FOXcast

Today, I’m excited to speak with John Castrucci, National Director of Family Office Advisory Services at the Global Family Office Enterprise Division of RSM and Ben Berger, Partner and Family Office Enterprise Markets Leader at RSM. John has 10+ years of experience at a Big 4 Accounting firm as a practicing family office tax and family office advisory services national director and more than a decade at Private Wealth Management and Multi-Family Office institutions as regional managing director overseeing wealth strategists. Ben is on RSM’s Global Family Office Advisory Board, and has served families and family offices, addressing their full range of needs, including tax, operations, and technology since 1995. John, Ben, and their firm RSM are valued advisor members of FOX, and we are fortunate to have their expertise as part of our membership community. John and Ben work with many family offices to help them design and implement the best operational structure for their needs. They talk about what they are seeing in the marketplace, including how family offices are being structured today, what kind of complexities and challenges they are facing, and how are they addressing them. One growing trend John and Ben highlight among single-family offices is the rise in operational and functional lift-outs. They define what lift-outs are, and describe when they make sense, how they work, and why they are increasingly common among single-family offices. One practical suggestion John and Ben offer for family offices is to create an operational roadmap as a tool to understand where they are and where they need to go to meet the family’s needs. They explain how this self-assessment and road-mapping process work and what its benefits are for family office leaders . John and Ben also suggest that family offices conduct a thorough and systematic cataloguing and design of the services they provide to family members and the family enterprise, and also determine how these services will be sourced – i.e., in-housed, outsourced, co-sourced, etc. They elaborate on this best practice and explain how family offices should strive to apply it. Don’t miss this highly relevant conversation on a topic of high interest to families and family office leaders with two of the leading experts on the subject in our industry.

Today, I am pleased to welcome back to FOXCast Cassindy Chao and Shannon Lundgren, co-founders of Boutique Matchmaking, a high-end personal advisory practice that provides curated matchmaking, date coaching, and strategic consulting for multigenerational families of wealth. Cassindy and Shannon, and their firm Boutique Matchmaking, have been part of the FOX community as official marketing partners for the past year, and we are thrilled to have their expertise available to our FOX members. In this episode, we tackle the topic of marriage and how it is handled among multigenerational enterprise families today. The commanding majority of never-been-married adults say they would like to get married someday, and probably all single people are hoping to at least find their soulmate. Parents often care about this topic at least as much as their single children do, and both generations want to see the other find happiness. Cassindy and Shannon share their experience on how families approach this important subject and describe the major shifts in norms, beliefs, and attitudes towards marriage among families of wealth. Last time we spoke, we talked about the cloud that often hangs over the topic of romantic relationships and nuptial happiness, but this seems to be changing – people are increasingly open about acknowledging the importance of romantic relationships and nuptial happiness and are willing to utilize all the tools at their disposal to find the right person. Cassindy and Shannon talk about how family members – both young and older ones – can get the sophisticated help and best resources available to them in their quest for romantic happiness and a lifetime partner. One practical consideration for multigenerational families is how the family’s values can or should play a role in the process of educating and helping younger rising-gen members find their romantic partners? And conversely, there is the reality of different perspectives that exist among generations, and the likelihood that the younger generation might have different worldviews or even values. Cassindy and Shannon offer some tips on how to manage this reality and rising complexity. Finally, Cassindy and Shannon provide their advice and suggestions for parents who want to give their input on their children’s choice of a romantic partner, while at the same time, ensuring that both parents and adult children can set healthy boundaries regarding dating advice and involvement. Enjoy this insightful conversation with two of the most experienced professionals on a topic of high importance for all members of multigenerational families.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Kristen Oliveri, editor of Crain Currency, a family office publication for families managing wealth and legacies. Kristen has built a successful journalistic career in the wealth-management and family-office space by creating exciting content, establishing business connections, and curating high-touch, content-driven events. Prior to Crain Currency, she held a number of content and editorial roles, including Director of the Family Office Institute and Content Director of the Family Office Network at Institutional Investor. Family offices and the media are not exactly a match made in heaven. Kristen leans on her ample experience over the past couple of decades, to describe how enterprise families and family offices have managed public relations and their interactions with the media, especially given the natural tension between their significant presence in and impact on their communities and their desire for privacy and discretion. With younger family members starting to play a role in multigenerational family enterprises, attitudes to the media are changing and so is the family’s tolerance for their presence in the public eye. Kristen shares her views on how families’ preferences and interactions with the public have evolved in recent years. Kristen has had great success working with families and helping them share their stories in a fair, nuanced, and complete way, without betraying the privacy and safety of their individual family members. She offers her advice and suggestions for enterprise families who are either being thrust into the public discourse by exogenous factors or are considering a more proactive stance toward their public image – or even intentionally developing a family brand. Kristen also has some tips and suggestions for the reporters and media outlets who are increasingly focusing their attention on multigenerational families and their enterprises, philanthropies, and family offices. She provides practical advice to journalists looking to cover enterprise families and their impact on society, the economy, and the world. Enjoy this informative conversation with one of the best recognized and prolific journalists in the family office and family wealth space.

Today, I am excited to speak with René Sonneveld, a Leadership and Family Business Coach and Honorary Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Uruguay. René a has rich history as Managing Director, CEO, and Chairman at Fortune 500 companies and family-run businesses across four continents, and he now leverages this vast experience to coach leaders and corporate teams. Besides leadership and family enterprise coaching, René is deeply committed to sustainability. He aims to create a green hydrogen supply chain from South America to Europe. Throughout his career, René has served many multigenerational families and has found that often, as he puts it, there’s “an elephant in the room” that gets in the way of families collaborating effectively and achieving their goals. He talks about what “the elephant in the room” is and how to best approach it and, eventually, dispense with it. René eventually discovered coaching and dedicated his life to this noble calling. He shares his beliefs on why coaching is the best tool to empower families to succeed and how it helps eliminate “the elephant in the room” that holds them back. One technique René deploys in his coaching work is what he calls “the icebreaker”. He describes how it works and what the benefits families and family enterprises can reap from this practical tool. Families and family enterprises are complex organisms, commonly involving a great number of players who are entangled in complicated and often emotionally charged relationships. These can include family leaders, blood family, children, in-laws, advisors, to mention just a few key constituents. René offers his advice on when to bring in whom in the coaching process with the family in order to achieve the best results. Enjoy this insightful conversation with a world-renowned leadership coach and family advisor.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Özge Doğan, Founder of Karman Beyond, Türkiye’s first independent multi-family office. Karman Beyond is a boutique advisory service for leading families in Turkey (and beyond) and Özge manages all the relationships with the firm’s client families. Özge is a next-gen member of a prominent Turkish family enterprise, and she founded her multi-family office firm in response to her own family’s wealth management needs – and the lack of an available solutions in Türkiye. We start with a quick overview of family enterprises and family wealth in Türkiye and Özge describes the most common profiles of enterprise families in the country, as well as the most pressing needs and challenges faced by enterprising families, and how are they dealing with these challenges. Özge outlines the current context of the family wealth and wealth management industry in Türkiye, and she talks about the ecosystem of family wealth advisory firms, service providers, and peer communities that serve multigenerational Turkish families. One practical advice Özge offers to Turkish families – which is probably relevant across other cultures as well – is to understand and embrace the next-generation mindset, including the generational differences in values, preference, investing styles, etc. Can you talk about that and how families can successfully apply this mindset. Another practical reality for families in Türkiye, and all over the world, is their increasing interest and exposure to global assets and jurisdictions, including investing, operating, and relocating across multiple geographies globally. Özge shares her views on the client needs and behaviors she is observing, and offers her recommendations for the knowledge, services, and resources families should seek to be successful in their global strategies. Please enjoy this enlightening conversation with a young rising-gen owner and founder of the first multi-family office in Türkiye.

Today, I am delighted to welcome Scott Peppet, President of Chai Trust Company, the private company that administers trusts established for the benefit of members of Sam Zell’s family and that serves as the Zell family office. Scott was a Professor of Law at the University of Colorado from 2000-2018, where he focused on bargaining and dispute resolution, transactional law, and the complexities of multigenerational family enterprises. He is also an ordained priest and transmitted Soto Zen teacher in the related lineages of Kobun Chino Otakawa and Keibun Otakawa. He practices at the Hakubai Zen Center in Boulder, CO. Scott is a good friend of FOX, and he and the Chai Trust Company are long-time valued members of FOX and are very generous and insightful contributors to the FOX community. Throughout his career, Scott has seen and participated in his fair share of enterprise family journeys and has had the opportunity to observe and synthesize what it takes for families and their family offices to be successful. He shares his views and accumulated wisdom on the subject of what it takes for a family to be successful in the long run. We at FOX think and talk a lot about the concept of time capital – how we all deploy our most precious and finite asset. Scott points out that a simple yet powerful way to assess and guide the strategic role and effectiveness of a family office is to look at how it allocates and spends its resources – especially, how the family office leaders and employees spend their time. He describes the importance of – and potential cognitive dissonance associated with – how family office time capital is managed and expended. One practical suggestion Scott offers to families and their family offices is to invest in cultivating, educating, and engaging the whole ecosystem of human and intellectual capital that serves the family – not just the family members, but also the family office employees, and even all the external advisors who are integral to the family enterprise. To up-level and educate an entire system is such a tremendous undertaking and families are not the only ones who can and should lead and invest in it. All the other participants in the ecosystem also have a part to play. Scott provides his views on what family office executives and employees, as well as external advisors, should do to ensure the entire enterprise family ecosystem is flourishing. This is a must-hear conversation with one of the most prominent and celebrated thought leaders, practitioners, and enterprise family leaders in the family wealth and family office field.

Today, I’m excited to speak with Brian Argrett, Chair of the Board Directors and President and CEO of Broadway Financial Corporation and its banking subsidiary City First Bank, the largest Black-led minority depository institution (MDI) in the nation. Impact investing is an increasingly important topic for enterprise families and family offices. Our conversation today focuses on a truly unique and attractive avenue for positive impact available to enterprise families and family offices, which is made possible thanks to the Advancing Communities Together Deposit Program, or ACT – an innovative program that provides an easy and fully insured way for family offices to invest their excess cash directly in the financial institutions dedicated to lifting up communities in need. Brian describes the greater goals of the ACT program, why it is needed, what the issues or challenges it is meant to address, and what opportunities it is designed to unlock. The ACT Deposit Program was launched in the summer of 2024 by the national trade associations representing Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs). Brian explains how the ACT program works and defines the role of CDFIs and MDIs in delivering the intended impact and benefits of the program. He shares his views on why this program has strong appeal to family offices and enterprise families. Delving into the practical details of how the ACT program functions, Brian details the mechanics of the program, including some of the key elements family members and family office executives should be aware of, such as minimum deposits, interest rates earned, minimum maturity, etc. Brian also talks about what families and family office leaders can do to get involved with and take advantage of the ACT program. He offers an overview of existing resources and tools for them to get educated and ready to participate and contribute to the positive impact of this program. Enjoy this timely and informative conversation with a leading champion of the ACT program and long-time thought leader and practitioner in the impact banking space.

Today, I am delighted and honored to welcome Jason Ingle, founder and Managing Partner of Third Nature Investments, an integrated impact capital platform investing in the most promising innovations to address urgent and massive challenges we face within our most critical earth systems. Jason is a 5th generation member of the Ford family. He currently serves as the board chair for the family office and as a member of the investment and governance committees and is also a member of the family council and previously served as the chair, and he serves as a board director of the Ford Fund, the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company. Jason is a founding member of The ImPact, a membership network of family enterprises, including family offices, foundations, and businesses, that are committed to making investments with measurable social impact. The Enterprise Family/FO space is full of important and sometime baffling polarities – one prominent one is between promoting the “togetherness” of the family as a whole while concurrently enabling the “individuality” of each family member. Jason talks about how his family, and himself personally, dealt with this polarity of togetherness vs. individuality and found the right balance. FOX research among rising-gen family members shows that finding their role in the enterprise, and by extension their purpose more broadly, is a top priority – and often a pain point – for emerging family leaders and younger family members. Jason’s journey took him from being less involved and connected with the family enterprise to eventually playing a key role in the governance and leadership of the family. He shares how his journey unfolded and what he learned from it. One significant outcome of Jason’s personal journey within his family enterprise was his discovery of impact investing – and impact more broadly – as a core value and purpose to which he concluded he wants to dedicate his time, attention, and capital. He shares how that process worked and how he landed on this most important point of relevance to himself personally. Jason offers his suggestions and practical tips for family leaders and family members who are thinking about effectively catalyzing their rising-gen members and getting them more actively involved in the work and life of the family as a shared enterprise. Impact is possibly the most important priority and objective most enterprise families arrive at. Jason provides his suggestions for family members who are looking to either start their impact journey or become more involved in the global impact movement. He also describes the organization he is part of – The ImPact – and how families can get involved, contribute, and benefit from it. Don’t miss this unique conversation with a prominent family leader, philanthropist, entrepreneur and impact investor who is an active and generous member of the FOX community.

This week, I am pleased to welcome Dale Buckner, CEO and President of Global Guardian, a leading provider of best-in-class security, medical and travel-related solutions. Dale is a decorated Combat-Commander with multiple combat tours and classified operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti and Cuba and executed deployments to Russia, El Salvador, Honduras, Chile, Panama, Kuwait, and Qatar. He is a thought leader in the industry with recent features on CNN, Politico, NPR, The Hill, Bloomberg, Forbes, and other major media outlets. Dale, and his firm Global Guardian, are Premier Risk Management Resource Partners of FOX and we are excited to have the unique expertise they bring to our membership community. Having been involved in managing global security risks for the better part of 2 decades, Dale offers his analysis of how the threat environment has evolved for multigenerational enterprise families over the past 20-30 years. We are in a global environment punctuated by domestic polarization, regional conflicts, more frequent and destructive natural disasters, to name just a few of the major disruptors impacting families. Dale shares his views on the top threats that enterprise families and their family offices face today. The most common risk management tool families rely on is insurance. But how much can insurance actually do to mitigate the most significant risks families face? Dale goes over the limitations and loopholes of insurance coverage that families and family office need to be aware of. Technology now permeates everything the family office does, which both fuels remarkable advancements of productivity, speed, and quality of services the family can benefit from, but also creates significant new risks. Dale describes the current state of digital risks and cybersecurity for family offices and the families they serve. This is a highly insightful and instructive conversation with a deep expert, hands-on operator, and thought leader in the field of security and risk management for enterprise families and family offices.

This week, I have the pleasure of speaking with Stacy Allred & Holly Isdale. Stacy is a Managing Director and Head of Family Engagement and Governance at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. She serves on the faculty of the UHNW Institute and teaches for the Investment & Wealth Institute® (CPWA®) program. Holly is the founder of Wealthaven, a family office consulting firm she founded in 2010 after 20-plus years on Wall Street. She is also a Senior Advisor with Lansberg Gersick, a global consulting firm advising significant families on governance and succession planning. Holly teaches at Wharton and Cornell in their Executive Education programs for family office and family business members, including a new Wharton Family Office program in January 2025 for Family members seeking to explore family office governance and operation. Stacy and Holly are both members of Collaboration for Flourishing Families (CFF) and the Purposeful Planning Institute (PPI). They are both active in Family Firm Institute (FFI) and each hold certificates in Family Business Advising and Family Wealth Advising. In their work with families, Stacy and Holly are commonly brought in during a time of transition – between generations, between life stages, between wealth structures, between business, investments, or philanthropic activities – and they reflect on the most common challenges, considerations, and opportunities they believe families in transition face. Stacy recently co-authored The 10x10 Learning Roadmap: Advancing Flourishing in Families of Wealth with Stephen Goldbart & Joan DiFuria, who were on this podcast a couple of months ago. Stacy gives our audience a quick refresher on the 10x10 framework and points out how it can help families in transition and enable their long-term success. The 10x10 Learning Roadmap is a powerful and practical framework, but real-life situations sometimes don’t lend themselves perfectly to even the best of conceptual frameworks. Holly talks about how families and their advisors can “work around the framework” whenever they face complexities and idiosyncrasies resulting from their unique DNA and circumstances. Having talked about how family members and their external advisors can benefit from the 10x10 Learning Roadmap, Stacy focuses on the other entities and constituents that comprise the broader family enterprise, such as the family office, the family council, the various committee members, the trustees, etc. She provides her insights into how these diverse players who have widely ranging roles within or in support of the family can utilize the 10x10 framework to help the family flourish. Enjoy this illuminating and instructive conversation with two of the best recognized and celebrated practitioners and advisors in the family wealth and well-being space.