FOXcast

Today, I am excited to speak with Mitchell Spearman, relationship builder and advisor to multigenerational families and family office leaders. Through his work, Mitchell helps his clients build deeper ties and meaningful connectivity through curated moments and transformational experiences.

Mitchell's career started in higher learning, and as an educator, he embraced the concept of High Impact Practices that, as research has shown, can generate stronger engagement with students and deliver lasting educational impact. Mitchels explains what High Impact Practices are and how they are applied by teachers and learning institutions. He then talks about how these same High Impact Practices can be adapted to the world of wealth management, and particularly to the field of advising multigenerational UHNW families.

To bring this into practice, Mitchell offers a range of tips and suggestions for families interested in learning and applying the High Impact Practices approach in their day-to-day communication, engagement, and work with their family members or their family enterprise or family office staff. He also provides useful pointers to family advisors and service providers across different disciplines on how they can borrow from and apply High Impact Practices in their work and interactions with their UHNW family clients.

Enjoy this highly relevant conversation with one the most passionate, energetic, and positively engaging family advisors in our space.

This week, I have the pleasure of speaking with Laura Dale-Harris, Founder of Global Treehouse Foundation, a unique nonprofit organization, established by a prominent European enterprise family – Isabella Seragnolli's family in Bologna, Italy – and dedicated to improving access to pediatric palliative care for children around the world.

Laura talks about the origins and mission of Global Treehouse Foundation, which is a great case study for a mission-driven philanthropic foundation that was born out of a family's own vision and value system and was spun out from the family office. Laura shares some insights about this process of creating a new and separate non-profit organization that first originated inside the family office.

Laura then delves into the incredible work of the Global Treehouse Foundation, bringing the topic of palliative – or end-of-life – care into focus. Like so many qualitative, human topics that are of such great importance and consequence in the lives of families and their family members, the topic of death and end-of-life care is often treated as taboo and even avoided. The topic rarely enters families' conversations pertaining to wealth planning and well-being. Laura gives an overview of the current state of palliative care – how it is understood, how it is practiced, and what attitudes and resources currently exist for families.

Unfortunately, dealing with death and end-of-life care is something all families have to deal with in one way or another, and as with anything else, it's better to be prepared than not. Laura offers her advice for families who are dealing with an end-of-life situation, either within their own family or in their immediate community and recommends some practical tips on how to be aware of and potentially seek out palliative care resources and help.

Finally, Laura provides some guidance for families who want to help others in their community or more broadly in the world gain understanding and access to palliative care, outlining different ways families can support and promote this cause of making palliative care broadly available around the world to all people who need it.

Don't miss this important, enlightening, and moving conversation with one of the world's leading experts in and champions of end-of-life care.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Ella Chase, co-founder of Wellth Works, an executive coaching and leadership company for wealth inheritors and future family leaders. Ella is herself a 7th-generation family member of a 100-year family, and has seen the burdens and blessings of complex, multi-generational family enterprises. She is a dynamic and innovative speaker, facilitator, and mentor, and a recognized authority on the psychology of leadership, negotiations, and organizational turnaround.

Ella talks about the macro context within which she and her business, Wellth Works, currently operate. Multigenerational families are in a unique moment in history, and a lot is going to change as vast amounts of wealth transition in the coming couple of decades, and Ella shares the perspectives of a G7 wealth inheritor on how the next 10-20 years are likely to unfold and why it is important to focus on preparing the rising-gen of enterprise families.

The needs, challenges, and opportunities facing next-gen members of multigenerational families are very unique and often not fully understood – maybe even misunderstood. Ella discusses the challenges rising-gen members are facing and the stereotypes, assumptions, and misconceptions they have to deal with and overcome to become fulfilled, thriving family members and leaders.

In her work coaching rising-gen leaders, Ella uses a number of methods and frameworks she has developed. One such tool is the Decision-Making Matrix to get clients unstuck and to unlock paralysis. Ella delves into how families can apply this practical framework to their unique situations. She also emphasizes the importance of developing key skills and a support community of peers and experts and shares her practical tips and tools for rising-gen members who are either feeling stuck or who want to maximize their leadership potential and personal wellbeing.

Enjoy this illuminating and instructive conversation with a uniquely positioned and qualified expert and practitioner in the space of helping families and their rising generations achieve success and wellbeing.

Happy New Year! Welcome to the brand new 2024 season of FOXCast CEO Series.

Today, I have the pleasure and honor of speaking with Sara Hamilton, Founder and Board Chair of Family Office Exchange (FOX). Sara founded FOX as a peer network for family office executives in 1989, which evolved over the ensuing decades into a trusted knowledge partner to family enterprises, a platform for sharing family wealth best practices, and an industry advocate for the importance of private enterprise in a global economy.

In this episode, Sara delves into the conceptual definitions and practical implications of being an enterprise family. The term "enterprise family" has been widely adopted by sophisticated families and some advisors in the UHNW family wealth space, but it's not clear that everyone understands its true meaning or that there is one universally embraced definition within our industry.

Sara puts forth a clear and compelling definition of what it means and what it takes to be an enterprise family and offers a list of characteristics and behaviors that set enterprise families apart. She then shares her views of the benefits of being an enterprise family, based on her experience of working with many of the leading multigenerational families in North America and globally over the past nearly 4 decades.

Sara provides an outline of her proprietary framework consisting of the 30 Building Blocks for an Enduring Enterprise Family, an invaluable practical tool for families who are starting or accelerating their journey to being a multigenerational enterprise. Sara has developed this framework over the course of 20 years and is currently putting it in the form of a workbook families can use to organize and track their progress as an enterprise.

Sara shares some practical tips for families on how to get started with the 30 Building Blocks if they want to develop or strengthen their family enterprise, providing useful suggestions for both aspiring enterprise families who are just getting started and for those who are more mature and advanced enterprise families already.

Building and maintaining a sophisticated enterprise requires commitment, focus, and investment of time and resources from the family and its individual members. Sara offers her perspective and a synthesis of the feedback she has received from many families on why the time and effort required to keep an enterprise going from generation to generation is well worth it in the long run.

You would not want to miss this deeply insightful and instructive conversation with one of the most influential founders of the family office industry and foremost thought leader and practitioner in the family wealth space, Sara Hamilton.

Today, I am excited to speak with Amber Slattery, a director at a single-family office based in Paris, France. Amber is also a next-gen education coach, working directly with clients in their teens and early-20s, and creating custom programming based on their individual interests and needs. In addition, she serves as a programming consultant to Bounce10, a financial parenting platform, founded by Joline Godfrey, focusing on next-gen education for children ages 4-10.

Amber offers her thoughts on the misconceptions or gaps of understanding among UHNW families about preparing and engaging their children to be good owners and family enterprise members. In her work in the realm of rising-gen learning and engagement, Amber often sees clients, especially parents, come to her and other advisors looking for "next-gen education" and not actually knowing what they need or even mean by that. Amber specializes in working with 14-20-year-old clients – an age group that many UHNW principals are not very focused on or don't know how to deal with. She shares her insights into the unique challenges and opportunities associated with engaging and educating teenage and college-age rising gens.

Amber shares a practical framework she has developed working with 14-20-year-old rising-gen members she refers to as the "6 Key Findings" – a useful tool to inform and structure the work with younger family members in this age bracket. She also makes use of well-thought-out, thought-provoking questionnaires, both for the parents and for their children, to generate the right conversations, get on the same page about the process, and spur the right level of thinking, and ultimately, engagement. Amber offers a peek into her approach to orientation questionnaires and the "12 Key Questions" she asks to encourage engagement with teenage or emerging adult clients.

Enjoy the numerous practical tools and suggestions Amber Slattery shares in this instructive conversation.

This week, it is my pleasure to speak with Dr. Jesse Viner, CEO & Chief Medical Officer and Dr. Bryn Jessup, Director of Family Services & Systems at Yellowbrick, a leading resource and national referral center serving enterprise families and providing mental health services and psychiatric treatment of troubled emerging adults. Jesse and Bryn, and their firm Yellowbrick, have been a resource partner and now specialty advisor member of the FOX community, bringing their unique expertise and thought leadership to our members.

Mental health as a topic has not traditionally been part of the professional family wealth management discourse, and in fact has often been shrouded in stigma, swept under the rug, and left to families to deal with on their own. As mental health professionals for nearly 4 decades, Jesse and Bryn have witnessed the transformation of the field firsthand, and they share their views on the relevance of mental health to enterprising families of wealth.

Mental health issues are challenging for everyone, but UHNW families are presented with a unique set of challenges and pain points when it comes to the mental wellbeing of their family members. Jesse and Bryn talk about the unique mental health burdens and challenges faced by UHNW families and offer some practical considerations and best practices pertaining to how families can approach the mental health and wellbeing of their family members in a proactive and positive way that builds a safe and supportive family culture.

Jesse and Bryn also offer their advice for families who are facing a mental health concern, challenge, or even a crisis, and recommend a number of practical tips, resources, and steps for families struggling with a mental health issue.

You would not want to miss this unique and deeply relevant conversation on a highly consequential, yet often neglected, topic with two of the foremost mental health thought leaders and practitioners working with UHNW families.

This week, I have the pleasure of speaking with Meg Pagani, a Forbes 30under30 and Fortune 40under40 founder, serial TEDx speaker, and an executive trainer. Meg teaches about Power and Leadership at the Politecnico di Milano executive programs, and helps investors, family offices and founders understand the hidden dimensions of wealth management and what that has to do with power and purpose.

Meg delves into her work and research into the concept of 'power' – how people perceive it and use it, and how power is connected to relationships, purpose, and impact. She talks about the existence of both positive and negative power and how these are manifested in the world and needs of UHNW families and wealth management.

Meg discusses the strong connection between power and the role it plays in the realm of individual purpose and impact and shares her views on how power is linked to purpose and self-actualization, and how that connects with major issues we, and especially rising generation members, increasingly care about, such as climate change, environmental degradation, and geopolitical unrest.

Meg suggests some practical tips and tools for family members, both parents and rising-gen members, who want to gain an understanding of power and how it impacts their family and their community. She discusses what families can do to explore their relationship with power and how can they apply that knowledge to strengthen their family, resolve conflicts, and discover their shared purpose.

Finally, Meg provides her insights into how families can apply power to their impact aspirations and strategy, and how they can connect power and agency to their impact agenda, their philanthropies, their investments, and their family enterprise overall.

Enjoy this insightful conversation with one of our industry's young stars of rising-gen engagement and empowerment.

This week, I'm honored to welcome Guglielmo Notarbartolo di Villarosa, Head of Private Equity & Venture Capital at PFC, the family office of his branch of the Marzotto Family, one of Italy's most significant enterprise families, whose history in the textile and fashion industry extends back over 250 years. Guglielmo is a G7 family member of the Marzotto Family and a G3 member of his family branch. Over the past 5 years, he has worked with his siblings and cousins to evolve the family enterprise and family office structure, refocusing it on creating a shared purpose and positive impact.

As a rising-gen family leader who is carrying forward the legacy of a nearly 300-year-old family, Guglielmo shares the story of his family and the fascinating recent intergenerational transition within his own family branch. This latest transition process, which passed control of the family enterprise from Guglielmo's grandfather (G1) to the current generation (G3) of family leaders, was a remarkable success story. Not only was the succession smooth and conflict-free, but the G3 family members emerged highly motivated, aligned, and fulfilled by the exercise.

A fundamental part of the transition process was the joint work the family did to draft and formalize a family constitution. Guglielmo offers his views on how important a family constitution is and how critical it is for the family to undergo an intentional, high-quality process to create and agree to one. The family constitution process resulted in fundamental changes to how the family operates and the way family members regard the purpose of the family wealth. Guglielmo explains how the family governance structures and behaviors evolved and the changes that drove to their collective definition of what "impact" and "value creation" means to them as a family.

Guglielmo provides practical tips and lessons learned from the family constitution process – especially since it was a very positive experience for all family members and unified the current generation behind a shared value system and purpose. He goes over the choices and decisions they made as a family, which ultimately resulted in greater unity and happiness among the family. He also offers his insights into the practical steps that led to one of the most important outcomes for the family – aligning behind a shared vision and purpose, which is centered around delivering measurable positive impact on local communities and alleviating negative economic externalities.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to hear directly from the G7 family member of a remarkable enterprise family with nearly 3-century-long history of success and impact. First-hand family case studies like this one are scarce and are a wonderful benefit of being a member of the FOX community.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Tom McCullough, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Northwood Family Office. Tom is an adjunct professor and executive-in-residence at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Wealth Management, and a member of the board and faculty of the UHNW Institute. He is an accomplished author and frequent speaker on issues relevant to families of wealth and their trusted advisors.

Tom recently published his influential article, The Rise of the Integrated Advisor, in the Journal of Wealth Management, and in this episode, he shares his views and work on the role of the "integrated wealth advisor" and the value it creates for UHNW clients. He talks about the challenges of identifying, hiring, and developing integrated wealth advisors, especially in an industry, where deep technical, quantitative expertise has traditionally been overvalued and qualitative skills and emotional intelligence have been undervalued. Tom offers practical tips for families who are looking to find or select an integrated wealth advisor and shares his thoughts on how to decide who is best positioned to play that role for the family: a family member, a family office employee, or an external advisor.

Tom introduces his framework of the "Four Markers" of integrated wealth advisors, which summarizes the personality traits and skills needed for one to be successful at this complex and important role for the family. He provides actionable advice to professionals who are interested in becoming integrated wealth advisors, including how they can prepare and equip themselves for this role, what formal educational programs or informal career pathways they can pursue to acquire the knowledge and hone the skills they will need to be able to play the integration and coordination role for their UHNW clients.

Don't miss this deeply insightful conversation with one of the best recognized thinkers and practitioners in the Family Wealth Advice field.

This week, I welcome to FOXCast Michelle Jezycki, President of Trifecta Consulting, a US-based human resources management company. Michelle is the former Director of Human Resources for the United States Senate, and a Visiting Associate Professor at the American University in Bulgaria teaching Leadership in their EMBA program.

Michelle shares insights from her work with families and family offices, which focuses on their human capital and often centers around change. She describes the challenges many people face with change, especially when different people have differing expectations and visions. She offers her views on how best to handle communications and expectations during a change-management process, such as family succession or family vision and values or rising-gen engagement and education.

She also covers another hallmark of the human-capital advisory work she does, which is that it often wades into topics and relationships that are difficult and emotionally charged. She emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence during these family and family office change-management projects and offers suggestions on how best to navigate the complexities that arise.

Michelle talks about one practical implement she frequently deploys in her work with families – a family retreat or facilitated family meeting. She shares her thinking on how family retreats can be used to facilitate change and effective communications among family members and puts forth practical tips for conducting successful family meetings and retreats.

Finally, Michelle delves into the importance of the individual development of family members and even key staff of the family office. She outlines her philosophy on IDPs (individual development plans) and how to apply them with family members, especially younger members of the rising gen, and provides tips on how families can employ this important human-capital tool effectively.

Enjoy this instructive and practical conversation with a uniquely experienced professional in the field of human capital management and key talent development.