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.

I am pleased to welcome John Coyle, CEO and Founder of Speaking Design Thinking, to FOXCast. John is a sought-after keynote speaker, best-selling author, and former Olympic medalist in speedskating. Known as #TheTimeGuy, he is a thought leader in the field of chronoception – the study of how humans process time.

John talks about the brain science of chronoception, unpacking the intricacies of how we perceive and interact with time. He argues that “there is no such thing as chronological time”, shattering some commonly held beliefs about time as a concept and introducing a lot more complexity and nuance to our relationship with time.

Jonh has formulated the Three Laws of Experiential Time, and he discusses how they work and what their implications are for those of us seeking to maximize our return on this most precious and finite asset. He shares a number of practical applications of his Three Laws and offers suggestions to leaders of families and enterprises for how they can better manage their time capital and achieve better return on time invested by understanding and applying these fundamental laws.

John also introduces the concept of the Time Investment Portfolio that helps families and family office professionals understand and manage the interplay between quantity and quality of time spent and thus maximize what he refers to as the “memory value of time”.

Don’t miss this fascinating, mind-bending, and yet, highly practical conversation with #TheTimeGuy – one of the world’s foremost thought leaders on time capital.

This week, I’m speaking with Vincent Kavanagh, Executive Vice President and Head of Sales at Four Corners Aviation. Vincent has nearly 20 years of experience serving the aviation needs of UHNW clients in Europe and the US. Vincent and his firm, Four Corners Aviation, are a Specialist Advisor member at FOX and an active and generous contributor to the FOX community.

Vincent offers an overview of the macro trends and developments that have been shaping the private aviation space in the past couple of decades. He describes how products and offerings have evolved, and explains how technology and business model innovations, as well as changing client needs and behaviors, have advanced the private aviation industry.

Vincent offers practical tips for clients who fly private, starting with those who are experienced with private aviation, including families or enterprise leaders who already own and operate aircraft or are active users of fractional and other shared solutions. He also provides many invaluable suggestions for those who are just starting out in this complex and technical space – especially families, family offices, and business owners who are considering or evaluating private aviation solutions.

Enjoy this conversation with one of the leading private aviation experts in the FOX community and the very helpful insights he shares relating to this niche and specialized UHNW service sector.

This week, I have the pleasure of speaking with Kristin Keffeler, Chief Learning Officer at the Johnson Financial Group. Kristin is a celebrated author of such influential books in our industry as the recently published Wealth 3.0: The Future of Family Wealth Advising, and The Myth of the Silver Spoon: Navigating Family Wealth & Creating an Impactful Life. She is also the Dean of Family Positive Psychology at the Purposeful Planning Institute.

Kristin is passionate about the challenges and opportunities facing the rising-gen members of enterprising families, a subject she covers in depth in her influential book, The Myth of the Silver Spoon. She delves into the topic here, especially focusing on how the strengths-based approach can unlock the rising gen’s potential for success, happiness, and impact. She also describes the challenges that are potentially holding back rising-gen members and their parents – the things she calls “clutter” in her book – and offers suggestions on how to overcome them.

Kristin also talks about the core theses of her other recently released book, Wealth 3.0, which she co-authored with Jim Grubman and Dennis Jaffee. This visionary book has been widely seen as primarily focused on or aimed at the family wealth advisor profession and its impending evolution, however, Kristin talks here about the clients, the families who are served by the advisor community, and the role they too play in the Wealth 3.0 evolution. She describes how family member education, awareness, and expectations of what Wealth 3.0 is and how it should serve them are critical drivers of the coming change.

Kristin also offers some practical tips and tools for family members, including parents and the younger generations. She indicates what parents can do to enable a positive strengths-based engagement and to catalyze the evolution of their family and advisor interactions and processes toward the Wealth 3.0 model. She also outlines the opportunities for the younger generation and the role they can play to bring about and drive the positive, strengths-driven Wealth 3.0 approach of engaging with their family, the family enterprise, and the advisor ecosystem that surrounds them.

Don’t miss this engaging conversation with one of our industry’s foremost thinkers and practitioners specializing in the rising gen and their success and well-being.

This week, I am thrilled to be speaking with 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. The fact that we are talking about high-end professional matchmaking, date coaching, and curated singles education for UHNW clients, shows just how far our field is progressing toward embracing the full spectrum of qualitative, human-capital needs, and wellbeing of our UHNW clients.

Cassindy and Shannon provide an overview of how the professional matchmaking field has evolved over the past 10-20 years, and how this highly consequential service is gradually maturing from being shrouded in stigma and mystery to being professionalized, supported by research and best practices, and provided by professionally trained and sophisticated advisors and consultants.

Many of the qualitative wellbeing topics in our field are still considered somewhat sensitive, controversial, or even taboo for families and advisors to engage in openly and professionally, and romantic coaching and matchmaking services are right up there on the list of difficult or hush-hush topics. Cassindy and Shannon shed some light on the challenges and risk these stigmas create for single UHNW clients, their families, and their family enterprises.

The co-founders of Boutique Matchmaking dip into their rich experience and share some of the most common client situations they face. They also offer many practical tips and suggestions for UHNW clients who are either starting for the first time to look for a life partner or are thinking of reentering the dating scene later in their life.

Nowadays, it is increasingly likely for wealth advisors, family office executives, and other trusted professionals who surround and serve the family to be exposed to the personal and even romantic aspects of their clients’ lives. We have had instances within the FOX community where family office professionals have had to deal with challenging situations involving romantic fraud, dating-app etiquette, and other “non-traditional” family wellbeing topics. Cassindy and Shannon offer some advice for professional advisors and family office employees who find themselves involved in and have to navigate well these sensitive areas and moments in their principals’ lives.

Please enjoy this unique and eye-opening conversation with two of the trailblazers of professional matchmaking, date coaching, and romantic consulting. Cassindy and Shannon, and their firm Boutique Matchmaking, have just recently joined the FOX community as official marketing partners, and we are proud to offer their expertise and thought leadership to our members.

This week, I am speaking with Paul Westall and Tayyab Mohamed, co-founders of Agreus group, a resourcing and recruitment consultancy dedicated to working exclusively with family offices. Paul and Tayyab share their insights into the unique needs of family offices related to recruiting, developing, and retaining talent, and examine how well these needs are being met by the broader ecosystem of traditional and boutique recruiting firms.

Having witnessed the evolution of family offices and the substantial changes that have reshaped the sector over the past 13 years, Paul and Tayyab comment on the most significant trends that are impacting the human capital needs and practices of family enterprises and family offices today – the most significant one being the increased professionalization of the family office operations and governance.

With increased demand for highly skilled talent, family offices are having to figure out how to compete with larger corporations and private equity firms to attract topnotch professionals, how to compensate and motivate them, and how to offer a compelling career path and incentive plans to ensure their long-term retention and engagement. Paul and Tayyab offer practical tips for family offices looking to upgrade and upskill their talent in a number of important and competitive technical areas. They also provide some ideas and guidance for family offices that are actively weighing whether to hire in-house or outsource some of their critical functions.

Please enjoy this instructive conversation with two of the best-recognized specialty recruiters serving the global family office community.

Today, I am particularly honored to welcome Prof. Michael Feiner, President at Michael C. Feiner Consulting. From 2000 to 2010, Michael was Professor of Management and Ethics Fellow at Columbia Graduate School of Business, and I was lucky enough, as an MBA student at Columbia Business School in 2003, to take his High-Performance Leadership class, which in many ways has shaped me as a business leader. Prior to teaching and consulting, Michael was a senior executive at Pepsi for 20 years and was Senior VP and Worldwide Chief People Officer for the consumer-packaged goods giant. He now advises a wide variety of organizations, including private equity firms, Fortune 500 companies, and fast-growing start-ups.

Michael talks about how the field of high-performance leadership has evolved over the past 20+ years and how learning institutions and business organizations are teaching the required skillsets and developing high-performance leaders. We unpack the reality of high-performance leadership and examine whether the discipline is now fully embraced and practiced by HR departments and governance board or are leaders still generally left to “learn on the job”.

Michael draws on his nearly 5 decades of experience as a human capital leader, executive coach, and leadership guru to share some practical tips for leaders who want to master the art of high-performance leadership and apply it in their day-to-day work with their teams. He also sheds light on what team members can and should be doing to best engage their leaders and to encourage and incite high-performance leadership from their superiors.

Please enjoy this insightful and practical conversation with one of the most celebrated people leaders and leadership thinkers, and sample some of the most valuable and enduring leadership lessons that I personally have learned from Prof. Michael Feiner from my days at Columbia Business School and have tested and applied throughout my own (ongoing) leadership journey.