Family Governance

 

Our approach is grounded in the belief that families can achieve long term success across generations through careful stewardship of the family wealth.  Family wealth includes not only the financial assets of the family but the human and intellectual capital as well.  This philosophy, articulated  by noted author and counselor James E. Hughes, Jr. in his books, “Family Wealth, A Compact Among Generations,” and “Wealth, Keeping it in the Family,”  resonated so powerfully with us and many of our client families that we have established our family governance practice to embrace its principles.

The Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, a pioneer in the study of human capital, underscores its importance because “people cannot be separated from their knowledge, skills, health, or values in the way they can be separated from their financial and physical assets.”

Our approach begins with a review of the family’s existing culture, attitudes, and values, carefully measured and reported back to the family group along with recommendations for a process of ongoing governance and stewardship focused on protecting family wealth by sustaining the family’s human capital.