn from and build on the wisdom and success of the older generation vs. the need to empower the rising generation to chart their own course. Yet another is the tug of war between the mission of the family office to steward and invest the family's financial capital vs. its role to educate and educate the human capital and ensure family members are happy and fulfilled. Besty shares her thoughts about these and similar polarities that affect enterprise families and provides some insight into how to best think about and deal with them. A great practical tool Betsy offers is the 2-dimensional chart that helps people visualize the polarities they are facing and understand and manage both the benefits and the overuses of each extreme end of the polarity continuum. She talks about this tool, how it can be used to not only understand the opposing forces and tendencies, but also to harness the benefits of each extreme while minimizing the counterproductive overuses. Betsy also describes some of the other practical and educational resources she recommends to those who wish to learn more about polarities, become better equipped to spot them, and develop their skills at applying a Both/And Thinking approach in their interactions with their fellow family members or with their family clients. Do not miss this illuminating conversation with one of the leading researchers and educators in the field of polarities and Both/And thinking.

Today, I'm excited to speak with John Castrucci, National Director of Family Office Advisory Services at the Global Family Office Enterprise Division of RSM and Ben Berger, Partner and Family Office Enterprise Markets Leader at RSM. John has 10+ years of experience at a Big 4 Accounting firm as a practicing family office tax and family office advisory services national director and more than a decade at Private Wealth Management and Multi-Family Office institutions as regional managing director overseeing wealth strategists. Ben is on RSM's Global Family Office Advisory Board, and has served families and family offices, addressing their full range of needs, including tax, operations, and technology since 1995. John, Ben, and their firm RSM are valued advisor members of FOX, and we are fortunate to have their expertise as part of our membership community. John and Ben work with many family offices to help them design and implement the best operational structure for their needs. They talk about what they are seeing in the marketplace, including how family offices are being structured today, what kind of complexities and challenges they are facing, and how are they addressing them. One growing trend John and Ben highlight among single-family offices is the rise in operational and functional lift-outs. They define what lift-outs are, and describe when they make sense, how they work, and why they are increasingly common among single-family offices. One practical suggestion John and Ben offer for family offices is to create an operational roadmap as a tool to understand where they are and where they need to go to meet the family's needs. They explain how this self-assessment and road-mapping process work and what its benefits are for family office leaders . John and Ben also suggest that family offices conduct a thorough and systematic cataloguing and design of the services they provide to family members and the family enterprise, and also determine how these services will be sourced – i.e., in-housed, outsourced, co-sourced, etc. They elaborate on this best practice and explain how family offices should strive to apply it. Don't miss this highly relevant conversation on a topic of high interest to families and family office leaders with two of the leading experts on the subject in our industry.

Today, I am pleased to welcome back to FOXCast Cassindy Chao and Shannon Lundgren, co-founders of Boutique Matchmaking, a high-end personal advisory practice that provides curated matchmaking, date coaching, and strategic consulting for multigenerational families of wealth. Cassindy and Shannon, and their firm Boutique Matchmaking, have been part of the FOX community as official marketing partners for the past year, and we are thrilled to have their expertise available to our FOX members. In this episode, we tackle the topic of marriage and how it is handled among multigenerational enterprise families today. The commanding majority of never-been-married adults say they would like to get married someday, and probably all single people are hoping to at least find their soulmate. Parents often care about this topic at least as much as their single children do, and both generations want to see the other find happiness. Cassindy and Shannon share their experience on how families approach this important subject and describe the major shifts in norms, beliefs, and attitudes towards marriage among families of wealth. Last time we spoke, we talked about the cloud that often hangs over the topic of romantic relationships and nuptial happiness, but this seems to be changing – people are increasingly open about acknowledging the importance of romantic relationships and nuptial happiness and are willing to utilize all the tools at their disposal to find the right person. Cassindy and Shannon talk about how family members – both young and older ones – can get the sophisticated help and best resources available to them in their quest for romantic happiness and a lifetime partner. One practical consideration for multigenerational families is how the family's values can or should play a role in the process of educating and helping younger rising-gen members find their romantic partners? And conversely, there is the reality of different perspectives that exist among generations, and the likelihood that the younger generation might have different worldviews or even values. Cassindy and Shannon offer some tips on how to manage this reality and rising complexity. Finally, Cassindy and Shannon provide their advice and suggestions for parents who want to give their input on their children's choice of a romantic partner, while at the same time, ensuring that both parents and adult children can set healthy boundaries regarding dating advice and involvement. Enjoy this insightful conversation with two of the most experienced professionals on a topic of high importance for all members of multigenerational families.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Kristen Oliveri, editor of Crain Currency, a family office publication for families managing wealth and legacies. Kristen has built a successful journalistic career in the wealth-management and family-office space by creating exciting content, establishing business connections, and curating high-touch, content-driven events. Prior to Crain Currency, she held a number of content and editorial roles, including Director of the Family Office Institute and Content Director of the Family Office Network at Institutional Investor. Family offices and the media are not exactly a match made in heaven. Kristen leans on her ample experience over the past couple of decades, to describe how enterprise families and family offices have managed public relations and their interactions with the media, especially given the natural tension between their significant presence in and impact on their communities and their desire for privacy and discretion. With younger family members starting to play a role in multigenerational family enterprises, attitudes to the media are changing and so is the family's tolerance for their presence in the public eye. Kristen shares her views on how families' preferences and interactions with the public have evolved in recent years. Kristen has had great success working with families and helping them share their stories in a fair, nuanced, and complete way, without betraying the privacy and safety of their individual family members. She offers her advice and suggestions for enterprise families who are either being thrust into the public discourse by exogenous factors or are considering a more proactive stance toward their public image – or even intentionally developing a family brand. Kristen also has some tips and suggestions for the reporters and media outlets who are increasingly focusing their attention on multigenerational families and their enterprises, philanthropies, and family offices. She provides practical advice to journalists looking to cover enterprise families and their impact on society, the economy, and the world. Enjoy this informative conversation with one of the best recognized and prolific journalists in the family office and family wealth space.

Today, I am excited to speak with René Sonneveld, a Leadership and Family Business Coach and Honorary Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Uruguay. René a has rich history as Managing Director, CEO, and Chairman at Fortune 500 companies and family-run businesses across four continents, and he now leverages this vast experience to coach leaders and corporate teams. Besides leadership and family enterprise coaching, René is deeply committed to sustainability. He aims to create a green hydrogen supply chain from South America to Europe. Throughout his career, René has served many multigenerational families and has found that often, as he puts it, there's “an elephant in the room” that gets in the way of families collaborating effectively and achieving their goals. He talks about what “the elephant in the room” is and how to best approach it and, eventually, dispense with it. René eventually discovered coaching and dedicated his life to this noble calling. He shares his beliefs on why coaching is the best tool to empower families to succeed and how it helps eliminate “the elephant in the room” that holds them back. One technique René deploys in his coaching work is what he calls “the icebreaker”. He describes how it works and what the benefits families and family enterprises can reap from this practical tool. Families and family enterprises are complex organisms, commonly involving a great number of players who are entangled in complicated and often emotionally charged relationships. These can include family leaders, blood family, children, in-laws, advisors, to mention just a few key constituents. René offers his advice on when to bring in whom in the coaching process with the family in order to achieve the best results. Enjoy this insightful conversation with a world-renowned leadership coach and family advisor.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Özge Doğan, Founder of Karman Beyond, Türkiye's first independent multi-family office. Karman Beyond is a boutique advisory service for leading families in Turkey (and beyond) and Özge manages all the relationships with the firm's client families. Özge is a next-gen member of a prominent Turkish family enterprise, and she founded her multi-family office firm in response to her own family's wealth management needs – and the lack of an available solutions in Türkiye. We start with a quick overview of family enterprises and family wealth in Türkiye and Özge describes the most common profiles of enterprise families in the country, as well as the most pressing needs and challenges faced by enterprising families, and how are they dealing with these challenges. Özge outlines the current context of the family wealth and wealth management industry in Türkiye, and she talks about the ecosystem of family wealth advisory firms, service providers, and peer communities that serve multigenerational Turkish families. One practical advice Özge offers to Turkish families – which is probably relevant across other cultures as well – is to understand and embrace the next-generation mindset, including the generational differences in values, preference, investing styles, etc. Can you talk about that and how families can successfully apply this mindset. Another practical reality for families in Türkiye, and all over the world, is their increasing interest and exposure to global assets and jurisdictions, including investing, operating, and relocating across multiple geographies globally. Özge shares her views on the client needs and behaviors she is observing, and offers her recommendations for the knowledge, services, and resources families should seek to be successful in their global strategies. Please enjoy this enlightening conversation with a young rising-gen owner and founder of the first multi-family office in Türkiye.

Today, I am delighted to welcome Scott Peppet, President of Chai Trust Company, the private company that administers trusts established for the benefit of members of Sam Zell's family and that serves as the Zell family office. Scott was a Professor of Law at the University of Colorado from 2000-2018, where he focused on bargaining and dispute resolution, transactional law, and the complexities of multigenerational family enterprises. He is also an ordained priest and transmitted Soto Zen teacher in the related lineages of Kobun Chino Otakawa and Keibun Otakawa. He practices at the Hakubai Zen Center in Boulder, CO. Scott is a good friend of FOX, and he and the Chai Trust Company are long-time valued members of FOX and are very generous and insightful contributors to the FOX community. Throughout his career, Scott has seen and participated in his fair share of enterprise family journeys and has had the opportunity to observe and synthesize what it takes for families and their family offices to be successful. He shares his views and accumulated wisdom on the subject of what it takes for a family to be successful in the long run. We at FOX think and talk a lot about the concept of time capital – how we all deploy our most precious and finite asset. Scott points out that a simple yet powerful way to assess and guide the strategic role and effectiveness of a family office is to look at how it allocates and spends its resources – especially, how the family office leaders and employees spend their time. He describes the importance of – and potential cognitive dissonance associated with – how family office time capital is managed and expended. One practical suggestion Scott offers to families and their family offices is to invest in cultivating, educating, and engaging the whole ecosystem of human and intellectual capital that serves the family – not just the family members, but also the family office employees, and even all the external advisors who are integral to the family enterprise. To up-level and educate an entire system is such a tremendous undertaking and families are not the only ones who can and should lead and invest in it. All the other participants in the ecosystem also have a part to play. Scott provides his views on what family office executives and employees, as well as external advisors, should do to ensure the entire enterprise family ecosystem is flourishing. This is a must-hear conversation with one of the most prominent and celebrated thought leaders, practitioners, and enterprise family leaders in the family wealth and family office field.

Today, I'm excited to speak with Brian Argrett, Chair of the Board Directors and President and CEO of Broadway Financial Corporation and its banking subsidiary City First Bank, the largest Black-led minority depository institution (MDI) in the nation. Impact investing is an increasingly important topic for enterprise families and family offices. Our conversation today focuses on a truly unique and attractive avenue for positive impact available to enterprise families and family offices, which is made possible thanks to the Advancing Communities Together Deposit Program, or ACT – an innovative program that provides an easy and fully insured way for family offices to invest their excess cash directly in the financial institutions dedicated to lifting up communities in need. Brian describes the greater goals of the ACT program, why it is needed, what the issues or challenges it is meant to address, and what opportunities it is designed to unlock. The ACT Deposit Program was launched in the summer of 2024 by the national trade associations representing Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs). Brian explains how the ACT program works and defines the role of CDFIs and MDIs in delivering the intended impact and benefits of the program. He shares his views on why this program has strong appeal to family offices and enterprise families. Delving into the practical details of how the ACT program functions, Brian details the mechanics of the program, including some of the key elements family members and family office executives should be aware of, such as minimum deposits, interest rates earned, minimum maturity, etc. Brian also talks about what families and family office leaders can do to get involved with and take advantage of the ACT program. He offers an overview of existing resources and tools for them to get educated and ready to participate and contribute to the positive impact of this program. Enjoy this timely and informative conversation with a leading champion of the ACT program and long-time thought leader and practitioner in the impact banking space.

Today, I am delighted and honored to welcome Jason Ingle, founder and Managing Partner of Third Nature Investments, an integrated impact capital platform investing in the most promising innovations to address urgent and massive challenges we face within our most critical earth systems. Jason is a 5th generation member of the Ford family. He currently serves as the board chair for the family office and as a member of the investment and governance committees and is also a member of the family council and previously served as the chair, and he serves as a board director of the Ford Fund, the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company. Jason is a founding member of The ImPact, a membership network of family enterprises, including family offices, foundations, and businesses, that are committed to making investments with measurable social impact. The Enterprise Family/FO space is full of important and sometime baffling polarities – one prominent one is between promoting the “togetherness” of the family as a whole while concurrently enabling the “individuality” of each family member. Jason talks about how his family, and himself personally, dealt with this polarity of togetherness vs. individuality and found the right balance. FOX research among rising-gen family members shows that finding their role in the enterprise, and by extension their purpose more broadly, is a top priority – and often a pain point – for emerging family leaders and younger family members. Jason's journey took him from being less involved and connected with the family enterprise to eventually playing a key role in the governance and leadership of the family. He shares how his journey unfolded and what he learned from it. One significant outcome of Jason's personal journey within his family enterprise was his discovery of impact investing – and impact more broadly – as a core value and purpose to which he concluded he wants to dedicate his time, attention, and capital. He shares how that process worked and how he landed on this most important point of relevance to himself personally. Jason offers his suggestions and practical tips for family leaders and family members who are thinking about effectively catalyzing their rising-gen members and getting them more actively involved in the work and life of the family as a shared enterprise. Impact is possibly the most important priority and objective most enterprise families arrive at. Jason provides his suggestions for family members who are looking to either start their impact journey or become more involved in the global impact movement. He also describes the organization he is part of – The ImPact – and how families can get involved, contribute, and benefit from it. Don't miss this unique conversation with a prominent family leader, philanthropist, entrepreneur and impact investor who is an active and generous member of the FOX community.

This week, I am pleased to welcome Dale Buckner, CEO and President of Global Guardian, a leading provider of best-in-class security, medical and travel-related solutions. Dale is a decorated Combat-Commander with multiple combat tours and classified operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti and Cuba and executed deployments to Russia, El Salvador, Honduras, Chile, Panama, Kuwait, and Qatar. He is a thought leader in the industry with recent features on CNN, Politico, NPR, The Hill, Bloomberg, Forbes, and other major media outlets. Dale, and his firm Global Guardian, are Premier Risk Management Resource Partners of FOX and we are excited to have the unique expertise they bring to our membership community. Having been involved in managing global security risks for the better part of 2 decades, Dale offers his analysis of how the threat environment has evolved for multigenerational enterprise families over the past 20-30 years. We are in a global environment punctuated by domestic polarization, regional conflicts, more frequent and destructive natural disasters, to name just a few of the major disruptors impacting families. Dale shares his views on the top threats that enterprise families and their family offices face today. The most common risk management tool families rely on is insurance. But how much can insurance actually do to mitigate the most significant risks families face? Dale goes over the limitations and loopholes of insurance coverage that families and family office need to be aware of. Technology now permeates everything the family office does, which both fuels remarkable advancements of productivity, speed, and quality of services the family can benefit from, but also creates significant new risks. Dale describes the current state of digital risks and cybersecurity for family offices and the families they serve. This is a highly insightful and instructive conversation with a deep expert, hands-on operator, and thought leader in the field of security and risk management for enterprise families and family offices.

This week, I have the pleasure of speaking with Stacy Allred & Holly Isdale. Stacy is a Managing Director and Head of Family Engagement and Governance at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. She serves on the faculty of the UHNW Institute and teaches for the Investment & Wealth Institute® (CPWA®) program. Holly is the founder of Wealthaven, a family office consulting firm she founded in 2010 after 20-plus years on Wall Street. She is also a Senior Advisor with Lansberg Gersick, a global consulting firm advising significant families on governance and succession planning. Holly teaches at Wharton and Cornell in their Executive Education programs for family office and family business members, including a new Wharton Family Office program in January 2025 for Family members seeking to explore family office governance and operation. Stacy and Holly are both members of Collaboration for Flourishing Families (CFF) and the Purposeful Planning Institute (PPI). They are both active in Family Firm Institute (FFI) and each hold certificates in Family Business Advising and Family Wealth Advising. In their work with families, Stacy and Holly are commonly brought in during a time of transition – between generations, between life stages, between wealth structures, between business, investments, or philanthropic activities – and they reflect on the most common challenges, considerations, and opportunities they believe families in transition face. Stacy recently co-authored The 10x10 Learning Roadmap: Advancing Flourishing in Families of Wealth with Stephen Goldbart & Joan DiFuria, who were on this podcast a couple of months ago. Stacy gives our audience a quick refresher on the 10x10 framework and points out how it can help families in transition and enable their long-term success. The 10x10 Learning Roadmap is a powerful and practical framework, but real-life situations sometimes don't lend themselves perfectly to even the best of conceptual frameworks. Holly talks about how families and their advisors can “work around the framework” whenever they face complexities and idiosyncrasies resulting from their unique DNA and circumstances. Having talked about how family members and their external advisors can benefit from the 10x10 Learning Roadmap, Stacy focuses on the other entities and constituents that comprise the broader family enterprise, such as the family office, the family council, the various committee members, the trustees, etc. She provides her insights into how these diverse players who have widely ranging roles within or in support of the family can utilize the 10x10 framework to help the family flourish. Enjoy this illuminating and instructive conversation with two of the best recognized and celebrated practitioners and advisors in the family wealth and well-being space.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with John Samuels, Founder and CEO of Better Health Advisors. For over 20 years, John served as a senior healthcare leader in New York City's top hospitals including Northwell Health and Mount Sinai Beth Israel. As Assistant Vice President of Emergency Medicine, he was responsible for the operation of 16 emergency departments and a rapidly expanding network of urgent care centers. John is a licensed nursing home administrator in New York and New Jersey, and has served on the boards of directors for Mary McDowell Friends Academy, the Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai Medical Center, the 360 Academic Sports Academy, the National Association of Healthcare Advocacy Consultants, and the Sepsis Alliance. John's philosophy, which also underlies his company's mission, is that superior healthcare planning and services are about mitigating risk intergenerationally. In our conversation, he elaborates on this way of thinking about healthcare and its implications for enterprise families of significant means. John also advocates for a wholistic approach to the health and wellness needs and solutions for enterprise families and their individual members. He tells us what he means by that and what is the scope of his definition of holistic healthcare. John then offers some practical tips and suggestions for families who want to be proactive about managing their health risks and wish to take a holistic approach to their healthcare needs and services. He also provides his practical advice for family members or family leaders who find themselves in a reactive or urgent situation involving the health of a family member, sharing some of the resources or actions they should consider in these critical situations. This is a must-hear conversation with a leading domain expert in the field of generational family wellness and holistic healthcare for enterprise families.

It is my pleasure today to speak with Kim Ledger, Senior Vice President of Complex Assets for Ren, Inc., North America's largest independent philanthropic solutions provider. Kim advises donors on the charitable opportunities presented by non-cash assets such as business interests, IPO stock, private equity, hedge funds, real estate, and artwork. Kim launched the firm's complex asset practice in 2018 and has since worked with donors seeking to distribute nearly $3 billion in assets. Kim is also the host of Ren's Philanthropic Insights video podcast. Everyone in our industry is talking about the “Great Wealth Transfer” that is upon us, with an estimated $84T of assets expected to pass down from members of the Silent and Baby Boomer generation to Gen-X and Millennial inheritors. Kim shares her views on the role of philanthropy in this impending Great Wealth Transfer and explains how ready families can best utilize philanthropic vehicles to achieve their goals and cement their legacy. At the same time, Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) and private foundations have emerged as powerful and popular vehicles to help families put their philanthropic capital to work. Kim offers an overview of the benefits of DAFs and a primer on how they can help families fulfill their purpose and vision and support the communities and causes that are important to them. Kim then delves in to unpack one very practical and increasingly common philanthropic vehicle among enterprise families – the business interest gift, whereby families donate a portion (or the entirety) of their operating business or a portfolio company to a DAF as part of their philanthropic strategy. She provides valuable tips on how business interest gifts work and how families can make the most of this giving tool. Another unique opportunity available to families pertain to so-called “passion assets” – including art, classic cars, and other collections. Kim offers her advice on the best ways families can leverage these passion assets in their philanthropic giving strategies. Don't miss this highly practical and insightful conversation with one of the foremost experts on philanthropic solutions for UHNW families.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Diana Chambers, founder of the Chambers Group, and a highly respected Family Wealth Mentor and Philanthropic Advisor. A G3 member of a former UK-based business family herself, Diana is a confidante and advisor to many enterprise families, helping them own, spend, and allocate their wealth wisely. Known for championing the human side of wealth, Diana is a sought-after speaker and the author of “True Wealth: Letters on Money, Life, and Love” and her influential essay “Money Wisdom Unlocked: Understanding Trauma as a Key to Your Financial Behavior”. In her work with families, Diana emphasizes the importance of “financial EQ” or “the heart of money” as she calls it. She talks about what she means by “financial emotional intelligence” and why it is important for families, family office executives, and family wealth advisors to understand and practice financial EQ. Money and wealth can be a blessing, but more often than not, it can also be a burden. Diana introduces the connection between money and trauma, and how families can stay educated on the topic and prepare themselves and their individual members to face and overcome the potential psychological challenges that come with wealth. Diane offers her tips and suggestions for our audience on how to anticipate and be prepared for difficult or awkward conversations involving money and wealth. She offers useful examples of difficult or tricky topics members of wealthy families can encounter and provides some guidance on how they should best navigate them. Enjoy this inspiring conversation with a world-renowned thought leader and practitioner in the family wealth and well-being.

Today, I'm excited to speak with Tim Daum, co-founder of Veltracon Lifestyle, a Swiss lifestyle management company offering tailor-made solutions for UHNW clients. Veltracon caters to a broad range of lifestyle needs, ranging from luxury and collectible autos, exclusive events, private education, luxury goods, art, luxury travel, private security, and medical concierge. Tim has been active in the lifestyle management industry for nearly 10 years, and prior to Veltracon, he founded Swiss Private Education Network and at Swiss Private Clinic Network. Tim provides an overview of the lifestyle and concierge space serving UHNW individuals and multigenerational families, covering the full scope of needs and services that are commonly in demand by UHNW clients. He also describes how the lifestyle and concierge industry has evolved in the past couple of decades and outlines the major trends shaping the space and how they differ among UHNW families from different countries and cultures across the globe. Tim and his firm assist their clients with a broad set of unique needs and highly bespoke services, and he shares some of the tips he has for UHNW families who are considering or using private lifestyle services and solutions. Nowadays, health and wellbeing are quickly becoming the most in-demand segment of the lifestyle concierge space. Tim and Veltracon have created a special subsidiary of focused on medical concierge and emergency preparedness solutions. Tim offers his advice for families of wealth about how they should approach bespoke medical care and holistic health and well-being risk management solutions. Please enjoy this informative and practical conversation with a highly specialized and knowledgeable provider of niche and bespoke solutions in the UHNW lifestyle space.

Today, I am delighted to speak with Kent Lawson, FOX's own CTO and the leader of the FOX Technology Partners Program. Kent brings 25 years of experience as a professional in the wealth management industry, with a deep focus in technology for the family office. Prior to joining FOX, Kent spent a decade as an executive at a single-family office, and in that capacity, he was an active FOX member and a strong contributor to the FOX community. He also served as a business analyst and consultant for Advent Software, as COO of a trust company, and other technology solution vendors. Kent is one of very few people in the world who have had a front-row seat throughout the evolution of the family office as an operational unit and the emergence of the ecosystem of technologies that are focused on supporting and automating family offices. He provides a brief overview of the last 10 years of how family offices, and the specialized technology solutions that serve them, have evolved. Given this historical context, he then delves into what it all means for family offices today, going over what they need to know and what key capabilities they need to develop or acquire. As we see in our daily interactions with families and family offices at FOX, pretty much every family office faces two major challenges on their digital transformation path – technology selection and technology implementation. Kent offers his practical advice for family offices and advisor firms who are looking to select and implement FO-specialized technology solutions, highlighting the common pitfalls, and offering practical tips and shortcuts to success. Keeping up with all the new and existing providers of technology solutions for the FO space is another significant challenge. Kent provides valuable suggestions for how family office professionals and leaders can stay educated on all the vendors and their platforms, on all the trends and developments in the FO technology space, and on the best practices related to digitizing the family office and the ever-broader set of family wealth management services. Do not miss this deeply insightful conversation with the world's leading technology expert in the family office and family wealth space.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Richard Wolkowitz, Founder of Xylogenesis Family Office Advisory. Rich serves as a family advisor with 25+ years of first-hand, inner-working experience of multiple family offices. His background is in law, business, management, operations, financial services, independent board service, and professional service firm leadership with a focus on serving multigenerational families and their full business and life continuum of needs. Throughout his career, Rich has served many multigenerational families and one thing he has witnessed often how families would get stuck as they try to build, transition, or manage their enterprise. He shares his observations on how and why families tend to get stuck in the course of their complex journeys. The obvious question then is: How can families get “unstuck”? Rich talks about the mindsets, strategies, and activities that can help families overcome the main challenges that get them stuck. Rich offers some practical pointers and suggestions for family leaders and family members who find themselves stuck and want to “right the ship” as they steer the family enterprise forward. He also shares his advice to family advisors and service providers who support the family, and provides some tips on how family wealth advisors, expert vendors, and service providers across different vertical disciplines can help the families they serve get unstuck. Enjoy this insightful conversation with a prominent practitioner in the family wealth and family office space.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Lou Sokolovskiy, CEO and Founder of Opus Connect, a leading networking and deal-making community for private equity and M&A professionals. Lou is a serial entrepreneur with extensive private equity transaction experience. He founded multiple entrepreneurial ventures in the technology arena and has unique expertise in operations management, strategic partnerships, and new business development. He is a former consultant who has advised many companies in the healthcare management, finance, and technology industries on improving operations and corporate strategy. Lou founded Opus Connect to provide a platform for PE and M&A professionals to connect, collaborate, and succeed in their work. He talks about the opportunity – or gap – he saw in the private investing marketplace, why he created this community, and how it is creating value for different players in the private deal-making ecosystem. UHNW families and their family offices are increasingly active and sought-after participants in the private direct investing space – they are seen as patient, long-term, values-driven investors. At the same time, they often lack capabilities or create obstacles for themselves that prevent them from partaking in the most attractive deals. Lou explains why that happens and what families and family office executives can do to overcome these weaknesses and ensure they are seeing the best deals. One tip Lou has for family offices who want to be active private investors is to formalize their investment thesis and decide what they are looking for and what deals they want to see. He shares with our listeners why this is important and how family office investors should go about it. Another practical suggestion Lou offers for family office investors is to develop a strong network and functioning mechanisms to connect with external PE firms, deal sponsors, and other sources of quality deal flow in the marketplace. He explains why this is an important strategy and how do you advise family offices should best implement it. Enjoy this informative conversation with one of the leading players and community organizers in the private investing ecosystem.

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Kathy Parker & Seth Webber of BerryDunn, a leading national professional services firm providing assurance, tax, and consulting services to businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies throughout the US. Kathy is a Principal and the Practice Group Leader of the Outsourced Accounting Practice Group at BerryDunn Boston and Seth is the Head of the Valuation Services Practice Group at BerryDunn. Kathy and Seth, and their firm BerryDunn, are a valued resource partner of the FOX community, and we are proud to offer their expertise and thought leadership to our members. In their work, Kathy and Seth advise many multigenerational families and, among the many challenges and needs they assist them with, succession planning is both the most common and most important priority they are working on. Kathy and Seth talk about what you they see among enterprising families who are planning or working on succession planning and identify the common themes and the key challenges and opportunities they are facing. Each family is, of course, unique, but there are common patterns and archetypes, especially correlated with how advanced the family is in its multigenerational journey. Kathy and Seth share their observation of how succession planning and the key priorities and activities associated with family transitions vary based on where the family is in its enterprise journey. From a practical standpoint, Kathy and Seth offer some of their tips and suggestions for families that are embarking on their succession journey, including how they should get ready for the process and prepare to engage the many advisors they will inevitably rely on. Kathy and Seth also provide some practical ideas for families to utilize once they are fully engaged in the intergenerational succession and wealth transfer process. These include how they should work with the different expert advisors to create the many technical structures and documents that will govern the journey and its outcomes. You would not want to miss this expert conversation with these two distinguished expert in the family wealth management and intergenerational transitions space.

Today, I am truly pleased to welcome Dave Donnelly, Managing Director, at SpiderRock Advisors, which was recently acquired by BlackRock and is now part of the firm's US Wealth Advisory business. Dave is responsible for the client-facing business at SpiderRock and, prior to the acquisition, led SpiderRock's sales organization and national accounts efforts across wealth and institutional client segments. Dave and SpiderRock are Specialist Advisor members of FOX and we are grateful for the unique and valuable expertise they bring to our membership community. This conversation focuses our attention on options as a powerful tool in the toolbox of actively investing family members and family office CIOs. Dave provides and overview of how options overlay strategies can create value and unlock attractive possibilities for enterprise family portfolios. We are in a very dynamic and constantly shifting geopolitical, microeconomic, and financial markets environment, and family offices are tasked with balancing a number of, often competing, investment objectives, such as returns, risk, liquidity, and taxes, to name just a few. Dave shares some of the most notable opportunities in the current macro context that options strategies can afford to enterprise families and their family offices. Dave goes on to suggest several attractive practical tools that family offices can deploy utilizing options strategies, such as a portfolio mapping exercise to manage or swap away various risks or maximizing the tax-deductibility of their borrowing (e.g., margin or LOCs). He describes these strategies in detail and points our listeners to how UHNW investors can activate them. Dave also offers his insights into the best resources for family members who are active investors and for family office CIOs to get educated and equipped with the right tools to activate these advanced options strategies and take advantage of the great benefits they offer. Do not miss this technical and educational conversation with one of the market leaders and foremost innovators in the options overlay strategy advisory space.

This week, I am delighted to welcome Matt Wesley, Principal at the Lovins Group. Matt is an internationally recognized practitioner, thought leader, and speaker on the issues facing financially successful families. With a career that spans 34 years as an estate planning attorney, family advisor, facilitator, and consultant, he helps families address the complex issues of family enterprises, legacy wealth, and collective philanthropy. As a Principal at the Lovins Group, Matt works with some of the most prominent families in the world as they seek to realize the full promise of intergenerational wealth in their individual and collective lives. In the family wealth space, some advisors approach their clients' needs from the standpoint of the technical expertise and quantitative, structured solutions that can benefit the family. Others approach their advisory work from the perspective of the qualitative sciences that deal with human behavior, family psychology, and interpersonal dynamics. Matt is a believer in the fundamental importance of culture – or what he has labeled “groupness” – which is not often the point of departure for family advisors. He shares his philosophy and describes how it is different from other approaches and how it creates incremental value for families. In his work, Matt emphasizes the concept of “forgiveness” as a fundamental prerequisite and event driver of family culture and the collective personality of the family. He explains why forgiveness is important and how it plays into the process of developing and solidifying the family “groupness” or culture. One powerful culture-building tool Matt recommends for families is stories and storytelling. He talks about why and how stories are important and suggests some practical ways families can put stories to work in their work of planning, preparing, and navigating the family's multigenerational journey. Another tool for family unity and togetherness Matt advocates for is family rituals. He shares his views on why rituals and elaborates on what they are and what their function is in the process of building a healthy, vibrant family culture and enduring unity among family members. This is a must-hear conversation with one of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the family wealth advisory profession who is both technically sophisticated and keenly focused on the family's long-term purpose and well-being.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Stephen Goldbart and Joan DiFuria, co-founders of Money, Meaning, & Choices Institute (MMCI), a group of professional facilitators and advisors who work with wealth holders and their professional advisors to address the psychological issues and challenges of wealth. Joan is a globally recognized speaker and consultant for families of wealth, family businesses, family offices, and enterprises, and a licensed psychotherapist who has been in private practice for over 30 years. Stephen is a licensed clinical psychologist, professor, author, public speaker, and organizational consultant who has consulted with individuals, families, family offices, and organizations to help them develop the fulfilling and sustainable balance of personal, professional, and philanthropic goals. Both Joan and Stephen have dedicated their lives' work to helping families be successful by removing the obstacles that often stand in their way to long-term success. They uncover some of the key success factors – the “magic ingredients” – they discovered through their work that position families, and their advisors, to achieve their long-term strategic goals and to flourish across generations. Joan and Stephen uncovered and formulated a specific set of competencies that family members need to develop throughout their life journey – what they call the “10x10 Learning Roadmap” in their recently published book. They elaborate on the design, structure, and applications of this innovative framework and explain how it can help families and their individual members. Joan and Stephen then offer some practical tips for how families can apply the 10x10 Learning Roadmap, and how both family leaders and individual family members can make use of it in real life. Finally, they share how the 10x10 framework can also be successfully utilized by the trusted advisors who support multigenerational families and how they can lean on this comprehensive and practical tool to best serve their family clients. You would not want to miss this highly insightful conversation with two of the most respected practitioners in the family wealth and well-being field.

This week, I am delighted to welcome Scott Saslow, Founder and CEO of Palo Alto, CA-based ONE WORLD Investments Inc., which provides investment capital and advisory services to help organizations scale social impact. Over his career, Scott has been a founder or founding team member of seven start-up businesses. Prior to ONE WORLD, Scott was the Founder & CEO of The Institute of Executive Development, supporting executives in Global 2000 organizations including American Express, Blackrock, Intel, Time Warner, and the US Navy, and earlier in his career, he worked at Siebel Systems and Microsoft Corporation in leadership roles. Scott has authored over twenty-five articles for publications such as Forbes and Directorship and has been interviewed by and quoted in Harvard Business Review, Bloomberg and BusinessWeek. Scott expounds on the concept of “sustainability” as it pertains to a family office, and he provides his definition of a sustainable family office and explains why sustainability is important in this context. Having emphasized how important this objective is for the family, Scott then talks about how families and family offices pursue sustainability and how they prepare for it and how they achieve it. He outlines the many dimensions and ways to make a family office sustainable. Scott is just about to release his new book Building a Sustainable Family Office, which is an excellent, and to some extent, autobiographical, compendium of everything families need to know or consider as they create or take over a family office. The book is organized around and culminates in the definition of what Scott refers to as “the five key elements of success.” Scott gives us a sneak peek into what the five elements are and how each of them contributes to the long-term success of the family and its family office. Sustainability is also often referred to as an investment philosophy and a values system. Scott shares his views about how families can connect their aspiration for sustainable investing with their effort to build and operate a sustainable family office. Don't miss this insights-packed conversation with a rising-gen owner of a family enterprise, a successful entrepreneur and wealth creator, and a proponent of family sustainability and positive impact.

Today, it is my pleasure and honor to speak with Prof. Maarten de Groot, Endowed Chair of Resilient Family Businesses & Enterprise Families at VU Amsterdam School of Business and Economics. Prior to completing his PhD at VU Amsterdam in 2021, Maarten had a long and distinguished career in wealth management. He co-founded and ran one of Europe's largest and most innovative multi-family offices, VermogensGroep, which was acquired by UBS in 2008, and later he was Executive Chairman of Eligius, the single-family office of the Goldschmeding family in the Netherlands. Maarten was knighted by the King of the Netherlands for his contributions to society, and is the recipient of multiple prestigious awards, including the 2022 Sustainable Investments Award, the 2023 Business Impact Award, and the 2023 VU Crowds Award. He is the founder and director of the VU Center for Enterprise Family Research and is the program director of the Responsible Ownership for Enterprise Families (ROEF) executive education program at VU Amsterdam, which was created and run in partnership with FOX. Maarten has studied and worked with multigenerational families for decades and has identified many of the key topics and priorities that successful families focus on. He shares some of the most important factors and themes that define and propel families' journeys through time and across generations. Possibly the most universal topic that is relevant to all families across the globe and throughout time is preparing the next generation for the future stages of the family journey. Maarten talks about how he sees the importance and centrality of engaging and preparing the rising gen to play a meaningful role in their family enterprise. One important practical suggestion Maarten has for families, and especially for the younger members of the rising gen, is to understand and develop their relationship with wealth. He highlights some of the key challenges rising gen members face and what they can do to overcome them in order to see their role as wealth owners in a positive and healthy way. Maarten spearheaded the development of the ROEF Academy (Responsible Ownership for Enterprise Families) program – an innovative, world-class educational program, designed jointly by VU Amsterdam and FOX. We just successfully concluded our first year and graduated the first cohort of young next-gen family members. Maarten offers an overview of the ROEF program, its mission and design, and how it helps rising gen owners identify and prepare for their role in the family enterprise. Do not miss this deeply insightful conversation with one of the most distinguished thought leaders in the multigenerational family wealth space. Maarten is a celebrated academic researcher and educator, a successful entrepreneur and family office executive, and a globally recognized practitioner and advisor to many enterprise families across the globe.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Michael Whelchel, Founder and CEO of Big Path Capital, a boutique investment bank working with positive impact companies and funds and pursuing a mission to challenge the status quo and raise the expectations of capitalism. Prior to founding Big Path, Micheal had 15-year career in private equity holding leadership positions at several firms, including Morris Capital Management and Stony Point Group. We start by discussing the big idea behind Michael's work – what he calls “leveraging capitalism”. Michael explains what that means, elaborating on the challenges and the opportunities he sees with how capitalism operates today and how it could or should operate. Michael founded Big Path Capital to advance this vision for the future of capitalism. He talks about how his firm differs from other investment intermediaries, how he sees his purpose and mission in the marketplace, and what he is doing to advance this mission and achieve his vision for capitalism. For families, family offices, and other private capital investors in the marketplace who are interested in embracing impact investing as a superior way of deploying capital, Michael offers a number of practical tips to get them started on the right path. He also describes how families can get engaged in this mission by attending the annual Impact Capitalism Summit he and his firm host in Nantucket each year. Michael shares an overview of this unique event and provides suggestions for how family members and family offices who are active investors can get involved, contribute to, and benefit from this gathering. Enjoy this informative conversation with one of the most active and innovative champions of impact capitalism in the private capital space.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Amjed Saffarini, co-founder and CEO of Trove, a fast-growing, innovative firm which provides a broad array of family office services, including operations outsourcing, lifestyle management, business and tax advisory. Prior to Trove, Amjed was President at Kaplan, the leading global educational services company, and co-founder and CEO of CyberVista, a cybersecurity education company that was spun out of Kaplan and was acquired by N2K Networks. Amjed is also a Board Leadership Fellow at the National Association of Corporate Directors. There is a popular (and controversial) adage in our industry that goes: “If you've seen one family office, you've seen one family office.” Amjed is in the camp of people who believe this adage is an unhelpful fallacy. He explains why and shares his views on the “common DNA” that family offices share. But even with 95%+ shared DNA, all families are unique, which means they face the conundrum to either allow complexity to grow exponentially as they try to customize their family office to their needs or settle for standardized, off-the-shelf, or outsourced solutions that might not be perfectly tailored to the family but are good enough to get the job done. Amjed advises how families should think about this conundrum and how they can decide on the design to build and resource their family office. Amjed then delves into the practical suggestions he has for families, starting with the areas of the family enterprise and the family office where he believes families should not “reinvent the wheel” but rather would be advised to explore standardized or outsourced services. Conversely, he talks about when it is appropriate to invest in internalizing the complexity and to bring a family office service or functional department in house. This is an illuminating and thought-provoking conversation with one of the most innovative thinkers and entrepreneurs reshaping the family office space.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Matt Tobin, President and Chief Operating Officer for South Dakota Trust Company (SDTC) and President of SDTC Services. SDTC Services provides consulting and corporate services to the non-depository trust company industry, and as President, Matt is primarily responsible for managing the Company's Private and Public Trust Company client relationships. He serves as a board director and committee member for several private and public trust companies, is member of the Board of Managers for SDTC, and Board of Directors member for the South Dakota Trust Association. Matt is the author of many influential publications on Private Trust Companies and has delivered numerous speeches and presentations on the topic, including at the Purposeful Planning Symposium, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, Georgetown Law Center, and the Jackson Hole Financial Professionals' Symposium, to mention just a few. He is also a frequent speaker at FOX forums, webcasts, and workshops, and is guest faculty at the highly popular FOX Private Trust Company Workshop. The focus of today's conversation is on Private Trist Companies (PTCs) as a legal construct to organize and administer multigenerational family assets and professionalize the governance of complex enterprise families. Matt covers basics, including what is a PTC; why were PTCs created; and how they function? He then describes how enterprise families are using PTCs today and explains why they are becoming more and more popular. He goes over the use cases and challenges PTCs can help address for multigenerational families. For families who are exploring the topic and thinking about utilizing a PTC, Matt offers some valuable practical tips and suggestions that can help them avoid common pitfalls and make the process of researching or establishing a PTC a smooth one. He also provides many pointers and tips for families who already have a PTC to help them ensure they are making the most of this investment and the structures and tools it provides. Do not miss this rich and informative conversation with one of the foremost experts on Private Trust Companies in our industry.

I am delighted to welcome Buddy Thomas, Founder and President of Superior Planning | Family Office, a Southern California firm serving HNW and UHNW families since 1982. Buddy has created more than 50 individual virtual family offices, providing family fiduciaries, family members, and their most trusted advisors with what they need to collaborate and make decisions together. He is the author of four books, over fifty published articles, and the producer of more than 200 videos including, the “Fifty-Five Second Family Fiduciary” and “Secrets of a Family Fiduciary” series. In his work with enterprising families, Buddy team developed a concept he calls “the three essential elements”. He describes this concept and how he puts it to work when he advises wealthy families. As with any creative conceptual framework, the key question and the real test is how it gets applied in real-life situations. Buddy paints a detailed picture of how he and his team do wealth planning with families that encompasses all three essential elements and talks about the planning process they have created that achieves the appropriate balance between left- and right-brain topics and priorities. Buddy and his firm are known for at least one practical tool they apply successfully with families – a tool that they even named their firm after, the Superplan. Buddy defines what the Superplan is and outlines how it works and how families can benefit from it. Taking his methodology to the next level, Buddy and his firm have now developed a Family Wealth Game as a modern tool to help families engage in the planning process together and are even building this game into a software application. He shares the vision and workings of this game, describes what it adds to the wealth advisory process, and illustrates the experience it delivers to enterprising families. Please enjoy this insightful conversation with a thoughtful and creative veteran of the family wealth advisory profession and a member of a multigenerational enterprising family.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Jamie McLaughlin, Founder and CEO of J. H. McLaughlin & Co., a management consulting firm focused on strategy and practice management for wealth management and investment advisory firms, private banks, trust companies, single- and multi-family offices. Previously, he was CEO of Geller Family Office Services, a partner at Convergent Wealth Advisors where he built the firm's New York office, the regional president of Mellon Private Wealth Management's New York region, and a financial advisor at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Jamie is a Co-Founder of the UHNW Institute, an independent “think tank” serving firms that serve the ultra-high-net-worth client segment and their advisors. Jamie has enjoyed a long and decorated career in the wealth management and family office space, and being a history major, he has also written many excellent works on the history of the family wealth and family office industry. He tells the story, as he witnessed it, of how we the industry evolved over the past 30-40 years and paints an elaborate picture of our current industry landscape. The family office field is enjoying unprecedented growth, and with that growth come different business and service models and a variety of advisory frameworks and practices. Jamie describes the different types of firms that exist today in the UHNW wealth management and family office space, comparing their origins and unique characteristics and analyzing the pros and cons of each model. Given the spectrum of wealth management models that have emerged in the UHNW segment of our industry, Jamie offers his advice for firms who are looking to establish their place in the space or to solidify their position and ensure the long-term sustainability and profitability of their wealth management and family office business. He also provides valuable practical tips for UHNW clients and enterprise families looking to make sense of the fast-evolving wealth management landscape that serves them and to choose among the different kinds of wealth advisors and family office service providers out there. Don't miss this in-depth conversation with one of the most experienced and respected thought leaders in the UHNW wealth management field.