Project Primus, a leadership development and investment training company, is selecting heirs from up to 25 affluent families to join its learning cohort in September.
The learning program will last 12 months, with plans to meet once per quarter for three days in New York or Miami.
Cerulli Associates has projected that $35.8 trillion from high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families will be transferred through 2045, and Project Primus now seeks to bring together the next-generation heirs to those fortunes for shared leadership teaching.
“We’ve built this curriculum that ultimately activates leaders, because in order to understand how to become an entrepreneur, how to manage a business or invest in private equity or VC, you need to be comfortable in your own skin and have the confidence to move ahead with this responsibility of carrying your family legacy,” Ezzedeen Soleiman, co-founder of Project Primus, told Crain Currency. “We’re not teaching them about portfolio management or how to minimize their tax burden once they do get that wealth. What we’re doing is activating leaders.”
Project Primus hosts two groups per year, with its first cohort consisting of eight members. Individuals who apply to join go through an interview process. Accepted applicants pay a $60,000 annual fee and must meet a $1 million investment requirement to participate in the stage that follows the 12-month learning program.
In the second stage, members take part in a 12-month investment boot camp, where they meet with prospective companies to invest in.
“Based on the experience we have with the next gen, they’re not investing like their parents and not investing like the family office used to,” Soleiman said. “What really matters to them now is they’re investing in something that will make an impact. We’re looking at different sustainability and clean-tech startups, and we’re also really focusing on AI.”
Soleiman started Project Primus alongside his fellow co-founders, Rami Shubbak and Alex Milne. The company aims to foster long-lasting relationships among learners in their programs.
“You have a community that learned together, grew together and invested together," Soleiman said, "And that’s something that’s extremely powerful.”