Family Office Exchange - About: Business Owning Families

Business-Owning Families

About 40 percent of families within the Family Office Exchange private network own and operate businesses. These families face the simultaneous challenges of owning a business while planning for the future of the family and the management of family assets.

In addition to providing networking, research, and education through membership, Family Office Exchange offers consulting services that have helped many leading business-owning families identify, establish and maintain appropriate operational structures for the formal management of family wealth. These structures address matters associated with governance, ownership and significant legal considerations that are specific to business-owning families.

Learn more about how Family Office Exchange supports business-owning families:

Networking

Family Office Exchange membership provides several opportunities for networking. Of particular interest to business-owning families and their CEOs are:

Council Membership: By invitation only to sophisticated business owning families within the Family Office Exchange private network. An opportunity to network with a smaller, focused community of true peers.

Investment dinners and roundtables for 2010:

•	February 17,18	Atlanta
•	April 28, 29	Dallas
•	June 2, 3	New York City
•	June 16, 17	San Francisco
•	August 31, September 1	Chicago
•	November 17, 18	New York City

Family Office Exchange Financial Executives Forum: This member gathering brings together family business and family office CFOs, CIOs, and tax and risk managers for networking and to hear the latest updates on tax, risk mitigation, technology, philanthropy and investments. More details

Family Office Exchange Global Family Forum: Open to all wealth owners and family office executives, this forum is designed to address issues related to the rapidly changing world business, economic and political environments.
More details

Family Office Exchange Fall Forum: This premier conference provides an opportunity for Family Office Exchange family office and advisor members to hear from the industry's leaders on current trends and meet in peer groups to discuss practical solutions to challenges. This conference, held annually in Chicago, is open only to Family Office Exchange members.

Research

Some Family Office Exchange research titles of particular benefit to business-owning families and their CEOs include:


	Boundaries That Matter: Managing Family Assets Separately from the Family Business Separating the management of personal financial affairs from company affairs is an essential best practice for all business-owning families. This new white paper from Family Office Exchange outlines the significant benefits that families gain when they establish a separate family office or partner with a wealth management firm that is independent of the operating company.

	A Family Case Study: Selecting the Right Wealth Advisor Selecting the right organization as a partner in the management and oversight of a family enterprise is one of the most important decisions a family will make. This case study of the Wilson family (pseudonym) profiles one family’s thoughtful and diligent search for the right multi-family office to support their financial goals and to manage their family enterprise.

	Family Education Toolkit Developing the next generation is a perennial concern for financial families. As the family grows, so does the need to prepare younger members to take responsibility for sustaining the family’s success. Family Office Exchange’s Family Education Toolkit is designed to help.

Additional titles

Education

Family Office Exchange hosts an ongoing series of webinar/teleconference programs that focus on the critical issues and challenges facing the private wealth management community. Each program includes a structured presentation as well as a question and answer discussion session. For topics of particular interest to business-owning families and their family office CEOs, take a look at our calendar of upcoming webinars.

Advice

Family groups that have thrived for generations have invested their time, talent and resources to ensure that their family has a thoughtful and flexible plan for the future.

	Operational Structures Family Office Exchange works with families to identify and establish appropriate structures for the management of family wealth. Many business owning families initially delegate responsibilities associated with managing family wealth to trusted business executives. While this may seem practical and convenient, it can expose the family to unnecessary legal and privacy risks. Family Office Exchange can illuminate these risks, offer alternatives that are appropriate for the goals of the family, and assist with the transition to the new structure.

	Governance and Strategic Planning Family Office Exchange works with families to define family goals and shared risks and helps to design a governance structure that will allow the family to work effectively to achieve its collective goals. Family groups continually face transitions that test their relationships – with each other, with their advisors or with leaders of the family business. Whether you are facing a leadership change, strategy change or are setting a new direction for the family, Family Office Exchange can help your family navigate the transition by providing a safe environment and a structured process to guide you to a successful outcome.

For more information about membership and resources for business-owning families,
contact Joshua Slusarz.