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The Greek philosopher Plutarch asked: “People, where are you going? Doing everything to gain wealth, but not caring about your children, who will inherit it?” If the rising generation is supposed to take the responsibility of managing the family wealth, there should be enough time for them to learn and prepare. To avoid raising a bunch of “trust-fund kids”, the family needs to define clearly what they expect and invest time and resources to help…

Family business conflict is often over long-standing concerns relating to roles and contributions to the company as well as family issues like rivalry and jealousy, and can simmer just below the surface for decades. Nothing can undermine a successful family business faster than an unresolved conflict among its owners. One thing that distinguishes conflict in family businesses is that the owners make the rules and therefore can also break them. Family squabbles are usually highly…

Successful entrepreneurs are often control freaks. But they can’t control whether their children can take over the business or the assets and keep them growing. Entrepreneurs may be visionaries, but sometimes it takes an external advisor to identify choices that they might otherwise overlook. Transferring full control of an operating asset to children isn’t the only option. Neither is continuing the way things have always been done just for the sake of it. The drive…

The cobbler’s children go barefoot: Advisors don’t spend enough time thinking about their own succession and exit planning. Like most people, many are too involved in the day-to-day work. But like family businesses, exit planning for advisors is not just a financial transaction, but is also the chance to leave a legacy.  The wealth management industry is ‘old’ – the average age of financial advisers today is about 55, with 20% of them 65 or…

The pandemic is not over, but after nearly a year, we know a lot more, and there are reasons for hope. There are feelings of ambiguous loss, of knowing we can’t go back (and perhaps not wanting to), but missing who we were and what we had “before”. As 2020 draws to a close, we may be catching up with family, in some cases after being separated for a long time. It is a time…

A successful wealth transition means the family stays intact and they maintain control of the assets. Ideally, you’d like both. Some families can only achieve one, and some end up with neither. People often setup their estate plan so that it will avoid tax and preserve wealth, but they’re really not paying attention to the impact of their plan on the next generation. The biggest risk to their assets is not the market or the business or…

There are several good reasons why family enterprises should care about making active efforts toward gender equity. If they want family members to be involved, their talent pool is limited, so why waste 50% of their potential? A more diverse leadership team will reap the same benefits that have been noted in the non-family business world. Finally, family cooperation, collaboration and harmony are important to families, so excluding women from paths to leadership can lead…

Different places around the world continue to deal with the challenges of COVID in different ways. Whether they are experiencing a second wave, or varying degrees of opening up, many of the challenges and opportunities are still present. The issues that have arisen through the pandemic are primal, and place the fragility of life in sharp relief. Our instinctive responses also also primal: fight/flight/freeze, and we can remain locked in such states for a prolonged…