Last Thursday (9 February) saw the culmination of a three-part collaboration between eprivateclient and Coutts at the latter’s London headquarters, looking at the role private wealth practitioners play in advising wealthy families in the 21st century.
Last week’s event featured two panel sessions examining family structuring in the 21st century and the advisers of the future.
The first panel was moderated by Rachel Harrington, an executive director, Coutts Family Office & Coutts Institute, and featured Georgina James, a partner at law firm Farrer & Co, Heather Tibbo, group head of family office services at fiduciary service provider Crestbridge, Catherine Grum, head of family office services at tax advisory firm BDO Alexander Erskine, a partner at law firm Taylor Wessing and Mark Stokes, a partner and UK family office lead at Big Four professional services firm, Deloitte.
(L-R) Rachel Harrington, Georgina James, Alexander Erskine, Catherine Grum, Mark Stokes and Heather Tibbo
The panel focused on topics including the changing nature of family structuring as families become more globally fluid and face increasing scrutiny, tension among families and finding ways to mitigate any perceived unfairness that can often be a root cause of tension, conversations and decision making across the generations and what purpose and governance mean for families.
The panel also discussed the use of constitutions and charters and getting a balance between settlors and beneficiaries and simplicity of structures, asking whether clients need certain entities and need to use as many jurisdictions.
The second panel – moderated by Stuart May, a director in Coutts Family Office & Coutts Institute – discussed topics impacting advisers of the future such as the changing nature of the industry with increased regulations impacting both families and their advisers across the globe, different generations of clients and the different relationships that younger advisers may have with family members.
The panel also looked at the changing nature of work post pandemic, how clients want advisers to reflect them more and how much of yourself do you bring to work.
(L-R) Stuart May, Daniel Channing, Christopher Cook, Stefan Le Marquand, Alex Fish, Lucy Lukic and Charlotte Matthews
The panellists for this session were Charlotte Matthews, a senior associate at Taylor Wessing, Daniel Channing, a director in family office services at Crestbridge, Alex Fish, an associate director at BDO, Chris Cook, a senior associate at law firm Baker McKenzie, Lucy Lukic, an associate director at Deloitte and Stefan le Marquand, a manager at fiduciary services provider Highvern.
The latest forum followed on from the first (virtual) event in 2021 that focused on multi-generational families, family business, wealth & responsibility and the role of the adviser, and the second, also held at Coutts, in early 2022 - The International Family Forum that discussed tax and estate planning for modern mobile clients and the implications of ESG for clients and advisers.