Erin Hulse is the Founder of Deviate Consulting, LLC, which focuses on accounting, software consulting and selection for family offices, investment advisors, hedge funds, fund administrators and small businesses throughout the world. Software focus includes multiple investment accounting, portfolio accounting and wealth management suites prominent in the industry. Learn More About Deviate Consulting → 2021 Trust and Estate Planning Update Jason Kohout and John Nuckolls Audience poll: Which planning have you considered most recently? Gifting to ...

Erin Hulse is the Founder of Deviate Consulting, LLC, which focuses on accounting, software consulting and selection for family offices, investment advisors, hedge funds, fund administrators and small businesses throughout the world. Software focus includes multiple investment accounting, portfolio accounting and wealth management suites prominent in the industry. Learn More About Deviate Consulting → Our focus in today’s blog post is on how to get the most out of the Family Office Forum. Depending on your role within your organization or y...

Yesterday’s Showcase featured the following speakers, and a summary of each session is included below: Day Two Recap With FOX’s Kent Lawson, Director, Technology Integration Services Cybersecurity for Family Offices: Today's Threats and Mitigations With Jessica Dore, CISA, Principal, Technology Solutions, Rehmann Threat Vectors – How the bad guys get in Phishing and ransomware Compromised credentials Weak passwords Trust relationships and propagation Poor encryption Unpatched vulnerabilities Misconfigurations Malicious Insiders Zero Day and Unknown Met...

Yesterday’s Showcase featured the following speakers, and a summary of each session is included below: Day One Recap and About the Family Office Exchange With FOX’s Kent Lawson, Director, Technology Integration Services, and Glen W. Johnson, Chief Operating Officer FOX was founded in 1989 in Chicago, with offices in Chicago, Madrid, New York and Dallas The FOX Member Community has 770 Wealth Owners from 330+ Families 2,550 Family Office Engaged Staff Members 3,695 Advisors from 107 Firms 12,000 Followers of the FOX Public Network $500MM Investable Wealth of Members 64% Operat...

Tuesday’s Showcase featured the following speakers, and a summary of each session is included below: Welcome to the FOX Technology Showcase With FOX’s Kent Lawson, Director, Technology Integration Services The Cyber Landscape for Family Offices in 2021 With Kate Brett Goldman, CEO and Founder, Cybermaniacs , and Angelo D’Agostino, Cybermaniacs Head of People and Founder, HCG Advisors Cyber risk is exploding! Hackers are targeting humanware – In 2020, work from home was up 53%, and phishing was up 300% Having a security audit for your family is essential Rule of thumb – if...

Today’s blog post is focused on preparing for the technology demonstrations that are taking place during the technology showcase. By now, you probably have an idea of which demos you would like to attend based on the needs of your family office. I have a few general tips to help you get the most out of the demos, as well as a longer, downloadable checklist that you can use to dig into more details. I will be posting a recap at the end of each day if you happen to miss any of the sessions, and feel free to reach out with questions! General Tips: Pick a Demo and Stick with...

Each year, more than two million corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs), and other entities are formed in the United States. Historically, formation of these entities required little to no disclosure of their beneficial owners. Though most people use these entities for lawful purposes, certain bad actors have taken advantage of this information void for illegal activities. On January 1, 2021, the U.S. Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021, which included the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), requiring the disclosure of beneficial owners. While i...

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...