The Evolution of Family Wealth Management with Henry Brandts-Giesen

Speaker A: Welcome to today's episode of Family Office Intel. Uh, my guest today is Henry Brandt Giesen. Henry is a partner at Denton's um, global family office practice. He's the global co chair of the family office practice. He's been working with family offices and business owners and entrepreneurs for many years, uh, specializing in supporting them, uh, through governance issues, cross border issues, as well as just overall family office advice. So uh, you know Henry, I really appreciate you joining me here today.

Speaker B: Thanks Eddie. It's great to talk with you as well. We talk a lot, uh, sort of in private and uh, we share ideas and collaborate on projects and thought leadership. But uh, it's good to uh, to also uh, speak in this forum as well. So thank you for the invitation.

Speaker A: Oh wonderful. Well, thanks Henry. I think what I would love to know, and I think others would love to know, is how did you get involved in the family office space in general?

Speaker B: Yeah, ah, great question Eddie. And like many things in my life, it wasn't especially strategic or at least not in the early days. I've become a lot more strategic uh, as I've gotten older. But certainly when I was younger I, um, I, I didn't really know what a family office was. It wasn't something I, I trained for or aspired to. I went to law school and became a lawyer and joined a big, big law firm and rotated around that firm and into different areas from real estate to commercial to corporate to litigation. Never really found my niche of my groove. And then I um, again more by uh, accident rather than design, found myself working in an offshore law firm, uh, a big uh, offshore law firm, uh, called Muront, actually, uh, um, based in Jersey in the Channel Islands. So I went over there and got really uh, great training, but in trusts and estates law and tax law, ah, relevant to private wealth, not so much in um, family office consulting. It was very jurisdiction specific and um, and I, I viewed my clients very much through the, through the lens of a lawyer. Um, and I did that for 10, uh, or 12 years, uh, across sort of four different jurisdictions and became, you know, qualified as an attorney in those jurisdictions and practiced that law. But it was really only about 2016, 17 that I really started to focus on family office work. I mean during all those years that I was practicing as a trust attorney, I was exposed to family offices. And especially in the later years, I think as wealth began to scale those years between sort of in the late or 2010 onwards, I saw wealth really scale. Before that, a lot of wealth was uh, a lot of the advice I was doing was really for the mass affluent rather than family officers. But over the last 25 years we've seen wealth scale and so I got exposed to a different type of client during those years who were what became known as family officers. We didn't necessarily know what that term meant at the time uh but that's what uh I became exposed to them. But I wasn't really doing consulting work as I am now. It was more trust in the states works. I need it really in the latter part of the 2010 sort of 2016 onwards that I sort of stopped looking at things purely as a lawyer and through a jurisdictional prism and stepped out into the world of consulting uh, which is what I do now with you and other colleagues within Dentons but also in other firms around the world in an open architecture environment.

Speaker A: So Henry, because you've seen it for so many years uh and have watched things uh, evolve and certainly you mentioned scale as an issue. What other kinds of things have you seen change over that time period as you've been working with, with family offices?

Speaker B: Well I think uh. Yeah firstly as I said scale. So this, this consolidation and concentration of wealth from people who were met who what we probably now call members of the mass affluent whether through inheritance or through uh acquisition or through underlying asset class inflation, uh we've seen that wealth scale and become concentrated. So that's one trend I've noticed And with that scale comes increasing complexity. And that's really where uh, I think the family office industry uh has evolved in that complexity, managing that complexity, uh, wrangling the data, the helping with decision making and, and reporting compliance and, and for, for the families. So that's uh, what I call the professionalization of family wealth. Um and that's a trend I've seen. Another significant trend I've seen in the 25 years or so I've been doing this is um, the emphasis on compliance. So there was a period uh, back in the sort of pre uh 2000 era I suppose before regulation where wealth was often structured in a way as to hide it possibly from revenue uh authorities or from others. And that was seen more as a sport rather than a crime. Um whereas obviously uh social attitudes have evolved, regulations, laws have evolved and now we're and have been for basically my entire career really in an environment where private wealth is highly regulated and highly transparent and extremely compliant uh with all relevant tax laws as well. So it's not about, it's not a tax planning um, or about gaming the system. It's Very much about structuring organization and governance and that professionalization, making private wealth a bit more like uh, organizing it a bit more like a business and within that organizational structure having decision making protocols and procedures much like a business would have.

Speaker A: So on that backdrop you talked about, you viewed it working with family offices as a lawyer and now are doing certainly more consultative work and working with families um, in that nature. How does that work, uh, given your traditional training to working with uh, families in that capacity and what's really driven you towards that um, as you're working with entrepreneurs and families uh, that have been quite successful.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's not easy Eddie, to make that transition. And first of all you've got to be aware of uh, be quite self aware about how you operate. And as lawyers we learn in a particular way, um, very risk averse, very focused on, on our clients and what, what's best for them as individuals. And we have ethical duties again which constrain us um, in, in what we can do. So it is quite difficult. And I'm unlearning, still unlearning a lot of what I learned as an attorney and trying to apply different intellectual and, and professional disciplines like uh, systems thinking, uh, design thinking, um, project management, uh, thinking and systems and processes and collaborating with other experts who aren't lawyers, who have better skills than me in those areas where I just wasn't trained. So management consultants for example and non lawyers like yourself who, who uh, that's been really important for me and a big learning for me and I'm learning a lot of that um, those skills and I have learned a lot over the last few years just through self directed learning. Um, so rather than, but I still try and keep up with the black letter core technical legal work because I do still have to do that from time to time. But increasingly um, I use my team to do that black letter legal work or I use other law firms depending on where I'm practicing around the world. And I just try and focus more um, not necessarily on what's best for the person sitting in front of me in the room, uh, but for the, for the broader family and how, how we can achieve predefined objectives, uh, whatever they may be.

Speaker A: So what does a typical engagement look like for you on the consulting side? And is it uh, something that's typically short term or is it something that you're working with the family for months and years? Like what does that typically look like for you?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's typically uh, a project, a long term Project and, and so I uh. All my work really comes from referrals from existing clients or from, from other professionals, people like yourself Eddie. We pull each other into jobs around the world. We all kind of know who does what, uh, you know, who's good at this sort of work or who does this sort of work around the world. And increasingly we get, we pull each other in to projects regardless of which platform we might be working on, uh whether it be a legal platform or a consulting platform or a big four platform. I think those of us that, that are committed to doing this well focus on the talent and getting the right people around the table for the job. And so I get pulled into all sorts of jobs like that around the world. Um, and sometimes I'll be the project manager, um, and sort of pulling it all together and I'll be the primary point of contact and other times I'll just be a member of the team so somebody else will be managing the project. And it's probably um. For the bigger jobs I'm probably more likely to be a team member rather than the project manager. For smaller jobs, um, I can quite you know I've got the capacity to project manage but for the big um, sort of uh, m. Big, big family businesses, multi billion dollar families, uh, often it'll be a management consultant that will be, will be leading the project and I'll be there um, to fulfill part of the scope.

Speaker A: And what does that scope look like?

Speaker B: Yeah, so, well it's normally. There's normally four phases to the work I do. So it'll be uh, exploration, uh design implementation and ongoing monitoring or ongoing support. And in every case the objective will be focused mostly on professionalization uh, of the family wealth. So consolidating just often it will just be working out what the family owns, where, where it's owned, how it's owned, uh, and making sure that there is a. Stairs that there is that the structure, the ownership structure is fit for purpose. That's, that's uh. And then it'll be looking at uh, how ah, the opera be looking at the operational structure is that um, most effective. There'll be a tax compliance uh, and optimization element to it. Um, and there'll be. Succession planning is a big part of what I do as well. And so um, often in those big projects my focus will be on succession planning, making sure all the assets are covered. And when I say covered I mean either housed in a trust or covered by a will, uh, or could be multiple wills uh depending on where they are around the world. And there is a, there is a plan for continuity of ownership between the generations of the family upon the death of the patriarch or the matriarch, uh, at the time. And then so once we got that sort of ownership plan in place, uh, we then look at the operational structure, we look at the governance. Who's governance basically boils down to in a family context? Boils down to how do we make decisions together, how do we communicate and how do we solve problems uh, together. And so making sure that there are um, governance structures and the right people making decisions uh, in those ownership structures that we put around the assets. Um, and then we look at things like wealth, technology, uh, the process stuff the software, um, within the system and um, things like that. So that'll be sort of an exploration. We look at this current state of affairs, what's the current state? And often it's really disorganized. Even some of these multi billion dollar families which own uh, operating companies that we hear of every day, household names. Often they're quite um, basic actually in their ownership structure. Normally at an operating company level they'll be very sophisticated because they could be listed companies, they could be regulated companies, but often at an ownership level they uh, won't be all that um, well organized. And so that's often a big chunk of work is just finding out what assets exist, where they are, ah, and how are they titled. And then the next phase will be um, sharing insights, sharing findings with the family, developing a plan, a set of recommendations on how to optimize the structure, and then socializing that with the family in workshops and then sharing that with the local tax and legal and accounting and all the other stakeholders in the relevant country. Uh, all that can take months, many months. Uh, and it's only at the end of that design phase can we look at implementation. And that's usually touchwood, um, uh, more straightforward because by that stage if we would have done the consultations, we would have got the legal and tax sign offs and things like that and we can sort of go ahead and implement and I may not necessarily be involved in the implementation that could be done um, by uh, lawyers, uh, who are closer to the family or in the jurisdiction in which the family uh, operates.

Speaker A: So stepping back a little bit, uh, because you're seeing family offices and worked with business uh, owners in different capacities, both as on legal side and on the business side and the consultative side. You've probably seen a lot of things change over that period. And we talked about kind of the complexity and other regulatory things that Are there. But you know, let's fast forward to today. What are sort of the three types of, three trends that you're seeing uh, in the family office space? And you know, are these expected trends for you or are these uh, things that have kind of come across as um, things that people may have not been thinking about?

Speaker B: Look, I think succession planning is the big one, the big trend affecting my work right now. Uh, because I am a succession planning expert, I'm often brought in for uh, insights and advice and design in relation to solutions for succession planning. Because the baby boomers are getting towards the end of their natural lives and they are uh, losing uh, their faculties, losing uh, their energy. And the next generation uh, are in their 40s and 50s now. And if they haven't already taken prominent roles in the family business, the family office, then uh, they want to be doing so. Uh, and so that's a big part of my work. Just about every consultation project I'm working on at the moment involves uh, an elderly patriarchal matriarch and um, second gen G2, usually in their 40s, 50s,

Speaker A: who

Speaker B: are looking to put their own mark. And um, that then leads to the sort of the second trend I think, which is professionalization, just taking things up a level. From working on Excel spreadsheets and general ledger software and informal decision making, governance structures to formal boards, advisory boards, um, wealth, tech adoption and um, I think using specialist advisors as well. So I think historically a lot of these families have relied heavily on um, real estate specialists or commercial specialists who have given them really good advice, general uh, advice in those areas, but who aren't experts in the organization and regulation of private wealth. And so I often come into those sorts of situations and I don't come in there to displace those incumbents but just to uh, because they have a lot of um, intellectual capital and a lot of legacy institutional knowledge, uh, and in many cases will be very capable. I'm not there to displace them, but there's just to support them and offer a different, different perspectives. So I see. So that's the second trend I think is professionalization. And then a third trend is probably uh, risk risk management, which again is sort of part of the first two trends. And it's just as families scale, uh, we're just seeing this explosion in scale, just compound interest alone. Money on money is causing these families to become wealthier than uh, many of us, they themselves possibly ever imagined. And with that comes risk, uh, and a need I think, to diversify away from existing uh, or Concentration, risk and counterparties or jurisdictions or asset classes. And so I'm seeing a lot more cross border diversification in terms of capital allocations, uh, structures, counterparties and things like that. So those are probably the three main trends I'm um, seeing in my work right now.

Speaker A: So you mentioned technology. Is it just around managing of the wealth or are there other areas that you're seeing technology kind of come into play with uh the different families that you work with? Are there um, emerging technologies that you're seeing, families, employers that still kind of um, very much uh, in the development phase. Are people still exploring things like how to leverage artificial intelligence? We hear about this a lot but I wonder how much of that is you know an attempt to use that um, that technology and that phrase just to generate interest versus the actual reality of families exploring artificial uh, intelligence. And what's your thought in general on technology?

Speaker B: Yeah, well when I use the use technology in this context I really focused on consolidated reporting platforms. Um, that's where I mostly uh, see family offices evolving is going from Excel spreadsheets to operating systems which allow them to see the family balance sheet in landscape view, allow them to integrate market um feeds into their uh, into the operating system and look at pricing and valuations and have a sort of a single point source of truth in a dashboard style that I see, I see a lot of that and that's um, and there's a real desire for that and that technology is evolving. I mean not only a few years ago there were barely any vendors out there that had that tech. Um now there's more. Every month I see new ones and I'm demoing different ones. And um, so that takes evolving rapidly and I think it's becoming a bit um, it's democratizing as well. So some of the big vendors and the early vendors, some, some of that technology was, was really uh, quite costly. Uh even for um, you know, not so much for large family offices but for, for you know, founder offices or smaller family offices. It wasn't um, all that accessible. Now it's a lot becoming a lot more accessible. Um, and that's, that's been I think really helpful with professionalization and even with stakeholder management when you're talking about succession planning and things like that. So I think consolidated reporting is a really really big one. And then with that you talk about AI and um, I, I, I, I haven't really seen AI yet being used in a family office context in any material way other than of course co pilot. And um, and, and and some of the family offices, mostly multifamily offices actually though I work with, are using it to help with sort of tax reporting and things like that, where they're uh, feeding in uh, investment portfolio reports and um, uh, income tax reports and things like that to help them prepare for their tax filings. I know multifamily officers are doing that. Um, but obviously like every thing, like the legal profession, the accounting profession, um, financial advisors, ah, AI is going to uh, going to affect the family office industry and it will help with some of those manual processing tasks that um, that in the past human talent might have used. Now, now to be integrated. I think what we're going to see is family office operating systems. You know, we're going to go and we'll use, that's where technology will be used. We'll move away from sort of the Microsoft suite perhaps, um, to some more specific family office operating systems. I'm seeing that all the time now.

Speaker A: So Henry, one of the areas that um, you often write about and you do write on a variety of topics in the family office space is on cross border, uh, and mobility issues that families are facing. Given that you've had this global experience, uh, dealing with families, what are some of the things that you're seeing in that space that are critical to families to keep in mind, uh, on the mobility and the cross border piece of it.

Speaker B: Look, I think uh, cross border wealth structuring is just a natural extension of any sensible risk management plan. Uh, for families or businesses of scale. It's just a diversification strategy. So, and families of wealth have been doing this forever. Uh, the first rule of asset protection is don't have your wealth in the same country in which you live. Um, now that's obviously oversimplifying and um, impractical. But as a general proposition I think we can say that having some of your wealth separated from where you live,

Speaker A: uh,

Speaker B: can help protect against risk. We've seen that for millennia now. Um, I don't have a view necessarily that the world is any safer or more dangerous, uh, than it has been in the past. Um, but risk exists around the world. Geopolitical risk, cybersecurity risk,

Speaker A: climate.

Speaker B: Uh, risk is constant and evolving and families of scale are a target, uh whether by uh, just by circumstance or by design. And so it's incumbent on the people that advise those families and that safeguard that wealth to be alive to that risk, to identify that risk and to take proportionate steps to manage the risk. Um, and one of those, but often

Speaker A: that's a hard thing Right. People can sometimes shy away from wanting to, uh, talk about risks and those types of areas. How do you bring that conversation up? And how do you make it sound like something that isn't, um, something that we naturally want to avoid? Like, how do you bridge that gap?

Speaker B: Look, I don't necessarily, um, talk about risk a lot, um, because each risk is so personal to circumstances. So depending on where you are, what your background is, uh, what your history, your family history is, your ethnicity, uh, your. Uh. There's so many factors that are relevant to a person's risk profile, whether real or perceived. So I don't sort of go around highlighting risk. But I just, uh. And normally families come to me with concerns. Uh, and just the other day, uh, you know, I spoke to a family where they're concerned about rising anti Semitism. Uh, we see, um, risk, as you know, Eddie, in. In Eastern. In Europe, uh, we've seen. And you know, my own. I come from. My father was Dutch. My own father's family moved away from the Netherlands because of the threat of the Soviets after the Second World War. So there's the people. I've got families in Austria, uh, who I advise, who are concerned about, um, about. About risk at the border. And then we have. I advise many American families at the moment who are concerned about political risk in the U.S. uh, so risk is everywhere, and it totally depends on their circumstances. And I don't sort of presuppose to know what's best for a family or what's a risk for a family. They come to me typically, and we then plan for that. Uh, but, uh. But obviously through, um, making people aware of potential solutions, as I do in my writing, I hope that that stimulates some thought and helps people assess, um, their own situations. And. And then once they want to have that conversation, then. Then we sit down and we. And we. And we. We do a risk analysis, uh, a risk assessment. And, um, I've got a sort of playbook for that.

Speaker A: We've talked about, you know, residency by investment in the past. Uh, is that something that you're seeing an uptick in interest in? Uh, what does that look like today, um, for families that are doing, ah. And planning to look at something like that. And is it becoming more challenging or is it becoming, uh, something where it is, um, easier because there's more information about, uh, those types of opportunities.

Speaker B: Yeah. So when we talk about residency or citizenship by investment, we're talking about human, uh, capital. So when I talk about family capital, I mean both the financial capital, which is the money and the stuff, the businesses, the buildings, the whatever, cars. Uh, that's what I call the financial capital. And then you've got the human capital, which is. Which is the talent, the people. And, um. A lot of my planning. And again, that was sort of part of that kind of Road to Damascus moment I had back in 2016, where I sort of realized all my work had been focused on the financial capital. Throughout my career, putting financial capital into structures and wasn't as focused on the human capital as much as I think it should have been. And I. I went deep into the, uh. The work of Jay Hughes and Dennis Jaffe and some of those, uh, real pioneers at Jim Grubman in our field, um, and started planning more for the human capital and the social capital, intellectual capital as well. Um, and residency by investment is part of that planning for human capital. And uh. So it seems logical to me that if we are going to plan to protect our financial capital by holding it offshore or in structures, um, then we should also be thinking, um, of doing similar things for the most valuable and important part of family capital, the human capital. And so residency by investment, citizenship by investment, uh, or any form of economic migration is a way of planning, uh, for that, ah, human capital. And giving them access, um, to another country, um, to help them either increase economic opportunities, um, to become more safe and secure, uh, to have a better quality of life or to have better, um, mobility options or financial freedom. Those are sort of the five main drivers of residency by investment work that I do, one of those things. And no one jurisdiction or very few sort of can provide at all. Um, but, um. There is a high demand for that. I'm not sure it's any higher than any other time in history necessarily. Uh, but, uh, it's largely, uh, influenced by supply rather than demand. Because, um, many countries, uh. Uh, their rbi, their CBI programs, they open and close depending on which way the political wind is blowing. And so, um, at the moment I'm. I'm very busy doing RBI work. Um, but because there's a. There's a. There's a. Um. I guess there's been some supply changes and there is a bit. There is also some demand, I think, especially from West Coast America I'm seeing, or, um. And Eastern Europe is as well. So that's, um. Yeah, that.

Speaker A: That.

Speaker B: That's a. A trend that I'm, um. I'm seeing a lot of at the moment.

Speaker A: So you talk about the human capital factor in terms of the family. What about the human capital issues? Um, that you see with the family office staff or people around them, is it um, are these areas, you know, I can imagine in your particular client base which tends to be very multi jurisdictional and very global, um, are you seeing human capital issues there? Um, you know, we, we often talk about it's hard to find the right person for the family because of not just the talent that's required, but also the, the fit for the family. And working in a family office, I, I can imagine that's got to be even much harder for uh, know the global families that you work with.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think talent is, is a big constraint for uh, the family office sector. Accessing good talent is, is really hard. There's plenty of people out there who will, who work, you know, who, who will happily work for a family office if, but they may not be the, the, the best talent available. And you, and that and, and the functions which you want them to perform for you, you may be better just to outsource that to a consulting firm, a legal firm, a tax firm. Um, in many cases I think that. But uh, certainly I think as the sector evolves as family office professionalize themselves, so too do the executives and the advisors to them, uh, evolve. And so there is more uh, there are more people like us, Eddie that do this sort of work. And some of us, some of them go into family offices and work in a family office and um, others will stay on the outside and sell their services in. Um, but I think that's is highly important. You don't just pull a three or four year PQE out of a big four law firm and put them into a family office and expect success, expect them to succeed without supervision. And it's a big risk for top talent to also go into a family office because you're going from going into an environment where you know you, you will have in many cases will have no or very low public profile and you won't necessarily be able to talk about the work you, you do uh, with, with, with recruiters or future employees. And you um, and it'll be quite an, it can be quite an unstructured environment. I mean as you know Eddie, there's a real spectrum of levels of sophistication. Some family offices operate like private banks, you know that they are, or hedge funds, you know, or private equity funds that ah, are highly evolved and others are ah, very much um, very ah, informal structures. And culture is so important and you won't necessarily know the culture until you, until you get there.

Speaker A: When you look at that culture piece. Is that something that you're able to um, support families and how they build that? I can imagine that's part of the, the governance issues that you, that you look at. Um, but you know, again we're kind of going into the areas that are non traditional legal advisory pieces. But how has that kind of played into the work that you've done with, with, with family offices? On that I'm building on those sort of um, issues that are just not in the traditional toolkit uh, as you're trying to build for these families.

Speaker B: Yeah, look, I don't profess to be an expert on, on culture but I, I know experts on culture and so we will often bring in industrial psychologists or we will um, work with people who are uh, retired athletes who've been in high performing teams, uh, who come into my projects and will consult on culture. Uh, but I suppose by default I do influence culture through the area where I am an expert, which is governance. So basically taking a family from a situation where it's ah, a um, sort of an autocracy to a democracy, um, or something like that. And uh, so that's a big cultural change which is driven by uh, legal structuring and constitutional drafting and uh, processes and protocols and imposing external uh, governance to the board. So take. I'm a big believer in bringing in uh, external board members onto the family. Family board. And I think that by, by going through that design process I spoke about earlier, uh, uh, I often my recommendations will, will, will involve bringing in third party directors and external influences advisory boards. And that in itself shapes and influences culture too.

Speaker A: How do you manage that tension though? Right, Family offices. You mentioned before, and we talk about this a lot, that one of the reasons you set up a family office is convenience. So maybe it's not always a dictatorship but it's, it's a convenience for, for the principles of the family. How do you get them to start thinking about building those lanes in the road of how things should happen and how to manage um, just execution across the family, not, not just on the financial piece because I think that's, you know, that's a pretty well worn path on a lot of different areas. But just how does the family function? How do you get them to start having those conversations and what are ways that you've seen that have been effective and maybe sometimes not effective in doing that?

Speaker B: Yeah, that. Look it's, it's quite difficult sometimes Eddie, because you've got to get their bandwidth. That's often the biggest challenge for me. They know they kind of they know what I, they know me, they come to me, they want me to help them. And um, but in order for me to help them I've got to spend quite a bit of time with them. I've really got to get to know them and I've got to talk, I've just got to spend time in conversation with them talking about how other families do things. I've got to give them questions to ask me and in fact uh, Eddie, you and I have worked on this before. You know, sort of 101 questions to ask, um, those. So, so it's often through what, what I call workshops basically. We, we um, we and it can be really, it can start quite basic, quite granular, um, and then get more granular. Sorry. Uh, but just you know, what is the family office and, and how does it work? And, and, and so just spending time with them in that way over, over days, weeks, months, sometimes years. You know, I've got relationships with family officers or people who are thinking of evolving into a family officer that have been going for years and I've never really had a formal engagement with them but, but I, I, I believe they're acting in good faith. Um, and they, they're just trying to, they're on journey. Right. And so, and I also do it through, you know, write a lot, I speak a lot. Doing what we're doing now really, um, as a way of I think educating, um, almost laying some of that groundwork that, so that I don't necessarily have to spend as much time educating. Maybe often they will do a bit themselves, they'll self teach, they'll gather content like that we're producing right now and they'll come to me a bit more informed, a bit more educated and a bit with a bit more of an idea of what they want. And that's, that's quite helpful to me because uh, I'm not starting from scratch. Um, so yeah, it's a bit of education, uh, and workshopping, storytelling, uh, I think also having relationships with other advisors too. I really value those other relationships. I collaborate with people who an outsider might think well they're a competitor but actually it's not that competitive. We've all got plenty of work and in fact our biggest issue is normally capacity and actually having somebody else like me who might be in another firm um, on the project actually helps me uh, because it gives me capacity and also it helps me um, stress test my thinking uh, as well, uh, because I think differently. I'm quite, quite countercultural to any other Lawyers. I know. And, um, and there's safety in the herd, right? So we all like to be in the herd because we feel safe. And I'm very often not in the herd. And that, um, it can be quite uncomfortable at times. And so I like having other people around, like you, Eddie, for example, to, to, um, to talk through ideas and.

Speaker A: Well, you got to be careful with that because I wrote that piece of, uh, there's no such thing as a family office. And that wasn't just a, that wasn't just a title for it. But I, I, I completely, I completely agree with you that, you know, being able to, to look outside of where, where people tend to be focused all of their efforts on, you know, that's probably giving all of your clients a, uh, an edge because they can think beyond what's just in front of them or, you know, the, just the prevailing notions that are out there. And I can imagine that's very helpful for, you know, the families that you work with.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it is. You know, I think especially in the legal profession, um, there's a tendency for advisors to do, do what they do and to, and to advise and recommend solutions pretty much just because that's the way it's always been done and not to think more broadly than that. Um, and I think my theory is that that has led to suboptimal solutions for families all over the world, um, and a lot of structure, not much process within the structure. So I'm all about the software more than the hardware. Um, and again, but that can be quite, um, countercultural. It can be because you look at these org charts. These org charts come across my desk every day, and they're so complicated. And they've been designed by good commercial lawyers, good corporate lawyers, good real estate lawyers, um, but they don't really solve for family problems. And in fact, they often make them much worse. And I have to be a diplomat in this and I have to be able to explain politely and diplomatically why I think things could be done differently and then take families and their advisors on that journey. I've got to sell that. And, um, it's always better if there's somebody else around the table who concurs with that, who has my experience. Um, and because, you know, a lot of these families have been in echo chambers, I think, for a long, a long time. And that's why they come to me, I think, is because they will get a different perspective. They know I think I'm well enough, well enough known now that I will offer a Different that they know what they're getting. But certainly in the early years there was a lot of meetings where I was getting blank stares and um, and not necessarily making progress.

Speaker A: So you know, Henry, I think this is part of a longer series that we're going to have on this topic. But um, so I think there's other areas we'll kind of go deeper in, uh, on subjects. But I wanted to kind of think about. If you had to give one piece of advice to families that you're working with, given all the issues that you've seen and all the opportunities that you've seen with families, what would that be?

Speaker B: Look, I think just focusing on the family capital holistically rather than just the financial capital. Uh, uh, and then developing a plan intentionally and strategically for the management of that capital in accordance with your objectives. So you've got to define your objectives first. If you want to be a thousand year family, then let's make a plan for that thousand years. If you want to be, if uh, you want to sign up to the giving pledge and give it all away in the next 20, 30 years, then we design a plan for that. But don't develop a structure

Speaker A: in an

Speaker B: ad hoc unintentional way based on a piece of tax advice you got from, from an accountant or a lawyer. Um, be strategic. And then I'd say, and I know you asked for one piece of advice, I'm probably going to give you more than one. But um, be more uh, simplicity. Try and keep things simple. You know, if you over complicate things, uh, I think complexity is, is one of the biggest risks to, to, to, to private capital. Uh, try and keep, keep things simple and portable and flexible because circumstances will, will change. Uh, don't be a, you have to be able to live in your structure.

Speaker A: So, last question, Henry. You know, let's look at lessons learned for yourself. What's the one thing that you know today that you had wished they had known when you started your legal profession?

Speaker B: The one thing that I know today, uh, that I wish I had known back then. Back then. I, I think the value of your networks is extremely important.

Speaker A: Uh,

Speaker B: and so there's many, many things I don't know, many, many m. Things I don't know. But I do know people who know those things and have good relations with those people. Uh, and many of them may be so called competitors or whatever. But I think uh, I'd say to anyone, really build your networks, be good to work with and for, and work as much as you can on developing your Technical capabilities. Uh, read everything, listen to every podcast. Every day I drive to work, I'm listening to the great and the good of our industry who have podcasts, including yourself, Eddie. Um, and I'm learning and I make notes. I've got a notebook with me all the time. So I think that's really important. Just be intellectually curious. Um, and I have been all my career, so it's not that I didn't necessarily know that, but, um, possibly as I've evolved in my career, that's. It's really. I've just become more interested. As you become more interested in something, I think you got to pursue something you're interested in and that develops that intellectual curiosity and that desire to meet and to learn. Um, fortunately, sort of through serendipity, that kind of happened to me, but it wasn't necessarily strategic. And I'd say to any young person, uh, starting out or interested in this area, focus on building your networks. I mean, I spent the first half of my career trying to ingratiate myself to people far more influential and expert than me. And now I'm spending the second half of my career trying to ingratiate myself to the next generation who are going to be supporting me in the latter half of my career. So I think, um, they have good mentors, um, and as you get older, proteges. Uh, those are things that I would suggest, uh, will stand us in good stead and benefit our clients. You know, it's not about all about us. I think the better we are, the better we can serve our clients and that provides for a more fulfilling career. Um, so I think, uh, it's mutually beneficial.

Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, listen, thank you, Henry, um, for this. I think as we talked about before, we're going to do a series of these and kind of go down into a couple more areas, especially some of the areas that you spend a lot of time doing research and publishing on. Uh, because I think there's some great insights in there. If anybody's listening that wants to take a look at what Henry's written, uh, in the space on our website, uh, www.dentons.com familyoffice. We have a lot of those publications there. Uh, you can link to Henry, uh, as one of our global co chairs, uh, on that website and other things that Henry mentioned as well. This piece that we have on the 101 questions that, uh, every family office should ask their lawyer, that's there as well. So great resources, great opportunities, uh, for everybody listening today, uh, to get some of those materials that Henry and other members of the team have put together because I think they're, um, just, if not for anything, a good conversation starter and some sparking, uh, some ideas from out there. So, Henry, thank you again, and I look forward to doing the next one in the shoot.

Speaker B: Thanks, Eddie. It's, uh, a. It's like chatting to an old friend around a fireplace. So, uh, really, uh, really happy to. To do it.

Speaker A: Wonderful. Thank you, Henry. And thanks, everybody, for. For tuning in.