This week, we delve into how storytelling and emotional intelligence are shaping family legacy planning. Marcus Baram examines this cultural shift, where more families are prioritizing the emotional legacy they wish to leave by focusing on values and stories that will endure for generations.
We also report on London-based Emissary Partners, a global special-situations firm for family offices, which has made strategic senior hires to strengthen its leadership team and help family offices manage legacy assets.
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].
HANDPICKED: How storytelling and emotional intelligence shape family legacy planning
By MARCUS BARAM
With the emergence of the great wealth transfer, family offices are intensifying their focus on legacy planning. Traditionally, this has centered on financial and legal strategies, often overlooking the emotional aspects.
Now, wealth advisers are seeing a shift: More families are prioritizing the emotional legacy they wish to impart, emphasizing the values and stories that will endure for generations.
“With the rise in global wealth, there is an increase in placing value on human capital — spiritual and emotional,” said Jamie Yuenger, the founder of New York-based StoryKeep, a production company that creates films and private podcasts for families to connect the generations. “People were giving money without the meaning behind it, without heart.”
Dr. Jamie Weiner, who has interviewed rising-gen family members around the globe to learn what it’s like to grow up in prominent families, said many of them suffer isolation and guilt and shame, a feeling of disconnection from their family elders.
“All of them wanted to find a way to stay connected to the family,” Weiner said. “They just didn’t know how to do that, how to do the rites of passage. How do you hand down nontangible assets to younger generations so that they are ready to carry a family forward?”
Weiner and his wife, Dr. Carolyn Friend, are family legacy consultants helping navigate these complex issues by leading family conversations and guiding them through storytelling.
“Stories are how values get passed on,” he said. “Go to any culture and pay attention to the stories. They reflect the values of that culture. Ask somebody who built a business what their life was like when they were 10 years old. That connects the generations in powerful ways.”
How do we feel about money?
For Franco Lombardo, the founder and director of Bermuda-based Veritage, the focus of his family coaching and advisory firm is human capital, which he distinguishes from financial capital and social capital. Most legacy planning fails to consider how the family’s assets affect them emotionally and takes a top-down approach, Lombardo said.
“It should be a collaborative process,” he said, “not a dictatorial process.”
Lombardo said one of his early clients was a wealthy Canadian family patriarch who was dismissive of Lombardo’s services because, he said, the man had 12 people looking over his succession plan.
“I told him: ‘That’s a great point. But I’m going to give you one word — perspective,” Lombardo said. “That plan is based on your perspective. What about your kids? Do they want it?’ He had never thought about that before.”
Typically, Lombardo said, the emphasis is on the money — “how do we make it, how do we save it, how do we transition it. But very little thought has gone into how we feel about it, how do my feelings impact the decisions I make around money.”
As another example, Lombardo recalled working with three siblings from a wealthy family. The sister, who wasn’t involved in family decision-making, grew up feeling that wealth had hurt her parents, who grew up in humble circumstances. She had decided that having money was dangerous.
“Once she recognized that bias in herself,” Lombardo said, “she started to get more involved. And now she runs their family philanthropy.”
The art of storytelling
StoryKeep’s Yuenger helps families prepare an ethical will to accompany the legal will that lays out their assets and estate. “One without the other is a poor estate plan,” she said. “When you’re leaving this life, you want to pass along your values, your lived experiences and hopefully love to your progeny and children and circle of influence.”
Yuenger started her career as a radio reporter and documentarian but found her purpose when she started working with family elders on making films for their children and grandchildren. Sometimes, it can be difficult to discuss these issues in person, and film has a power to free up the seniors to share their feelings and values. And it proves compelling to the younger generations.
“To hear their voices, to see their faces, there is a resonance that is really powerful,” Yuenger said. “It deepens their sense of respect and puts your life in context.”
She likens the impact of such films on families in conflict to the “melting of an iceberg.” Yuenger worked with a family in New York in which a lot of tension existed between the two branches of the family. But they all participated in a legacy film and watched it together.
“They watched it twice, back to back, and it was transformative,” she said. “They decided to have another get-together and go on a family trip together.”
Many families have their values written down in governance documents, but they’re just words on paper unless they’re living those values, Lombardo said.
He works with families to define their guiding principles — belonging, credibility, trust, loyalty, inclusion, trust yourself, respect, support one another, empathize, openness — and then asks them, “What’s the action that shows you living that definition?”
Related Reads:
> What you may not know about the great wealth transfer | Crain Currency
> PNC Private Bank’s Annamaria Vitelli shares an insider’s view into helping families maintain their legacy and success | Crain Currency
> Preserving legacy: Why document family stories before it's too late | Crain Currency
Emissary Partners bolsters leadership with strategic hires
By KRISTEN OLIVERI
London-based Emissary Partners, a global special-situations firm for family offices, has strengthened its senior leadership team with the appointments of Andrew Clarke as chairman and J. Peter Donald as principal.
“It is our goal to build Emissary Partners as the leading firm at the intersection of family office alternative assets and the impacts of global and geopolitical risks,” Matthew McGrath, Emissary Partners' founder and managing director, told Crain Currency. “This starts with building a leading offering for dealing with complex legacy assets, and we will continue to develop new offerings to meet our clients’ needs.”
Clarke joins the team after 33 years at ExxonMobil, where he was general counsel for ExxonMobil International and the principal legal adviser for the company’s global business in liquefied natural gas. With transactional experience across multiple jurisdictions — including roles in Qatar, Indonesia and Turkey — he is also recognized as a thought leader in international arbitration and investor-state dispute settlement.
In his role as chairman, Clarke will leverage his experience to help clients manage cross-border special-situation investments and oversee the firm’s governance.
Donald, who has been a senior adviser to Emissary since 2020, provides expertise in crisis management, strategic communications and reputation management. He previously served as assistant commissioner for public affairs for the New York Police Department and as spokesman for the FBI’s New York field office.
David Dingman, managing director of the family office Shipston Group Ltd., noted that the Emissary team has identified a universal challenge faced by family offices: managing legacy assets. “Their approach demonstrates a nuanced understanding of complex financial ecosystems, and I've found their insights to be both incisive and of exceptional quality,” Dingman said.
LOOSE CHANGE
Millennials and Gen Z are buying wine — just not to drink: Brian Ward, principal of wine and spirits investing at Artory/Winston, notes that ¨ over the past 20 years, driven in part by younger investors looking for alternative assets.
Time to act and adapt to a changed climate: Peter Krull of Earth Equity Advisors says the mindset of “kicking the can down the road … has led us to where we are now. Instead of climate change, it’s now dealing with a changed climate.”
Trump, GOP wins mean big changes: Tax cuts, tariffs and deregulation will be key focuses for Republican lawmakers next year after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory coupled with Republicans flipping control of the Senate and potentially retaining control of the House.
Help us with a story: We’re working on a story about the impact of artificial intelligence on family office management. If you have any comments on the topic, reach out to [email protected].