My colleague, Heather Abramson, and I had the pleasure of leading the FOX Rising Gen Forum in October 2020, which brought together family members in their 20s, 30s, and 40s to discuss the issues they face as part of the next generation. The challenges we heard them express fell into five categories: Defining Future Roles in Family Communication Building Between Generations Family Dynamics Leadership Development Investment Strategies The discussions in these areas focused on how the participants could gain clarity and some concrete direction around each. And honestly, ...

2020 was an unprecedented year for business owners. It brought a pandemic, a deep recession, a civil rights movement, and civil unrest in cities across America. While it’s tough to prepare for the unprecedented, companies are routinely faced with four serious challenges that should be addressed in their plans and governing documents: when an owner dies, becomes disabled, or gets divorced, or when multiple owners have a dispute. Now is a good time to review your company’s governing documents and succession plans to ensure the company is prepared to deal with whatever the future brings before...

Note: This case study is based on Jill Barber’s work as President of CYMI Holdings. The “I” statements refer to her. As a long-term professional in the family office, I was selected as the president of CYMI Holdings in the fall of 2018. My vision was that I wanted to create a more collaborative organization where we pushed decision-making down into the organization to empower all staff and create buy-in to our strategy at all levels.What drove me was a deep awareness of the challenges of leading a family office in these turbulent times—and a recognition that being successful at this work now r...

There’s no such thing as a neutral investment. Investments either have a positive or negative impact on society. Impact investing addresses these pressing social and environmental challenges through a range of investment approaches. Impact investments can be made in both emerging and developed markets as well as across a variety of asset classes. As part of a values-aligned investing spectrum that also includes socially responsible investing (SRI) and environmental, social, and corporate governance investing (ESG), impact investing is uniquely focused on producing a beneficial social or e...

It can be daunting to find a qualified, trustworthy property and casualty insurance advisor—one who not only meets your family or family office’s up-front needs, but also aligns with your sensibilities. The selection process can be further complicated without firsthand proficiency in insurance industry standards, trends, and best practices.Before the search begins, look inward. Identifying the best- fitting advisor will depend a great deal on what is most meaningful to you. Use your family’s lifestyle and risk profile as a guide, and prioritize the most- important attributes, such as discretio...

FOX recently hosted a Rising Gen Forum, and here Mindy Earley, Chief Learning Officer at FOX, and Heather Abramson, Relationship Manager at FOX, share the key takeaways from that forum and more information about the FOX Rising Gen program.FOX first started the Rising Gen program because their Rising Gen community asked for it. The first official forum was in April 2018, and the program has grown from there now with multiple forums and workshops each year, and a growing, engaged community of Rising Gen members.Today there are over 225 Rising Gen members in the community. This is a confidential ...

As we all know, technology is changing our world. To start, it’s everywhere. Over 6 billion smartphones are predicted to be in use around the world by the end of 2020. This presents us with a tsunami of data that can be processed cheaper, faster and better than ever before. More data has been created in the last two years than in the entire history of the human race. This also has led to a big increase in annual tech spending, particularly around cognitive and artificial intelligence, forecasted to reach $77 billion by 2021.Needless to say, the impact of technology right now is enormous. We ha...

In our ever-changing world, the importance of having a successful family council is more critical now than ever. Here Peter Begalla, Founder and Owner of JPB Consulting Group Inc. and Education and Conference Director at Family Business Magazine, and Dayna Manning, Family Council Chair of the Golden Rule Family, review the scope, purpose, components and hallmarks of an effective family council.Begalla starts by defining, what is a family council? He asserts that a family council…Handles the “business” of the family.Focuses efforts for family ownership development.Promotes family connection and...

Maarten de Groot, Enterprise Family Researcher at Vu Amsterdam University School of Business, and also the CEO of a single family office Eligius, explores why the rate of failure is so high when transferring wealth from one generation to the next.Over the last four years, de Groot conducted a number of research studies about wealth preservation and tested his findings by looking at over 1,000 global enterprise families, and working more closely with a few hundred of them. He studied multiple kinds of enterprise families – some with legacies going back over 300 years and spanning across 12 fami...

Preparing for leadership succession may be the single most important planning element for a family and family office. Ivan Lansberg, Co-Founder and Senior Partner, Lansberg-Gersick & Associates, describes the two different sides of the coin, so to speak, that define succession:The challenge of letting go, from the perspective of the current leader; andThe challenge of taking charge, from the perspective of the successor.First he explores the challenges facing the current leader in the process of letting go. These transitions are hard enough in a normal environment, but right now there is s...

As impact philanthropy becomes more important to families, they are further engaging in the issues facing their communities. Here Nadia Roumani, Co-Founder and Senior Designer for the Designing for Social Systems Program at Sanford University, and Wendy Steele, Founder and CEO at Impact 100 Global Advisor Council, address how philanthropy has changed over the years, as well as the central social and economic issues facing us today in the world of philanthropy and impact.Steele’s founded Impact 100 because she witnessed a lack of interest or aptitude toward philanthropy in her community as frie...

Taxable investors need to think differently. Here Stuart Lucas, Co-Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Wealth Strategist Partners, tells us why, and also how to extract value at the intersection of investing, estate planning and tax.So what makes a good investment? Lucas gives us four elements:An asymmetric risk profileHigh potential magnitudeFavorable probability of successReasonable profit retentionOne of Lucas’ key points is that – taxable investors and their advisors need to think differently. And by doing so, they can create tremendous value. You can build this symbiotic set ...

While families have a growing desire to participate in impact investing, return profiles have had the reputation for being lower to other asset classes. But this is changing quickly.FOX welcomes two experts and thought leaders in their fields, John C. Maxwell, III, CEO at SteepRock Advisors and Manish Nayar, Founder and CEO of OYA Solar to discuss.Maxwell begins by sharing that natural capital will have significant secular and structural implications on a global basis for the next few decades. What is meant by natural capital economy? Maxwell simply merges the natural resource piece, the capit...

One question facing families and family offices today is how to build a strategic long-term view of your family’s future. Scott Peppet, President at Chai Trust Company, says families and family systems tend to work on long-wave frequencies, and normal business works on a short-wave frequency, often monthly or quarterly.Peppet says that often, certain family members light up and resonate more with these long-term questions. are more human questions, and they can connect to it. Other family members push back and want to focus on short term, financials, quarterly statements, etc.To strike this ba...

FOX hosts a panel on “Rebuilding Economies,” and invites Ivo Daadler, President of Chicago Council on Global Affairs and John Dionne, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and Senior Advisor at The Blackstone Group, to walk us through their most current thinking and predictions.Daadler attempts to share what the geopolitical future looks like and addresses three important “known- unknowns” – e.g. these are things we know are going to be big issues, but we just don’t know how they’re going to play out.The U.S. relationship with ChinaWhat is going to happen in the developing world now and i...

How families talk about money is important. Although it often can feel awkward to get started, Nathan Dungan, Founder and President of Share, Save, Spend,® gives tips, tools and activities to make it a much easier to have these important ongoing conversations among families.Dungan recommends families establish an open landscape to have conversations about money, and have all different kinds of conversations with a money thread that runs through them. The goal is for persistent, rhythmic, frequent and intentional conversations with money at the center.One of the most dominant messages in our cu...

Successive generations want to leave a legacy, and are looking at future prospects and pathways for the family office to be a more diverse workplace. Why does diversity matter in the family office setting? Vincent Robinson, Founder and Managing Partner of the 360 Group, says diversity matters because family offices tend to be relatively hidden in the broader labor market, and competition can either be limited or be quite stiff.So how do you successfully promote diversity? Robinson highlights some areas for us to think about:Work with the family to help everyone understand how diversity can add...

FOX recently conducted a research project to study how family offices explain their value to clients, as well as to look at the complexity and cost allocation of family offices. The study participants included:The four key topics of the study included:The value propositionThe scope of servicesComplexity factors driving costFee allocation methodologies1. The value propositionKey value proposition messages to family members include sharing the importance of:Seeing the family in motion consistently instead of at a moment in time.Integrating wealth planning with execution.Providing scale and buyin...

The element of trust is perhaps one of the most crucial pieces within the family and the family office. Here Jeff Strese, Adjunct Faculty at SMU and Head of Leadership Curriculum, and Mindy Earley, Chief Learning Officer at FOX address the critical value of trust and provide us with important tips to achieve greater trust in the family and the family enterprise.An easy definition trust is this – trust is the currency for leaders to get things done through people.Strese asks, why is it worth our effort to assess the barometers of trust? Because the inside culture must match the outside culture,...

Responding Swiftly to the Pandemic ChallengeLeading up to 2020, family office technology providers made significant improvements with expanded offerings and new entrants. Nonetheless, adoption remained relatively low, as technology simply wasn’t at the top of most family office priority lists. But history has shown nothing is a more effective change accelerator than a crisis. The success so many offices and family members experienced after quickly adopting technology during the pandemic’s early stages has opened eyes to how effectively these solutions support families, and how easily they can ...

Nathan Dungan thinks frequently and deeply about who and what is shaping our money habits and values. In fact, that will be the focus of his breakout session—The Rising Generations’ Relationship With Money—at next week’s FOX Family Forum.This short video will give you a preview of how Nathan frames money issues in his work with the rising generation. Additionally, each participant who attends his breakout session will receive a practical tool-kit to help them immediately attend to their financial wellbeing.Nathan Dungan is the founder and president of Share Save Spend®. For over 25 years, Nath...

Bill Lyons is the Senior Director for the Institute for Family Culture at Abbot Downing. Here Lyons defines resiliency, shares six domains of resilience and recovery, and offers some best practices to foster resilience and recovery in these unprecedented times.Resilience is the capacity to recover, to bounce back, and truly to deal with more than we think we can.For many, becoming a steward of significant wealth involves grief and loss, such as when a family member dies. If you’re in the midst of grief and loss, that is not the ideal time to be learning about resiliency. Learn about it and pra...

Here Michael Hotz (Vice President at Asset Consulting Group) and Katherine Kroll (Senior Institutional Sustainable Investing Specialist at Brown Advisory) share current thinking and approaches to impact investing.In the last 5-7 years, families have shown a strong interest in these areas:Technology and Artificial IntelligenceCannabisCryptocurrencyESG InvestingAs a rising generation family member trying to communicate your interests to different generations, it’s helpful to understand what different generations think about various asset classes over the years. Let’s look at 1990 compared to 202...

Stockton Rush founded and leads OceanGate, as CEO of the company dedicated to opening the oceans for human observations and exploration through the development of state-of-the-art five person submersibles.With his family’s wealth behind him, Rush had the capacity to “meander” his way through various jobs and experiences that eventually led him to the ocean. The family funds originally came from his Grandfather, who Rush describes as a “dirt poor Irish immigrant,” who by age 33 became the youngest director of Standard Oil in America.Rush graduated early from high school, convinced his mom to bu...

One of the most important aspects of the family office today is delivering value through a trusted advisor ecosystem and advancing your partnerships. Here we explore three examples of how partnership is key to the success of the family office:Family LearningOne family office worked with their advisors to create a learning event for the purpose of increasing shared understanding and also to have a fun time together. The family had the opportunity to meet their actual advisors, learn what the advisors do for the family, and also to increase understanding around the overall family business. A din...