FOX Series

President of the Family Office Exchange, Bill Sullivan, shares key areas of change to help us understand the evolving landscape of the family office.First, as the modern family evolves, families are experiencing a change in priorities and more complex family dynamics are now the norm. Families also see an increasing focus on impact investing and the rising generation is often the key driver to clarify the family value proposition and contribution.Further, today’s family office requires thoughtful engagement from all generations for the sustainability of the broader family enterprise. As such, ...

"The general rule seems to be that the level of consciousness of an organization [i.e. its capacity and agility] cannot exceed the level of consciousness of its leader." -Fredric Laloux, author, Reinventing OrganizationsThe world that a few months ago seemed volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (or VUCA as many refer to it), makes us nostalgic for its normalcy. What we are experiencing today is humbling at a depth never seen in in our lifetimes. What family enterprises want from their Single-Family Offices (SFOs), and especially their leaders, is something no one knows yet. That an...

Addepar is a state-of-the-art wealth management platform that specializes in data aggregation and performance reporting for complex investment portfolios. Addepar helps over 400 clients, 40% of whom are family offices, gain global insights across asset class exposures. The Addepar platform has grown exponentially in the past few years with nearly $2 trillion managed on the platform today. Over 200 family offices have chosen Addepar, and so far this year 25% of new business has come through referrals from existing clients. This is a huge testament to their client experience.Addepar’s new Chief ...

Today’s technology moves at an exceedingly rapid pace. How do family offices stay ahead of the curve and plan for the future? Three experts offer insight as part of FOX’s recent Technology Showcase:Diana Ermini, Director of Financial Services Vertical at Sage IntacctRyan Kerry, CEO at KnowledgerMary Timmons, Chief Operating Officer, Global Family and Private Investment Offices Group at Northern TrustWhen asked what technology trends and advancements will most affect how family offices do business in the future, the panel agrees that data access, aggregation and management is a priority, as is ...

During the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s especially helpful to understand decisions that our peers are making around technology within the family office space. In that spirit, FOX provides this informative and insightful feedback from the attendee survey at our recent Technology Showcase.Here’s what respondents had to say:What technology projects did you have planned for 2020, pre-pandemic?20% responded that accounting related technology projects were planned.16% said investment projects such as portfolio accounting and performance technology.13% planned to focus on cybersecurity and technology infr...

SEI Family Office Services is an award winning, integrated back-office platform delivering a wide range of technology solutions for family offices. With 18 years of experience in serving family offices, SEI has over 220 clients and $365 billion in assets on the SEI platform. They serve eight of the 15 wealthiest American families and 10 global private banks.Paul Freeland is the Head of Sales & Service at SEI and shares innovations around SEI’s award winning Archway PlatformSM and the enterprise philosophy, including initiatives for 2020 and beyond.In the early years, SEI showed a relentle...

New technologies abound in our modern world. Here Dr. Peter Boumgarden, Professor of Practice Strategy & Organization at Washington University in St. Louis, shares insights around innovation and technology as relevant to the family office.Boumgarden believes that we cannot separate technology and innovation from human dynamics. As we embrace new technologies, we must leverage family continuity in order to move forward.As an example, Boumgarden explores the early vision of Disney, the founders of which wrote their original business strategy on a napkin sketch. As Disney drives it’s business...

Founded in 2010, Masttro is a privately held wealth management technology company providing an integrated platform for family office enterprises. Masttro serves both single and multi-family offices and financial services institutions across 24 countries.Padman Perumal, CEO of Masttro Americas, asserts that the wealth management industry has evolved enormously with the help of technology, but says there’s room for growth in expedience and automation. He shares four tech trends to empower and enable family offices through their technology journey:Data analytics – Data is truly an asset with real...

There is often confusion over what exactly is the vertical approach to venture investing. Constance Freedman, Founder and Managing Partner of Moderne Ventures, explains that vertical investing is simply another way to look at venture investing, by approaching it with a sector focus, or a vertical focus.We often see vertical investing broken down in two three categories:Classified as an industry, which could include something like real estate tech, energy tech or bio tech.Classified as technology, such as Software as a Service, Artificial Intelligence, Cryptocurrency, or Internet of Things.Clas...

The future of money is a timely yet complicated topic, especially with cryptocurrency in the mix. Thomas Anderson, Author of Money without Boundaries, shares foundational facts about money, and answers questions around the cryptocurrency ecosystem.The U.S. debt has quintupled in the last 20 years, with no real plan to pay it off. Neither party in congress has a strategy to balance our budget ever again. And the U.S. government solves this issue basically by making money.Anderson asserts that money is surprisingly a “nothing” concept. While theoretically money is vitally important to us, it’s c...

Innovation often comes out of conflict or hardship that forces us to develop new ideas and a new mindset to solve and overcome the conflict. Robert Wolcott, Co-Founder and Chairman of TWIN Global, asserts that the Covid-19 pandemic is such a time, when so much around us is changing, innovation is booming, and the future is top of mind.According to Wolcott, the most important input to innovation is building trust and relationships with people. A trusting relationship allows us to listen and believe in new ideas. When we have trust, we are more inclined to give new thinking a chance. With the un...

What is social impact investing? Is it reliable? Should you use it? Basically social impact investing is an investment strategy and a tactic to address pressing social and environmental challenges.Impact investing uses a range of approaches that vary based by personal goals. Some investors look at their current profile and make adjustments, while others proactively build their portfolio with impact in mind. And some investors seek high returns, yet others seek investments to make the most impact toward their cause.Like all good investing, impact starts with the investment rigor of understandin...

While Coronavirus looms large in the second half of 2020, it can feel like anyone’s guess as to the future of our economy. This pandemic crisis is like no other, so it seems like a losers game to make predictions. However, Jeff Brown, Founder and Managing Partner at Political Economy, LLC, believes we can indeed endure this Covid-19 rollercoaster by examining four key areas.First, the economy. Economists and policy leaders predict the global economy will end down about 5% in 2020, but then rise 5.4% by 2021 end. And consensus among economists is that the GDP will bounce back in 2021.What will ...

We all know the fundamental rule of investing is diversification. The more money that goes into any one area of a portfolio, generally the lower the returns. Diversification is especially critical in this Covid-19 era. Now more than ever families are looking for investments that can help them achieve the ideal asset allocation. Uncorrelated investment strategies can help.By definition an uncorrelated investment strategy contains both liquid and private investments that should produce returns only loosely correlated with the public equity market. We typically label them diversifiers, or niche i...

First we had computers, then we had mobile phones, and then the cloud. Now we have AI. Artificial Intelligence. AI has been around for 30 years, but is currently growing rapid fire. Rudina Seseri, Founder and Managing Partner for Glasswing Ventures, explains the power of this booming technology.By definition AI is machine intelligence that uses an algorithm to perform a human-like function, requiring some degree of reason, planning, problem solving, and even creativity, by which a person would need to leverage human intelligence to accomplish.AI is quite different from traditional software, wh...

We are delighted to share important highlights from the 2020 FOX Global Investment Survey. FOX produces this annual survey of 120 family offices, and offers insights into what these family enterprises are doing right now around investments.While the survey is focused on the end of 2019, it includes the notable effects of Covid-19, as not surprisingly, pandemic concerns grew immensely during Q1 and Q2 of 2020. In fact, when asked which global issue survey participants are most concerned about having a negative impact on their investment portfolio, 97% report that the pandemic is their biggest w...

Why is it when two people experience the same event, one person is overwhelmed and stressed, yet the other person is fine, and might even grow from it? What are these two people doing differently?Now more than ever, as we grapple with the incredible disruption of Covid-19, people are raising the question of resilience – can we come out the other side of trauma changed for the better?Leadership consultant and author Nick Petrie has spent 30 years studying the power of adversity to promote growth. Petrie’s interest in the subject largely stems from a recurring cancer diagnosis, one that he still...

Wealth advisors round the globe are asking, “How do we connect with our clients in a meaningful way, when we can’t be in the same room?” In this new world of increasing virtual reality, screen fatigue is real, and advisors have had to quickly pivot and rethink how to meet the needs of clients, while building trust and staying connected.Even before the Covid era, clients and families were borderless, located around the world. The truth is, although the pandemic forced this increase of virtual experiences, forward-thinking businesses see this as an opportunity for relationship building over the ...

The top three best practices in developing relationships are active listening, emotional intelligence, and building trust. Neuroscientific research on oxytocin – the trust and relationship molecule – reminds us that in every initial interaction with a human being we have two subconscious questions:Do I trust this person?How do I get them to trust me?An innovator in the ultra wealth industry for 30 years, Milton Pedraza, CEO at the Luxury Institute, LLC, promotes achieving not just good, but excellence, in the wealth advisor field. Pedraza believes this is singlehandedly accomplished through cr...

In today’s fast-paced and media-driven environment, wealth advisors see themselves as everything from a trusted partner to an educator to a financial therapist. Today’s advisors must be great listeners, crisis managers and transparent communicators. They must have a high IQ, and an equally high EQ. They must provide accurate, quick information to clients, and also be excellent facilitators of dialogue and connectors of goals and dreams.Savvy advisors are leaning in and embracing these new aspects of their role with clients. They also realize that clients themselves are evolving in a multitude ...

The Covid-19 pandemic has undeniably impacted client service across the globe. As various trends emerge from this new normal, one issue wealth management firms must address is technology. How are the most successful firms approaching technology and innovation? And is my firm on the right track?The pandemic proved the necessity of serving clients digitally. In the last three months we have seen a decade’s worth of technology come to life. The flip to digitization within the wealth management industry happened quickly. Firms who are laser focused on innovation and technology report a smoother jo...

In June, the IRS announced that it will begin a new campaign to audit hundreds of high net worth individuals after they reopen their offices on July 15th, 2020. To learn about who should be concerned and what to do, Scott Winget, Enterprise Market Leader for Family Office Exchange interviews Leigh Griffith, a partner with Waller Law. Leigh recently wrote a related article, entitled “New IRS Coordinated High Wealth Audit” which is available in FOX's Advisor Thinking section of the website. Subscribe to FOXCast on Apple Podcasts here. Listen Now:...

What is the biggest impact your solution is having on family offices? Sage Intacct is a best-in-class cloud accounting and financial management software solution that provides powerful, measurable value to family offices. One family office, a real estate investment firm, gained vastly increased revenue using Sage to more quickly conduct monthly closes and consolidate books. The firm’s asset valuation process is now must faster and can run every quarter versus annually. Another office now conducts their consolidations in seconds versus weeks, and has increased financial visibility and operabil...

What are the primary business challenges that your solution addresses? Founded originally by a family office 130 years ago, Northern Trust is a global financial services company, serving clients across the US and throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. Northern provides holistic family office technology, coupled with deep expertise in custody, fiduciary, investment management and banking to 500 of the most sophisticated high net worth families. This allows for a comprehensive, integrated and customized approach for each family office. Click to learn more about Northern Trust ...

What is the biggest impact your solution is having in family offices? Masttro is a wealth management financial technology company, originally developed by a global multi-generational family office. Today the technology is used by a diverse group of family offices across 24 countries. The platform offers a comprehensive and interactive view of total net worth, across all financial and non-financial assets. Masttro technology empowers clients to access real-time information to make efficient, informed and data-driven decisions, thereby operating their family enterprise in a more cost-effective ...