Fees, Staying In Your Lane, and Why The Next Generation Matters Most

0:04I would say that if one's concerned about the fees, a lot of SFO's balance the fees where they hire the top notch people for the strategies. the$2 ,000 an hour lawyers for the strategies, and then more of a mid-range to manage the projects as they go on year to year. So you don't need to pay$2 ,000 an hour for every single part of the project, for every email, every phone call. Absolutely. We don't have that much time, but I want to get this one question. I want to start with Elodie. Most family offices have a strict lane where they made their wealth, right? and they tend to stick to that lane.

0:46So if someone made money in real estate, they're going to invest primarily in real estate or private credit or agriculture, whatever it is. But what happens, since you work with so many family offices, what happens when you have something when you're too rigid, right, and you're missing out on generational opportunities? Like there's family offices that probably, you know, they looked at deals like OpenAI in the beginning, right, or Anthropic, something like that where it's absolutely moonshot, massive generational returns. How does a family office look at things like, you know what, we're going to stay in our lane, but how do they get out of that group thing, so to speak, of not missing opportunities like this?

1:28Love your input on this. I love this question because it links, in my opinion, to the role of the next generation. For example, the Swiss family I represent, They date back from the 16th century. They have a family constitution that's kept in the Vatican. So they can talk about constitution and about transgenerational wealth. And what built the resilience of the family is really relying on the next generation to be an engine for innovation. To really get them involved. To get them involved first and really be a two-side learning journey. It's not just the founders, the fathers, or the older generation who can teach the next gen, but it's also the next gen who has this role of bringing innovation, bringing their own perspective on new sectors where the family initially was not maybe really involved in.

2:32So I think that that's really an opportunity. And it can be done only if, again, there's the right foundation to do it. Because if you have a family office that's not professionalized enough, if you don't have the right governance, the right processes in place, you are functioning basically as a family. Usually dad decides and that's it. and that's not enough in the frame of a family office. You have to have procedures and processes and opportunities for everyone to really express themselves and bring this innovation part, these opportunities and this openness to the world. One thing I will say, because I know we're finishing up here, is any sponsors in this room, you have to understand something that I made a mistake in my first three months talking to their families.

3:28I figured they're intelligent, they're successful, they know everything. Well, the reality is they spent the last 40 years in chemicals. They don't understand real estate and hedge funds and private equity, right? And there's different creations for that. So a lot of that is, one, do I trust the person? It goes back to trust again, right? Because if I trust somebody, I'm willing to do something with them. And then also other families and get their take on it you know because the first thing I was told for every family I worked for was I had three responsibilities don't lose money don't lose money don't lose money that's the key I know we're out of time and I'd like to get at least possibly one question from the audience I had a different situation ours was don't lose money but 10x the monies that's why sometimes that's a better one thank you very much fantastic panel thanks thanks A round of applause for our panelists.

4:22Hi, I'm Richard C. Wilson. Our community has closed over$1 billion of transactions. We have over 16 million registered members across 100 plus LinkedIn groups. And I own billionaires.com and run Family Office Club. Over 19 years, we've hosted 300 live events. I've built 50 of our own AI tools. And between the billionaires I've interviewed, this is into millionaires who have spoken on stage and over a thousand decamillionaires who have presented we found there's three things that really can build your wealth. Proximity, super intelligence, and scale. That's exactly what we provide at Family Office Club.

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