The health and wellness sector is having a transformative moment. For family offices, this dynamic landscape represents not just an opportunity to invest but a chance to shape the future of care for an aging population and the well-being of society. In this issue, Marcus Baram dives into the rising momentum behind these investments, showcasing how family offices are harnessing their position to champion innovation and redefine what it means to invest in wellness.
In a recent episode of Wealth & Wisdom, I sat down with Kerri Scott, COO of the single-family office Mt. Vernon Investments, to discuss when, why and how a family office should consider starting a private trust company. Scott shares key considerations for families, along with the potential benefits of establishing one.
As always, we appreciate any comments, ideas and insights that would make this newsletter more useful. I look forward to growing this family office community with your help. Please email me at [email protected].
Family offices take the lead in driving the wellness revolution
By MARCUS BARAM
Family offices are increasingly investing in the health and wellness sector, driven by next-generation interests, advancements in technology, rising awareness of mental health issues and the needs of an aging population.
The market is expanding at a remarkable pace. For example, the global market for body, mind and energy healing was valued at $78.5 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at an annual rate of 26.2% through 2030, according to a recent report by Grand View Research.
Between July 2023 and June 2024, family offices invested in 391 startups within the LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability) and wellness sector, as noted in PwC’s 2024 Global Family Office Deals study. This marks the first time the sector has been featured in the report, underscoring its growing significance.
Recent activity illustrates this momentum. The Singapore- and Hong Kong-based Raffles Family Office led a funding round for WhiteCoat Global, a digital health care provider specializing in wellness programs. Meanwhile, Tom Brady’s TEB Capital Management relocated its family office to a Miami building designed with spalike wellness amenities including The Well Spa, which features offerings such as craniosacral therapy and a meditative “sound dome.”
This surge in interest underscores the dynamic role that family offices are playing in shaping the future of health and wellness.
The personal perspective
For some family office investors, the issue is personal.
Alex Enchin, who grew up in Toronto and worked as a technology entrepreneur, redirected his life when his mother started struggling with mental health challenges. He took her to many doctors, pharmacologists and psychiatrists and came away “shocked at the inadequacy of what’s available and how these professionals have almost no tools to actually deal with these issues and are almost totally dependent on prescribing pharmaceuticals that really don’t work for the majority of people.”
That put Enchin on a quest to explore other options, such as psychedelic therapy. After his first session six years ago, he “walked out a different version of the person who walked in” and realized “this is going to change millions of people’s lives, and I want to help people get access to this in a high-quality way.”
Enchin and a partner bought 2,200 acres in southwest Costa Rica and built a retreat center, which eventually led to his offering a private psychedelic experience and private curated experiences. Among his clients was a Canadian billionaire who wanted to bring down six of his best friends.
“He had never done psychedelics, and we set up this three-night program for him,” Enchin said. “And he said to me when they were leaving, ‘I’ve done everything you can do, and this was the number-one experience of my life.’ ”
It was also personal for Sterling Snead, a principal in the Oklahoma-based S&S Global Family Office, who started on a journey of transforming digital health out of frustration that he couldn’t get his special-needs son’s “patient data in one place in order to share and collaborate with everyone what was going on.”
That led him to start the Self Research Institute, an organization building a protocol that lets humans decide what personal data to share with health and banking services, among others. The goal is to “create a universal patient record” so someone can be in, say, France or Tanzania and have a record that any doctor can consult. It can also result in better drug trial collaboration, better pharmaceutical training and better outreach of care in remote areas.
“You could basically have access to health care at a level that you never could before,” Snead said.
Overall, he said he’s encouraged that more family offices are switching from a focus on longevity to preventive care because “longevity is kind of a rich person’s game,” whereas preventive care has a much broader impact across the world.
“Family offices can be leading the way and helping create a blueprint for other individuals across many different lifestyles and geographies,” Snead said.
Snead’s advice for those investors interested in applying artificial intelligence in preventive health care is to understand the four steps of data: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive.
“I’ve seen so many companies buzzing around prescriptive AI for your health care,” he said, “but they’re not even doing level-one descriptive: What’s going on right now?”
Josh Ploch, the founder of the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Ploch Family Office, said he focuses on “anything that would fall into that betterment category,” such as health and wellness as well as affordable housing initiatives. “Anything we can do to help close the gap, especially socioeconomically,” he said, pointing to an almost 20-year difference in life expectancy from North Tulsa to South Tulsa, which is just 10 miles away.
The Ploch Family Office has invested in Clear, a startup that focuses on injury prevention, and a Norwegian group that concentrates on health optimizing — “non-Big Pharma solutions to health challenges that have been around for a long time,” Ploch said.
Ploch noted the growing distrust in Big Pharma and the resurgence and focus on alternative medicine such as homeopathic treatments.
“I think everybody in that space is pretty excited about the opportunities for things like nondrug solutions.”
Wealth & Wisdom: Why family offices should consider private trust companies

In this episode of Wealth & Wisdom, Crain Currency Editor Kristen Oliveri and Kerri Scott, COO of the single-family office Mt. Vernon Investments, explore the key benefits of establishing a private trust company and share best practices for ensuring its success.
Related Reads:
> Wealth & Wisdom: Josh Brown discusses expansion of the wealth industry | Crain Currency
> Wealth & Wisdom: Don Peebles talks family legacy | Crain Currency
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