Presented by Fiona Hindmarsh – Quare
A packed room, and several dial in guests, were treated to a masterly presentation by Fiona Hindmarsh, who has a background in investment banking and the provision of family office services to Ultra High Net Worth families. Her mission is to help advisers in “ordinary” practices bring the benefits of big ticket Family Offices to their “ordinary” (and relatively wealthy) clients.
The Private Family Office (“PFO”) helps families achieve successful intergenerational stewardship of their wealth and family capital so they can avoid the 3G Curse: “shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in 3 generations”. As families grow through natural increase, family wealth needs to grow by almost 15% pa compound, to avoid the family outgrowing its bank account. And because a larger family means more complexity, risk factors increase exponentially, unless they’re carefully managed.
A PFO can play a major role in the management of the family and its wealth. This presents enormous opportunities to advisers to enhance relationships and increase their value add to high quality clients.
Technical services are converging as most professions’ protected status is broken down by technology. To thrive amongst the disruption that’s commoditising traditional services, advisers need to adapt and evolve – from technical experts to broad focus advisers – with a keen eye on the human needs of their clients.
The old concept of “Trusted Adviser” needs to be replaced by the “Agile Adviser” paradigm, where Trustworthiness + Agility + Collaboration overcome Fossilisation in advisers focussed on enhancing their clients’ intergenerational sustainability .
PFO diagnostics provide an informed and ordered architecture of client family needs. The PFO then implements an individually tailored plan to satisfy those needs, cost-effectively.
The process is: Diagnose > Align > Implement >>>>> Sustainable Family Enterprise.
Invariably, PFO diagnostics indicate that each business family’s real needs are very broad, encompassing: commercial, financial, social, individual and family relationships. Based on the requirements of each situation, the PFO mobilises a collaborative team of trustworthy experts, from different disciplines, to address each family’s specific needs.
Next generation engagement, competence and resilience is a huge challenge for many families, especially those that develop significant wealth relatively quickly. Differences between generations in their values and work ethics can be profound. Fear of what the next generation may do with the family’s wealth and other forms of capital can create decision rigor mortis on important issues like ownership and leadership succession.
As if that wasn’t enough, our rapid transition into a technology-fuelled, internet-based society is rapidly taking us to places we’ve never contemplated before, creating a perfect storm of confusion and mistrust. This is precisely where properly trained and equipped advisers can help to save the day, and many days after.
Switched on clients want their advisers to know them well enough to anticipate their needs, and take steps to address those needs in advance, so they don’t become problems. The PFO’s processes and tools can make that a reality.
Quare works with advisers to wealthy families – providing guidance, training, tools and support to help those advisers change their paradigm, and create their own practice sustainability by enhancing their clients’ family enterprise sustainability.
Fiona can be contacted at:
The next FBI Network Meeting is on Monday 27 November 5.30pm – 7.00pm at L13 / 390 St Kilda Road, Melbourne. To RSVP email
Topic: The Agile Family Office – a continuation of the Family Office discussion, led by Jon Kenfield, Founder of FBI.
