You can’t have a conversation about the future of the global economy these days without the subject of US presidential politics coming up. From trade to immigration to tax reform, the policies that Donald Trump implements could drastically impact markets all over the world – and that impact is alrea...

While investing has never been straightforward, investing today in the face of current uncertainty may seem overwhelming.Traditional approaches to constructing a portfolio — those that investors have relied on for decades — appear outdated. From today’s vantage point, one might say that the “a...

One of the fascinating things about philanthropy is its variety. Every philanthropist’s approach is unique based on a number of variables, including resources, talent, interests, and intentions. Some philanthropists follow complex strategies, others may be laser-focused on a single charity or soluti...

As I was preparing for the recent FOX Global Owners Forum, I was thinking about the importance of partnerships for family enterprises and why trust is the essential element in building strong partnerships. I thought it was worth defining trust and illustrating how it influences the different re...

Discussing the impact of wealth on your family can be a difficult conversation to initiate and daunting to guide. Everyone wants the relationship with money to be positive with the expectation that the wealth nourish the interests and entrepreneurial desires of the next generation and that pat...

According to the FOX 2016 Family Office Compensation and Benefits Study, nearly 50% of offices surveyed said that finding and keeping competent, experienced talent was their biggest challenge.

The Family Enterprise is a way of thinking about the true scope of your family. It goes beyond the family business. It is more than the invested wealth. It includes all the family members, the philanthropy, the history, the values, and the future of the family. If you are the leader of a Famil...

Not to be a total Scrooge, but I would be remiss if I didn't raise a cautionary holiday season human capital reminder that your family office holiday party can expose you to increased employer liability. You should begin planning now regarding the policy and communication efforts that will ensure a ...

When the family friend of Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1960s film The Graduate took the young man aside to offer him career advice, he had just one word of advice for the young man: “Plastics.” If there were to be one word I’d offer leaders of family businesses today, it would be “Neuropl...

This is the missing piece and, I hope, the next big thing in technology for financial services and the family office: using automation to create value in the back office.When you look at current trends in financial services, client experience is (quite rightly) seen as the place on which to focus re...

How important is cybersecurity to you?If you’re like many family offices, it’s up there as a top priority: in the latest FOX benchmarking survey on family office technology, data security was cited as the top technology concern of FOX members. But what is your office doing about it?FOX benchmarking ...

While I was working as a consultant for FOX, the topic of leadership succession was often on my mind—particularly whenever I was working with a multi-generational family to facilitate the process for the family’s leadership transition.So for those of you thinking about leadership succession, here ar...

There are few speakers more compelling than Mellody Hobson.Hobson (president of Ariel Investments, chairman of the board for DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., director of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. and Starbucks Corporation) is one of the most innovative thinkers and prominent leaders in th...

In my previous blog post, “Is the Multi-Family Office Pricing Model Broken?”, I noted that there has been a 15% drop in the pricing of wealth management-related services for ultra-high net worth client prospects since 2012. Since then, I heard back from several of you asking about how advisors plan ...

When considering an allocation to emerging markets, investors are almost universally seeking growth.Emerging economies have, indeed, significantly outperformed developed economies, with a GDP growth differential of over 4% per year during the decade from 2006 to 2015, based upon IMF data. For the pa...

At the inaugural FOX Global Owners Forum, I described the evolution that business-owning families experience—and the increased complexity they encounter—as they become family enterprises. Here is a short video that explains what I mean when I refer to Enterprise Families: [[{"fid":"21356","view...

I was recently chatting with longtime FOX member Richard Bakal about the upcoming FOX Family Enterprise Experience workshop. Over the course of our conversation, it became clear that Richard had a very clear grasp and understanding of the Family Enterprise concept, and so I asked him if he would wri...

Pricing at multi-family office firms is under pressure.That is one of the key findings in the 2016 FOX Wealth Advisor Benchmarking Study. Advisors are losing pricing power with their family client prospects, and have been for several years—there has been a 15% drop in the pricing of wealth managemen...

When I was heading up consulting for FOX, I had the pleasure of spending a morning with the staff of a large family office at their three-day retreat in the wilderness of northern Wisconsin. I was there to share some FOX wisdom and best practices, and found it invigorating to be with a group of enga...

On May 18, 2016, the Department of Labor (DOL) updated the Fair Labor Standards Act and expanded overtime eligibility for millions of American workers by increasing the minimum salary employers must pay workers to maintain their exempt status. The new minimum salary level outlined in the DOL's Final...

Family businesses in America generate 50% of the jobs, 64% of GDP and account for 61% of all privately owned businesses. While family businesses are very important to the economic growth of our country, they are not given proper consideration when new laws, regulations and restrictions are imposed b...

The more I learn from working with families, the more I realize that the relationships they have with their advisors are just like dating. One of the most important commonalities is the need to build trust, and letting someone in on all your secrets and vulnerabilities is scary. But if you don’t, th...

It was the best of times. It was the…best of times (sorry Dickens). With significantly raised values since the economic downturn of 2008-2009 and rents at record highs, many of our real estate clients seem to be in fantastic positions to capitalize on a truly fairytale moment for commercial property...

In putting together the FOX Guide to Family Education, we were able to identify a number of innovative strategies to enhance owner engagement and foster an ongoing education program for family members: 1. Central Website for Family CommunicationSuccessful families recognize the importance...

Many of today’s ultra-wealthy philanthropists are looking for smart ways to make their donation dollars work hard for causes they care about deeply.They often value additional guidance on how much to give, through which funding vehicles, to which charities, over what timeframe, and with what purpose...

We all hear how cybercrime is a fast-growing crime, one of the fastest growing crimes and that the financial services sector is a target. There is no single solution to the problem, and unfortunately technology is unlikely to provide one in the near future.Threat protection technology typically lags...