Traditional wills involve what you want your loved ones to have. Ethical wills involve what you want your loved ones to know. This short article discusses how the ancient practice of crafting an ethical will is an essential piece of today’s multigenerational wealth planning.
Taking time to tell family stories, and finding interesting ways to record them for subsequent generations, can serve as a foundation for family members to bond and identify with each other. Stories can engender in family members an appreciation for their own unique “differentness” of identity from those outside of the family. This shared sense of ...
There is the age old stigma that wealth can bring or buy happiness. But, we hear it time and time again: money doesn’t buy happiness. The lack thereof may create unhappiness, but the presence of wealth does not necessarily have the opposite effect. Wealth does not create happiness nor does it provide the meaning of life. It may provide opport...
The windfall of inherited wealth often comes with feelings of guilt and elation, isolation and confusion. No wonder; when the financial gain is due to the loss of a loved one’s life, it feels crass to be excited about the opportunities an inheritance affords. Learning to be comfortable with inherited wealth is a process, a process of moving through...
Understanding what drives behaviors is a starting point for establishing acceptable family norms as well as addressing the unacceptable. It also may provide insight that can help reduce conflict, establish better communication patterns, and increase levels of trust among family members.
Our advice to anyone hesitating to bring about an intergenerational family foundation because the time does not seem right or there are too many family issues to confront is — just get started. There is no better time than now to have the satisfaction of helping others and, at the same time, to give your family the opportunity to grow and to disco...
It is now becoming more common for families to focus their overall estate planning strategy on communicating a family vision expressing the philosophical and moral imperatives of the wealth creators, rather than merely on minimizing taxes. The common structure for providing incentives to encourage or alter behavior is the trust.
Family meetings can serve to update and educate family members on business and investment issues, reinforce family ties, and resolve conflicts. They can also be a lot of fun. But figuring out how to get the family members to the event, how to keep their attention once they've arrived, and how to make it fun in the process is no easy feat.
The key to overcoming the paradoxes is looking at a family not as the sum of its wealth, but as a collection of living, breathing individuals drawn together through their affinity for the family. It requires a willingness to fight the natural impulses that lead other families to return to their shirtsleeves.
In addition to guiding the family office, helping owners to think about issues that impact their family's goals is an important part of the family office CEO's role. While important to all financial families, these principles and practices become more critical as families grow in size and complexity and should be revisited regularly.
Creating an educational experience that fosters peer exchange and involvement entails more work and risk than a simple lecture, but family members will leave the session with practical skills, deepened relationships and enjoyable memories.
After several years of rapid innovation in areas like 5G connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI), health tech, and more, 2025 will be the year when these strides start to bear fruit and new technology goes from potential to proven. To prepare for meeting the tech challenges ahead and claim new opportunities amid the digital disruptions, here are...
Cybercrime has become more advanced over the years, but the level of sophistication could take a quantum leap forward with the explosive growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI) that can easily mimic a real person’s voice or create a scam website that looks exactly like a real one. The threat is keeping security professionals up at night. ...
How far can artificial intelligence (AI) go in the financial reporting ecosystem? Is the vision of an interconnected ecosystem, with value-added and predictive insights, a near reality or still a far-off aspiration? The research conducted among 1800 financial reporting executives across major economies around the world shines a new light on those q...
With artificial intelligence’s (AI) prevalence, companies must consider developing not only an AI strategy but also a robust internal AI policy. Download this checklist for a step-by-step guidance on how to create an internal AI policy for your organization. For the in-depth insights on developing an internal AI policy, explore the Comprehensive Gu...