Episode 64: Luke Jernagan on Building Family Office Services That Go Beyond the Balance Sheet

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Family Business Audiocast on LinkedIn. I'm R. Adam Smith, creator of this Audiocast series as an entrepreneur, investor, founder, investment banker, and board leader the last 25 years. I'm fortunate for my many experiences within the family firm industry, a brief comment on why I created this broadcast. Private companies are a passion of mine. Having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs and having engaged for two decades in deals, strategic transformations, investments, and boards, with an array of fascinating family enterprises, family firms, and family offices, I found this series to offer a useful platform for listeners to hear from veterans, academics, and leaders in the fast family firm ecosystem. Whether you're a family business owner building, running, or advising a family office, or just expanding your family office activities, I hope these conversations are useful and enlightening. And now it's time to turn our attention to our accomplished guests on today's episode. R. Adam Smith: Welcome to the Family Business Audiocast. On this episode, I am joined by Luke Jernagan, director of Family Learning and Culture at Matter Family Office. Luke, it's really awesome to have you here today. Luke Jernagan: Thanks, Adam. Glad to be with you. R. Adam Smith: We'll talk a bit about Luke and we'll get into the podcast. Luke works closely with families at Matter to strengthen relationships, help them identify matters in wealth management, to improve communication, work with them both individually and as a family. His work at Matter focuses on the human side of wealth, guiding families through conversations and structures that allow values and purpose as well as capital to align across generations. Matter Family Office is a expert in this matter. At the family office. Luke plays the central role in developing these programs that support family learning, communication, and governance. He helps families navigate succession planning, shared decision making, and generational transition. This work ensures that wealth supports the long-term family wellbeing rather than just becoming a source of division or capital itself. His perspective offers a very thoughtful lens of cultural and relational foundations that sustain the family enterprise over time. It's a really important role and an incredible multifamily office and wealth management firm. I'd love to talk a bit about Matter now Luke, and just talk about the multifamily office and, its mission and brand and purpose. That would be really terrific. Luke Jernagan: So Matter Family Office is based in St. Louis with offices in Denver and Dallas. All of our clients are multi-generational families. So we don't work with any individuals. We don't work with foundations. We work exclusively with multi-generational families, currently serving about 140 families throughout the United States. As you mentioned Matter is a full family office for each one of our client families. Our four main areas of focus are investment management, wealth planning, coordination, family office services, and all of that is under the umbrella of family learning and communication. R. Adam Smith: Okay, that's a lot. When was the firm founded and, how has it evolved over time? Luke Jernagan: Firm was founded in the late nineties by Kathy Lintz here in St. Louis. We've had quite a bit of growth in the last number of years. Earlier in 2025, we merged with IWP family office in Denver. We currently have a team of a hundred people between our three locations. And really what that has enabled us to do is that in addition to the core services that Matter had originally, which was investments, wealth planning, family learning, we've added a pretty deep bench around accounting, bill pay, and family office services through IWP. R. Adam Smith: Amazing. That's terrific. I have a lot of experience in wealth management and have bought and sold several companies in the space. It's a very intense endeavor. And I see that, that transaction and the Matter growth continues really wonderfully. I like that Matter recognizes, you know, the management of wealth goes beyond the financial side and is very active and intentional decision making across multi-generations. Let's go back to you and just talk about your professional journey and your path into family advisory work and what drew you into working with family offices, and into Matter and just a bit on the Matter culture as well. Given that it's a very elite and well respected firm. Luke Jernagan: Thank you. There are a handful of folks around the country who lead this type of family learning and communication work within firms. Mainly there, there really aren't that many of us. There's no degree program to go to, to be trained in this, and we all joke that each one of us has basically an origin story of how we got here because it's a winding path. For me, most of my career, I've been an Episcopal minister. I was leading a congregation here in St. Louis. St. Peter's Church in Ladue for seven years. Before that I was in Florida and New York. And I was introduced to Matter about five years ago. Began working here four years ago, and in a lot of my pastoral ministry I was in congregations in affluent communities. Had a number of parishioners who were multi-generational family members, who own businesses together or had significant shared wealth. And what I learned in a lot of those relationships was that there were a lot of families for whom their business or their wealth gave them a shared purpose, a shared sense of identity, and brought the family closer together over time. In other families, the management of all of those entities and assets really drove them apart. What attracted me to Matter when I first was introduced to this firm, was that this was a core component of the way they serve families, and that they had a positive encouraging approach for how to help families thrive over generations. R. Adam Smith: It's wonderful, and I can see that. I'm actually doing this podcast from St. Louis, because today's my mom's birthday, and I'm from St. Louis. Luke Jernagan: It's a great city. I've been here 15 years now and love it. R. Adam Smith: You're a successful transplant. Everyone appreciates that. Your enjoyment and broadening out of the, the local human base. My parents actually went to Ladue High School, which is just down the street of South Warson from your church. It's a nice area. Good and the Matter culture, let's talk about that briefly. What distinguishes Matter as an organization these days in this growing industry? Luke Jernagan: So I would say there are several things. One is that within the industry right now, as you alluded to a minute ago, there's quite a lot of churn and M&A activity. One of the things that has been really fortunate for us is that before we had the merger with IWP we took on minority investment from BW Forsyth Partners here in St. Louis. They have a really unique approach as a private equity company in that I think they've bought over a hundred businesses and they've never sold one. And we were really looking for a permanent solution that would allow Matter to be a hundred year family office for hundred year families. Nearly every one of our clients wants to preserve their wealth over three or four or five generations or longer, and they're looking for a firm that's going to be here to serve their family over the long term. And we're now in this really wonderful position to be able to say what Matter is currently, that's what we're always going to be. We're never gonna be sold. We don't need to look to other capital partners. We don't need to look to other solutions down the road. I think the majority of Matter will always be owned by its employees and the team members. But we have this great partner in BW Forsyth to give us permanent capital to, to grow and continue to strengthen the platform we have. But that who we are is who we're always gonna be. R. Adam Smith: That's wonderful. With my background in, in M&A of course I spend most of my career focusing on smaller midsize businesses and family offices and entrepreneurial companies. That structure that has been set up between Matter and its investor is ideal. It's an encouraging approach and perspective and case study for the industry. And of course, I know both of your firms, so I'm a big fan. It's a great outcome. So appreciate you sharing that. Moving to the family relationship side. Let's talk about some of those difficult conversations around wealth and inheritance and the importance of encouraging communication, also vulnerability and harnessing emotional intelligence and courage within the family to create dialogue between the generations. And of course, we know now from research by many experts in the space over years, many of which we had on this podcast, and we talked about this importance of communication, dialogue, vulnerability different touch points. And of course, internal dialogue and bringing external advisors as well. Maybe you wanna talk a bit about that from your perspective. Luke Jernagan: Sure. As I mentioned, all of our clients are multi-generational families. Tell you something funny that you'll appreciate as a St. Louisan. Whenever I'm out in St. Louis at a cocktail party, some kind of social event in our great city of St. Louis, there's a lot of that. People ask me what I do and when I tell them, almost universally people will say, gosh, you must deal with a lot of conflict. And the reality is that maybe it's because family learning and communication is a core component of what Matter does, and I think you see that when you go the homepage of our website. We tend to attract families who would say they get along pretty well. And their focus is on keeping it that way. That said, we do regularly have families who have some kind of conflict or friction. But what we have learned that has really shaped our philosophy is that communication is the primary catalyst for sound decision making and long-term success within a family and a family enterprise. Second to clear communication, I would say is clearly defined values, vision, and long-term goals that basically define the North Star for a family. So when families are able to communicate effectively with one another, they all have clearly defined goals that everybody in the family is working together to achieve. They tend to make much better decisions together over time. They're able to talk more openly together whether it's around opportunities or challenges within the family. And part of the way that we do that at Matter is, every family who signs a contract with us for us to be their family office, within the first few months we lead a communications retreat for the family. That's where we begin every engagement. Shortly after that, we lead a family meeting where we help them identify their values, vision and a five to 10 year set of goals. And that's not just something that's nice for the family culture. It becomes something that is very practical. It informs the family's investment policy statement. It informs their decisions around how they're using their wealth, how they are investing it. We want a family's ability to communicate and those values that we create for them to be practical, strategic, and fully integrated into their business and the way they're working day to day. R. Adam Smith: And on the multi-generational front there are the different ways to prepare the next generation for stewardship, within the family offices and the family enterprises. As you know, I focus primarily on M&A and larger private companies, I see the larger family offices wealth it to be anchored in. Typically they're single holding. Therefore, when majority of the wealth is concentrated in the single holding, there is a lot of pressure and ego and pride and wealth and illiquidity, and legacy in, in that single company. Which then of course makes it tricky to prepare for a sale of that company. Love to hear from you and talk about that preparation, that transition of, let's say balancing the pride and the connection to that single operating company. Right? But then also the ability and willingness to work through that transition to sell that asset and to, we could talk about legacy later, but let it go essentially. What are your thoughts on that? Luke Jernagan: Yeah. I think a lot of it depends on, how the company is owned if it's just one generation that owns it. But at the same time as you talked about everybody has a sense of pride in the ownership of it. Everybody has a sense of identity in their family having that business, especially if the business has the family name in the title. What we try to encourage people to do is to talk openly about it with one another. Long before the sale is realized. I think the worst thing that can happen is for people to find out after the fact that this kind of life altering decision has been made. So to the point that families can, talking about why they would think about selling the business. What the outcome would be for each member of the family to talk about, not just the financial mechanics of this, but what it will mean for the family, for that business to be outside of the family's control, and what it means for them shifting forward with a new entity. R. Adam Smith: Okay, good. Sometimes you at Matter will assist with a family through that transition through the cell and stay with them. At that point they would have more liquidity and they also, need to make decisions on what to do with that liquidity. What are you seeing in the next gen right now with that liquidity? I see a lot of confusion and evolution there in a sense, that the next gen is not looking at wealth the same way. And they might want that wealth to be deployed or given to them with more freedom or independence, more creativity. What are you guys seeing? Luke Jernagan: There's a friend of our firm, Matt Wesley, who spoken about this a lot, who was frequently asked, how much money should I leave my kids? And his response is always, as much as you have prepared them for. That really encapsulates Matters philosophy. So our goal in working with a family through any liquidity event or transfer of wealth is to facilitate those conversations with every member of the family long before the wealth is transferred. So right now there's a lot of emphasis in our industry that's being placed on education for the next gen, and there are all kinds of names out there. People emphasize next gen, or the rising gen, or the emerging gen is needing education. Matter intentionally avoids these terms. Mainly because we feel that next gen education is incomplete. When a family is going through any kind of transition like this, our experience is that every member of the family, every generation is experiencing this for the first time. Everybody has something to learn, and everybody has wisdom or a perspective to contribute that benefits the whole. So when we are working with a family through a transition, we really wanna work with every member of the family to ask them, what do you need to manage this transition well? If you are about to receive significant assets, what do you need to feel confident? Is there technical education that you need? Is there clarity on the role of beneficiaries and trustees and benefactors? And if parents are preparing to transition wealth to their kids, or they know that a big liquidity event is coming, that is going to transfer wealth to their kids through the sale of a business, we will ask them - What are the tangible things that you need to see from your kids to feel confident that they will manage this wealth well? R. Adam Smith: And I like how Matter is geared around this philosophy of that wealth should enhance a person's life, enhance your life, not consume it. That approach is welcome, I think, in this world of wealth and greed and power, right? To create more a humanist side to it. And it's also consistent with your investor and the philosophy of human first capitalism really, by Barry Waymiller and Bob, who I know Bob and I think that human humanist side is important. A very good match, of course. Not to mention it's local. Does that stem a bit from Kathy Lintz and her personal values and approach and distinguishing the firm? I'm sure people would love to hear about that a bit. Luke Jernagan: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is one of the reasons why our partnership with BW was so ideal, is that our philosophies were really perfectly aligned. The way that Barry Wehmiller as a company emphasizes truly human leadership and treating, every member of their team as somebody's beloved child, is the exact same way that we think about serving our families. We wanna treat every member of the family equally, recognizing that each person has values and something to bring. Kathy was way ahead of the game and she began emphasizing the emphasis on human capital, over 20 years ago. She talks about, regularly going to conferences where people kind of dismissed the whole idea of it and didn't take it seriously. To her credit she pushed on, and now Matter is in this wonderful position of having 20 years of experience leading families with human capital. We know how to do it. And not only do we know how to do it, we're now finding that more and more families are looking for this. They really value it. They recognize the need to be able to make decisions together in a way that improves and increases family harmony. I think more and more people are looking at Matter as a leader in the ability to do that. R. Adam Smith: That's good. I also noticed that the, the structure of the firm as a multifamily office is somewhat unique. There are lots of different models within the family office community. Some are just wealth managers, some are open architecture, some are closed architecture, some are hybrid models. There is no singular model. So I think the industry is growing and changing where the labels for a family office or multifamily office, are no longer valid as a singular concept. I see Matter serving three categories. The multi-generational families, of course you're talking about also the entrepreneurs in transition that are basically super entrepreneurs that sell a company, and then there's the single family office that's outsourcing a bit like OCIO type of work. It's really great to see the firm cover the bases. That's very helpful to the client. And on that front I wanna talk about your perspective on the evolving role of the family office. So from a soft power and emotional intelligence perspective. How do you work with the families and what are you seeing within the family office in terms of, let's say, human capital? Let's focus on human capital for a bit. Given that the Matter model is a bit more hands on, a bit more involved in the strategy, the culture the emotional side, let's say as opposed to just the wealth management side. What are you seeing in terms of human capital going on within the larger family offices, the single family offices? Luke Jernagan: So I'll answer this in two ways. I'll talk about what we're seeing as trends among wealthy families, and then I'll talk about what we're seeing as trends within family offices. So currently the game is clearly changing for wealthy families and their advisors. The number of families with a hundred million or more is growing by 9% a year. Amazingly, I mean with, with the economy in the United States currently, it's one of the fastest growing demographic groups. There are currently 10,000 families in the US with a hundred million dollars or more. I think there are over a hundred thousand families in the US with $50 million or more. So the number of families in this category is rapidly growing. The other thing that is changing is that the communities where these families can get together and talk about the impact of the wealth on their family is also growing. So 15 or 20 years ago, there just weren't as many families with this kind of wealth. And there were really no forums where families could get together and talk about shared experiences. Today, there are several, whether it's the Tugboat Institute or Southeast Family Office Forum or Tiger 21 or there, there are a lot of others. There are also more and more publications that are writing about interests that are particular to single family offices and ultra high net worth families. So what's the game that is changing? Is it the demographic is growing and they're talking more openly with each other, and they're not just talking about investments and business strategy. They're talking about how the wealth they have accumulated is affecting their family and they're looking to each other for best practices to navigate this really well. What that has changed in the industry around single family offices and multifamily offices and wealth advisors, is that more and more families are comfortable asking for help around building their human capital. And more and more firms are beginning to realize that they need to find a way to offer this. So within single family offices, as you mentioned, yes Matter serves all multi-generational families. But we serve them in a lot of different ways. There are some families where most of their wealth is tied up in their business and we're not really investing any assets for them, but we're helping them on the wealth planning and coordination creation of estates, trust, accounting, all of those things as well as family learning. There's some families who come to us only for family learning and communication. There are some families who come to Matter just for investments. But another big demographic that's growing for us, as you mentioned, are existing single family offices that are looking to outsource some of their services where maybe they do investments really well or they have a big real estate portfolio and that's their bread and butter. But they will look to us to wrap around the single family office with family learning, communication services, bill pay, wealth planning, and other things. But a big component of that is the family learning. Often in those single family office engagements, we will do the family learning and communication work for the family and their single family office team. R. Adam Smith: Do you all refer to the MFO role for an SFO to come leverage the platform as OCIO. Do you refer to as OCI, or just wealth management? Luke Jernagan: I would think just wealth management. R. Adam Smith: Yeah, that's good. Let's go back to next gen. I'm sure like a third of your clients have children, right? Or half or more. So the next gen is a super important role embedded in their relationship with the family and their wealth and what they're gonna do with it. What they're doing with it, or what they're going to do with it, especially if they sell a company. Because that changes the roles of the children and their wealth creation, and empowers their passions and their personal interests. If you could just talk a bit about that stewardship dynamic and how to align wealth creation with long-term vision. And just maybe some practical takeaways for the sustainability of the family enterprise, related to the next gen. How to involve them, how to encourage them, how to educate them, how to incentivize them. Luke Jernagan: So we've built out a pretty deep curriculum around human skills and technical skills. So on the human skills side, we would say there are things that we've developed around, I'll give you an example, being a welcoming family. So for a family that has shared assets together, what happens when one of their kids gets engaged to get married? How do we think about supporting that person and the family so that they welcome this new person into the family, in a way that we would say expands the family tapestry. As next gen family members are receiving wealth, we want to make sure that they have open communication with, say their parents who have given them this wealth as well as the trustee for the trust, if they have a trust. We want everybody to feel like they are sitting at the same table. All part of the same team so that they think about how that wealth is going to be a value add. Maybe a family member that receives significant assets is really passionate about being an entrepreneur. We want to help them think about how they use their assets to start a business and be successful. Another family member might be really passionate about doing nonprofit work. We want to help them think about how they do that and continue to manage their assets in a way that they are responsible, that they grow over time and they achieve the family member's goals. So really it's about helping everybody be very clear about, not just what their family's long-term goals are and their values and vision, but individually. What an individual family member's values are, what their long-term vision is, how that aligns with the rest of their family, but also how their wealth, how their financial wealth supports all those other things that they want to do. R. Adam Smith: Wonderful. Thank you so much for that. I think we'll have some closing reflections now with you. I'd just love to talk about, the importance of communication. Again, building that culture across the generation within the family office, the family business. We talk about legacy very much on this podcast, that is the anchoring topic that I like to focus on. So if you could just finish your thoughts on legacy. What does it typically mean in the multi-generational families particularly again, when a company is sold, they lose that, that anchoring asset and the emotional tie to the company. But they create significant wealth and the family goes on. I like to encourage people to look at legacy as something that goes beyond the individual company or wealth itself. So I'd love to hear your thoughts and Matters' thoughts on legacy. Luke Jernagan: So our family learning and communication program has had iterations, each one with a different name. Originally it was Family Legacy, then it was Family Culture, and Legacy. Then it was Family Culture, and Learning. Now it is Family Learning and Communication. What we learned about the word legacy is that it was a fraught term for a number of the families that we worked with. Because a lot of folks think of legacy as something that is passed down, essentially created by a senior generation, and passed down to the next generations without each successive generation having input in what that legacy is. Think about this. If you have a grandparent who has endowed a building at a university, or named a museum or a park or something that was their thing, but you're living with that entity being well known with your name on it. Without having much emphasis or ability to shape that legacy. We really wanna help families think about creating a living legacy within their family through shared learning. So a family, as you mentioned, might have the experience, having had a business that gave them identity and a shared purpose, and that business is sold. Well, that doesn't mean that the family's legacy evaporates. They learn from that experience and they're able to take the financial wealth from the sale of that business and deploy it in other ways. Maybe they start new businesses, maybe they start foundations. They can do all kinds of things with it, where the financial wealth allows the other components of the family's capital to continue to grow and flourish. And we really want to help families think about that. Their legacy doesn't end with the sale of the family business, but what they have learned together as a family through the running of that business and the sale of that business, transfers to new enterprises that the family wants to do together. So we wanna really help them think about what each member of the family brings to that family legacy and how they continue to allow that to grow and nurture into future generations. R. Adam Smith: Exactly, the continuity is key. So great, we talked about you and the firm today. Matter just engaged in a significant acquisition, a merger with IWP in Denver. That was really a very successful transaction relationship. So now the firm is in Denver as well as Texas and St. Louis. And as you mentioned, Kathy Lintz is the founder. She's been doing great. I look forward to meeting her someday and getting to know you guys better. And of course Barry Wehmiller and their investment arm is a partner of yours, which is wonderful. It's one of the companies I admire most in the world. Bob and Kyle, friends of mine and great people. I'm very impressed and very happy for you to have that relationship as well. Of course, we've had some St. Louis legends on the podcast including Kyle Chapman, who did a great job in a podcast earlier here. And then recently and soon we have Betsy Cohen, and also Kelly from Burgess Foundation on the podcast. And earlier we've had Richard Wolkowitz as well, who's a friend of mine, a friend of the family on the podcast. And Matter, which is great! So we've really covered some important corners of the city. And I think it's important to do that when you have the opportunity to support a particular community as we have here. Maybe just your last thoughts on your own experience in St. Louis and we can make a plug for St. Louis again on the podcast. Luke Jernagan: Yeah. I grew up in Florida. Never in a million years did I think I would end up living in the Midwest. I've been in St. Louis now for 15 years, and I'm with you. I hope lots of people from around the world listen to your podcast, and I would love for everybody to know how great of a city this is. They should spend time here. They should do business here. They should come to a baseball game or a soccer game, or a hockey game, and see what this city has to offer because it's a great place to live. It's a great place to be. R. Adam Smith: Thank you Luke. We'll wrap up now with Luke Jernagan. We cover the importance of relationships, communication, and culture, and sustaining family wealth, and also across generations, and Luke's work specifically in his role as the consigliere and hand holder for the softer side of the family office experience is really essential. We have to see that role as, as critical to this expanding industry, and to create alignment and sustainability and harmony within the family offices. Luke thanks for today. I hope you enjoyed your time today on the podcast. Luke Jernagan: Adam, thank you so much for the time to talk. I've really enjoyed it. R. Adam Smith: This is R. Adam Smith signing off. Please stay tuned for the next episode of the Family Business Audiocast.