RECAP: 2018 FOX Fall Enterprise Forum

Global Family Voices: Perspectives on Future Opportunities and Challenges

Moderator
Miguel Lopez de Silanes Gomez, Managing Director, International Market, Family Office Exchange

Panelists
Maarten de Groot, Chief Executive Officer, Eligius BV
Jeff Steiner, Head of Family Office, Mutual Trust

Session Description: 

Family leaders and office executives from different parts of the world shared their views on how global trends will impact their role in the family enterprise.  The panel discussion centered on how families plan to manage risks and disruption in the next decade, and how we prepare family leaders to deal with the ambiguities they will face. 


"As we look forward, we will live in a more digital world. More interactions digitally. All becoming global citizens. Millennials have different expectations of advisors. Not traditional in any sense of the word."
- Jeff Steiner

"Ask the right questions. Adapt to change because it will be there, and we can’t foresee it. The answer will be you need to have great thinkers."
- Maarten de Groot
Key Takeaways: 

An Australian family’s approach to addressing uncertainty and risk and preparing the family for the future:

  • The family accumulated wealth in 1800s-1930s in agriculture, real estate properties, and zinc mining. There are 300+ family members across 7 branches – the family office helps them with wealth management, risk planning, governance, and sharing information and networks.
  • They engaged an external team to identify and navigate risks and had to determine what their appetite was to risk. They did scenario planning to implement an investment policy outlining their risk appetite and asset allocation. The bottom line was to determine the purpose of their wealth.
  • The combined pot of capital is now being directly invested in ways that contribute to family values (philanthropy, sustainability), but individual family branches all have different passions, therefore capital is set aside for each branch.
  • The family has goals and responsibilities in place and are starting to tailor education plans to individual family members, but it takes time and effort to get it right.
  • If succession forced upon you it’s important to have the governance in place. Strategic thinking and scenario planning are vital.

A European family’s approach to addressing uncertainty and risk and preparing the family for the future:

  • European family built their wealth from the business in the 1950s. They are low profile and have a strong risk objective with no return objective. They want to have personal impact. G2 preparation was not up to par, therefore the family office was established.
  • The office established governance policies and talked to other wealthy families around the world to determine security best practices. They took stake in a company led by three top-level security experts to help wealthy families with their security issues. Today they are tracking dark web mentions to mitigate security risks.
  • The family’s biggest challenge is getting all the family engaged in the decision making for their future. The family wants to ensure that G3 (17-23 years old) are prepared for the future by helping them grasp the importance of financial, investment, operational, reputational, and family council decision-making. It’s important to let them make mistakes and learn and grow from them.

The role of the family office executive will change over the next 20-30 years. We are all becoming global citizens. Millennials have different expectations of advisors. Adapting services will be most important. The future of the family office industry will be a virtual office. Ask the right questions and adapt to change. It’s vital to have great thinkers in your family office, as offices will get smaller with a higher concentration of talented people.
 

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