This panel discussion is part of our special report on the next generation and succession issues of enterprising families. To see more content in the series, click here.
On Oct. 30, 2025, Canadian Family Offices hosted an online panel, presented by PBY Capital, discussing the next generation of enterprising families. This in-depth conversation covered the most effective ways to bring the generations together to ensure family longevity and align philanthropic values with family goals, all while maintaining integrity along the way.
Viewers sent in more than 20 questions (thank you!) for the panelists, and although we couldn’t tackle them all, we did our best to address the most pertinent ones.
The panel featured:
Danielle Saputo, Legacy Coach and Family Enterprise Advisor
Luke Hansen-MacDonald, President & Principal, HanMac Capital
Elke Rubach, Principal, Rubach Wealth Holistic Family Advisors
It was moderated by Canadian Family Office producer Ashley Redmond.
Here is the full *transcript of the engaging panel discussion:
*This transcript is provided for convenience and is based on the audio recording of the video. While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, minor errors are possible.
Ashley: Hello, my name is Ashley Redmond, and I’m a producer here at Canadian Family Offices. Thank you all for joining and for the fabulous questions many of you sent in advance.
Today’s panel presented by PBY Capital will be about the next generation, a topic we cover frequently on Canadian Family Offices, and a topic that is of great interest to our readers and also our viewers.
Thank you to our panelists who are here today to share their knowledge regarding NextGen. We thank you. I’d like to go around and give the panelists a minute to introduce themselves. Danielle, let’s start with you and then we’ll go over to Luke and then Elke. Danielle?
Danielle: Wonderful. Hello. Thank you for having me here. I’m Danielle Saputo. I’m third generation of a family enterprise. I have three young adult children all in university, and we’ve embarked on an educational journey together. I’m also a family enterprise advisor, working with families as their accountability partner to really have those intentional conversations. My focus is on continuity planning and forward action, and I’m also an author to a book titled I Am Enough: Emerging From the Shadows Into the Sunlight of Your True Self. I have a passion for travel, and my favorite pastime is riding a motorcycle.
Ashley: Amazing. Okay, Luke.
Luke: Hi everybody, thanks for having me. I’m Luke Hansen-MacDonald. I’m the President and Principal of HanMac Capital. I’m second generation of my family business. The first generation started a business called Clearwater Seafoods out here in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We have now transitioned to a single-family office with a diversified asset allocation with private equity, real estate, alternatives, et cetera. I also am the host of a podcast focused on family office and family business called Beyond the Family Business. We’re partnered with Canadian Family Offices on that podcast. I have two young kids of my own, two beautiful young daughters. They’re fairly young, so not super involved in the family business yet, but I’m really the only active family member in our single-family office. So, I’m very conscious of thinking about when do I start to include them in the conversation.
Elke: Thank you everyone and lovely to be here. I’m Elke Rubach. I’m the founder of Rubach Wealth. We’re holistic family advisors. I’m the byproduct of when families don’t talk, and I’m starting all over again. We work with business owners, helping them facilitate the conversation, normalizing the money conversation and the business conversation and the human conversation at the same time. And setting the path going forward for tax efficiencies, intergenerational transfers. But our flagship is keeping harmony in the family, and there’s an art that goes to that. We’ve done it for 13 years, pretty much to the date. The beauty is that every family is different, so we work with them based on what they need.
On the personal side, I’m also a mother of three — an 18-year-old university student, a 16-year-old grade 11 boy, and a 14-year-old grade nine daughter. I love traveling. I live for travel, I travel for work, and I travel for passion. I am a mediocre, socially acceptable golfer, and that’s my thing. I swim a lot, I need to be active. I also have a podcast called Get Your House in Order, and the idea behind it is making intentional decisions and living a life based on what’s important to you and conviction of what you’re doing. And for that you need clarity. Other than that, we’re working on a book and planning how to celebrate the Blue Jays win tomorrow.
Ashley: Let’s go Blue Jays. Okay, this is going to be so good. Thank you so much, panelists. I think we can start.
So, let’s start with the family enterprise side of things. And I’m referring to the broader concept, which includes not only the family business, but family assets, philanthropy, real estate, even values and reputation. So, Luke and Danielle, I want to start with you. You’re from prominent Canadian families, and I’m curious, were you expected to be involved from a young age and in what capacity?
Luke: Danielle, do you want to start us off?
Danielle: Sure, Thank you, Luke. Expectation of the family business, the first thing I’ll say to that is I just remember growing up, the business existed before I was born and there were just no boundaries of what was business and what was family. It was just so intertwined. Can I say there was an actual expectation to work in the business? I would say the perceived expectation growing up was really not to be idle and to stay out of trouble. And that just led to a natural thing that if I wasn’t in school or active in a sport, I was working in the family business. So, you know, the expectation, like I said, my parents really provided a great value system where education, hard work, and being self-sufficient were what was truly expected and not the actual expectation to be in the business itself.
Luke: And if I can add on to that, my experience was similar to Danielle. I grew up around the business. We had multiple uncles involved in the business as well as my father, so it was all around us growing up. But at the same time, my parents very much so wanted us to find our own path. So, I would actually say there was a bit of an expectation not to be in the family business. Not that we were told we couldn’t be explicitly, but we weren’t really pulled into the business either, which I think is maybe a bit of a missed opportunity. Ultimately, I went off, took my own path for a number of years, and then in my mid-twenties, after my dad was sick with something, I sort of circled back around and realized, wait a second, there’s this great opportunity and I’d really love to work with my family. So yeah, that was my experience growing up.
Ashley: Okay, and Elke, what do you see with your clients? Is it pretty consistent with what Danielle and Luke just said?
Elke: I think the range is really, really wide. What I do see is that people tend to have this need to identify themselves with their next-door neighbor and see how they fit in the scale. And reality is that every family is different; even between generations it’s very different. Reality is different, affluence is different, and financial philosophies are very different. Something I see recurring is the fear of talking about the bad days, the fear of sharing the numbers with the family, and also either an assumption that the family will take over, the fight to let the next generation take over unless it’s on their first-generation terms, or just the absence of a conversation altogether. But the range is as big as the number of cells in your body.
Ashley: Okay, I was at a PBY event on Tuesday. It was actually sponsored by PBY Capital, and it was about NextGen, and this theme kept bubbling up in various ways. It was around this one question, so I know it’s an important one: how can an enterprising family build a strong financial foundation and help foster a sense of entrepreneurship, so their children won’t just inherit the wealth, but create it as well?
Elke: I’m happy to jump in first. It’s having the conversations and really being open and sharing the bad days too. When I hear someone say, “I don’t want these kids to be wrecked, to be entitled. I don’t want them to expect things or assuming what they’re going to get,” my first question is, have you sat down with them and told them about your worst days? Have you told them when you were not making payroll? Have you told them when somebody frauded you? Have you told them when you invested in something and it didn’t pan out, all the stresses that go with that? Because how is someone expected to understand something if they’ve never seen that? It’s not that they don’t want to know, and unless you’ve created monsters, which is regularly not the case, they want to know that mom and dad are also human, that they also suffer, that they’re also scared, that they’re also weak. And that’s, I think, the most prevalent thing.
Danielle: I would love to add to that. Sorry, Luke
Luke: No, no, please go ahead.
Danielle: You know, and it sort of comes to, Luke, something you said in your introduction, that you’ve got kids that are quite young, they’renot quite ready to be in the family office. I believe that part of building that financial foundation is starting right from those young ages. That first reaction when they point and say, “I want,” is an opportunity to walk through that door and have the conversation about money.
I find we still have a stigma about really talking about money. And I think it’s harder even more so today than it’s ever been because we are not holding cash in our hands anymore, where there was a tangibility to money. Right now, everything is done by pass the credit card or press the button, and transactions are happening. So it’s really bringing those opportunities that if you have young children, start the money talk right from an early age, bringing the value of what money is.
I’d also love to add that there’s also taking just the financial educational journey with your kids. And if you haven’t started that and your kids are 30, well, now’s the time to start. You know that proverbial saying of the tree, when’s the best time to plant it? The best time would’ve been 30 years ago, but if you haven’t, the next best time is to start right now. So to bring forward that open conversation on the money talk.
And if I can share, I sort of took note here. There was a book by Robert Kiyosaki, who was the big author on Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and he also created a game called Cashflow for Kids. If you just bring those kinds of things forward so a child understands the difference between asset and liability, and then comes to realize, “How am I making myself an asset to the family?” and just opening up those forms of conversation, in relation to what Elke said is what I think can very much build a strong financial foundation.
Ashley: Fabulous. Luke, anything to add?
Luke: Yeah, I’ll just tag onto both of the points that were made. From my own personal experience, I think the single biggest thing was being given accountability early. When I actually had to, you know, the buck stopped with me. As soon as I had a position in the family business where that was absolutely true and I couldn’t hide behind my family’s reputation, for example, that was an earth-shattering experience and really drove me into the realities of what this would take.
And similarly to what Elke said, speaking about the fact that failure is a key part of growth and every entrepreneur fails over and over again. I had some failures early on in my career that were so daunting to me personally, I kind of thought, “I’m the screw-up of our family, I’m the one who’s going to ruin everything.” I believed in the tropes you hear about the next generation. And my dad sat me down and talked about how we almost went bankrupt this time, or this happened to us, et cetera. And I think that discussing the failures and the fact that it’s all part of the process was really critical for my experience.
Ashley: Awesome. So you had to have the Trey Yesavage mindset.
Luke: Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent.
Ashley: Okay, this next question is a bit broader, but it comes up frequently with our articles, and we got a lot of reader questions for this panel. This actually came up three times. So I want to ask you, in today’s environment, what do you think are the biggest risks that families face when it comes to longevity and succession?
Elke: Ooh, that’s my passion. May I go for it? The biggest risk is a lack of, or the absence of, conversations: be it end-of-life wishes; be it succession planning in the business; be it division of assets when the estate is split. There are so many assumptions covered by fears,“They’ll figure it out,” “I can’t talk about this.” All those things make the best intentions go sideways if people don’t talk. I’d rather my kid find out now that they’re not getting anything, than when I’m dead. I’d rather my kid know that there’s something coming and make sure that he’sgoing to be, or she’s going to be, a good steward of wealth to give some value to the wealth I’ve built. Because wealth without value makes no sense. It destroys families, it makes assumptions. Conversations like, “Do I want to be buried or cremated?” Don’t make your family decide for you. I mean, they can do either or, the end product is the same, but don’t put that weight on them. Do not add weight that nobody asked for, because you probably had to deal with weight from other generations. Just think about how you disliked it; don’t do that to your kids, because then they’ll do that to their kids.
Luke: Yeah, that’s a really good point. And if I can add on another thought to that, I would also say, and it sort of comes back to that value piece, I think not having purpose is one of the most important parts of longevity. Whatever that purpose is, it may not be to run the operating company that your grandparents started. It might be on the philanthropy side, or it could be on even just engagement of the family itself.
There’s a lot of different ways to have purpose. There’s lots of times where a person may be good at doing a role, but they have no purpose doing it, and it will erode them over time. That is definitely a recipe for disaster. So I think making sure you give people the flexibility and have that open communication, that you need to love what you’re doing, otherwise you’re not going to be successful at it. Finding purposeful engagement of the next generation is pretty important.
Ashley: Danielle, anything to add?
Danielle: Yeah, I would just love to add to what Luke was saying there that the fundamental need of humans is to be seen and to be heard, right? And that sort of comes in line with a purpose. If you don’t feel that your voice is valued at the table, if you don’t feel, and like Elke said,that piece of communication coming from the Family Enterprise Advisory program, Elke, you might remember the saying better than I do,about plans that concern us but don’t involve us, are not for us. So if there isn’t that opportunity to bring all the shareholders in together, and you don’t literally have to be signed as a shareholder, but if you are going to benefit from the greater good, you are seeing yourself as a family enterprise that is multi-generational and there’s something that someone will benefit from, you’ve got to involve those people.
Because you can have the best estate plan lawyer put all your documents in place, cross all your t’s, dot all your i’s, and you think, “I’m all set.” But if you haven’t had the communication, like Elke had pointed out, or create purpose for each of the individuals involved in there, you have nothing. So it’s starting those moments to bring everyone together, having everyone feel like they’re an important individual, like they’repart of the clan, they’re involved, they’re part of that whole, get their purpose and continue the communication. And where I said part of my focus is that continuity planning. Continuity planning is just to keep coming together. Share those opportunities to have meaningful conversations that actually lead to a forward motion.
Ashley: Okay, Danielle, I’m going to stick with you here. I think this pulls on the purpose and the values that we were just talking about. On your website, it says that when several multi-generational enterprise families were interviewed to help explain why they were so successful in transitioning their enterprises over to the Next Gen, they frequently cited that “we put the family enterprise above ourselves.” Can you tell us more about that?
Danielle: Sure. So the first thing I’d like to point out on that one is if you’re a family of wealth, you’ve got to define, are you a family enterprise or are you not? Are you looking at what you have to be multi-generational or are you not? Because that can really change the road forward that you take and the definition of how this all plays out.
I mean, I’ve been in rooms with some pretty wealthy people and they just look, it’s like, well, I made it, I’m going to spend it, and if anything’sleft at the end, well, so be it. But that’s not the focus. So I say, well, that’s not someone with the family enterprise mentality. If the idea is to be a family enterprise, you’re looking at what you’re making as multi-generational, and you want to transition this off to the Next Gen, that multi-generational mindset is really changing the “me” to the “we,” to really say there’s a greater part of the whole, that no one single part is greater than all parts put together. And that is the mindset of the family enterprise.
The book that I brought up earlier, where you help each individual of your family realize, “How am I best suited to be an asset to this family? What can I do that I really add to the whole?” That is when you have a family who’s able to take that process forward to sort of say, we are a clan, we are a group, we are one, and we’re not just individual pieces. That is what helps that success, because you are all helping encourage each other to be their best selves. So as a whole, they add to it.
I would also like to say there’s one added piece to that. It’s almost looking at your family enterprise not as one individual thing, but looking also at your total wealth. That total wealth is not just the financial side, but it’s your financial capital, your social capital, the intellectual capital, the family capital, and what I sometimes say, most importantly, the human capital. And when you’re able to help each individual feel that they are somebody, that they have purpose, that they are seen, and that they are heard, then they stand strong and add to the whole. And that’s the concept of being more focused on the family enterprise than oneself.
Ashley: Okay, and this is for all three of you. What are the common characteristics that you see with these long-term healthy enterprises?
Luke: If I could just jump in quickly. I think, as Elke said last time, incredible levels of transparency and communication, like over-communication, I think is, I mean, it’s true of any organization, not just a family, but not allowing for there to be unspoken truths about the family. Having that forum where everybody has an equal voice, I think that is really, really important.
And I think the other aspect I would say is also a pull of engagement of family members. You know, family members sometimes drift away from that circle because of whatever the reason may be, they live somewhere else, because they’re pursuing a different career, or they have kids, or whatever. And if you want to keep your family unit strong or your family enterprise strong, you really need to be proactive about engagement. If you notice a person is drifting, yes, they have a responsibility themselves to try to be engaged, but there’s also that counterpoint. And so, having things like family retreats or reasons to spend time together that are not just purely board meetings, those types of things are really, really important to keeping that fabric that comes back to what will drive longevity in the family.
Elke: Okay, and if I can add to that, I think when I deal with families that are considering doing something that will transcend their lifetime, I ask them if they are really ready to do it. Because it’s not going to be easy, and it’s very emotional.
If they choose to do it, something that they need to remember is that they don’t need to do it alone. That’s why family enterprise exists, the designations, the advisors, your team. Build your team. It takes a village to raise kids. It takes a village to transition generationally in a successful way.
The other thing I always invite people to think about is, because you love your family so much, it’s very easy to react to mistakes. And you’re a lot more forgiving with employees than you are with the people you love. When you go to these conversations and they’re tough and they’renot easy, and most people avoid them, you need to assume that mistakes will be made. But a mistake is not fatal. It’s literally a miss, you didn’t hit the bullseye, right? You can try again. And you need to assume that everybody here is going to go at it with best intentions and honesty and hard work and heart and soul for something that’s going to be bigger than them. Those are the key elements that have tohappen. You have to think positive, and you have to be open about it.
When you are feeling overwhelmed, reach out to your advisory team, because it’s when you’re in your dark moments that the worst ideas and worst advice come to your head, and then you tend to follow it.
Ashley: Yeah. And we’re always the most unkind to those that we love, aren’t we? Danielle, anything to add on that?
Danielle: I’d love to add, with what Elke just mentioned there, a healthy family enterprise has the ability to resolve conflict. And if resolving conflict is having that backup team that Elke was alluding to, use all the resources you have, because it’s inevitable. I mean, we don’t grow, we don’t evolve, we don’t build what we are able to build without conflict. Conflict is our push forward. So we will be faced with it no matter what. The question is, as a family, have you surrounded yourself with the tools you need to be able to resolve those conflicts?
Another thing I’d like to add to what Luke was mentioning is bringing the family together, having that continual communication, setting up family meetings. I would also like to add to that, is don’t get lost in just the numbers and the work side of that. A big piece that often gets lost when the family takes a journey down this path is they lose the fun of just coming together. I would love to just refocus on that. That a family who comes together to just enjoy each other’s company together, allows you to build the trust, which is something you also need for a healthy family enterprise.
You need the connection with each stakeholder that’s there. You need to be able to communicate openly. And I find if a family loses what they find fun about coming together, then the other pieces might become more difficult. But if you keep that piece alive, then no matter what you face, no matter how much you turn to each other, because of childhood stuff, when you’ve built that muscle to be able to come together and resolve things, and know that you can have fun together, I think you can conquer no matter what challenges you might be faced with.
Ashley: Hmm, I love that. Okay. I want to ask all three of you about philanthropy. It’s a very popular topic on our website. I know it’s important to all three of you. And one angle that gets a lot of attention, and this is another reader question, is how do you get kids, NextGen, involved in philanthropic endeavors that are near and dear to your heart? Or if it’s not something you do in your family, maybe something you’ve seen with a friend or even clients.
Elke: Who wants to go first?
Luke: I’m happy to jump in. So I recently, two years ago, sort of revamped our charitable giving process within our family office, and it forced me to really think through this process and how I want it to work when my kids start to become engaged in it. But not just my kids, also my brother and our spouses and things like that. I think one of the really important parts of it is, you need to give people some level of autonomy over how the giving is going to work.
What I’ve seen is a lot of the time there’ll be this, the previous generation, they had their own passions, and they have a very specific thing that they want to give to, either as a sort of buckshot spray into the people that come to them with their requests, which is what happens with my family a lot, or they’ll have a specific need that they really care about.
I’ve been fortunate that because we’ve been given the ropes as the next generation, we’ve been able to now tailor it to what we care about.
And so every year when we go on our family retreat, we actually will spend part of one of the days where we each nominate two causes per family member, and then we vote on each other’s causes. So there’s an element of only one of your causes will get picked. One will get picked though, so something you’ve nominated is guaranteed to be funded. That way there’s some buy-in of people saying, “Oh, I really liked the first idea you had.” And we’ve now been doing that for over two years, and it’s working great. It gives people their own voice of what they care about, and each year they can sort of change what is most passionate for them. So I’ve found that autonomy and engagement has made a huge difference.
Ashley: That’s a great idea.
Elke: And I think what happens there is, since the time my kids were born, I’ve been involved with philanthropic stuff for sure. So that’snatural. And then a question you ask, or people can consider, is do you want your kids to be philanthropic, or do you want your kids to be involved with your cause? And those could be very different answers.
Ultimately, people will be involved or engaged or motivated to give if they feel they’re making a difference, if they have an impact, if they’rerelevant. If you’re just part of it because you’re being told to do something, it’s not fun. And like Danielle says, it has to be fun. Let’s bring fun back to the conversation, right?
And we know that humans feel happiest when they’re giving, and when you’re improving someone else’s life. It’s also the one thing I absolutely adore about philanthropy, it’s the easiest excuse to get the family together. “Look what I did. Look what we built. Look what we healed. Look who’s learning now. Look who we fed.” There are always more causes than excuses to get involved.
And when people are losing purpose, philanthropy is the beautiful savior that helps people find their purpose, their meaning, even if they don’t have to work a day in their lives. If you’re going to a charitable situation where you see someone who’s always going to be weaker than you and you can lift that person, that was easy.
Ashley: Yeah, it’s true. Danielle, anything to add?
Danielle: Yes, I was going to take a little bit of a different angle. If a family is thinking philanthropy is the way to bring their family together, I would just say caution to the wind. Because philanthropy sort of has to align with what the culture of the family is.
If the family’s never come together to give, or in certain cases I’ve seen where the giving has only been because of a tax refund and not necessarily because you, yeah, I mean, there’s the benefit then, so which one are you putting first?
So I just say, watch that philanthropy doesn’t become the buzzword that, “Oh my God, that’s the tool to use to get the family together.” You have to really know what the culture of your family is to say, is this the piece to fit in to bring us together or not?
And I love the way Luke commented on the autonomy that if you say, “yes, you know what, this is a great way to bring conversation to the table, this is a way to start bringing money talk to the table, let philanthropy potentially be a tool”. Then, you know, wait a second, do you go right away into getting multiple family members agreeing to one thing, or do you start better off if it’s not the true path, or sorry, the true culture, to give everyone the opportunity to say, “Hey, there are funds available, X dollars. You each get to choose something,” and then build slowly.
Say, Hey, at the end of the year, or if you’re using November to double everything up, whatever the case is, you build it in slowly and then use that as a tool, a base to say, “Okay, you’ve each been given the opportunity. Can you come back and say why? What you gave, why you gave, and what the effect was?”
Start slowly. Start where you are at. Don’t think that philanthropy is, because everyone’s talking big about philanthropy, that philanthropy is the save-all and do-all to get the next generation to come together and do something great. You’ve got to meet your family where your family’s at. So, caution to wind, don’t think it’s a solution for all things, but it is a great tool if used in the appropriate way that fits your family.
Ashley: Yeah, I love that concept of incorporating the autonomy in it. I can see how that would be successful.
This question I’m selfishly curious about. I want to know, what does legacy mean to each of you, and has it evolved over time with your kids, with your clients, watching your parents age, that sort of thing?
And Elke, we’ll start with you.
Elke: Oh, okay. So legacy is the most thrown-around word ever. And people think that they need to be a billionaire to have a legacy. Your legacy is what you leave behind. And it can be organized, it can be disorganized, it could be better, it could be worse. So people need to really think about what they’re leaving behind.
In my case, I recently had a second thought about that. Because all my life I said, I want to make my kids independent, da da da… And now that my eldest went to university, I’m like, “Uh-huh, can you stay a little bit longer?”
But all kidding aside, I want my kids to be independent. I want them to be good citizens. I want them to be aware of the reality and confident in who they are, and that there’s always going to be someone richer, there’s always going to be someone poorer. And I want to instill in them the real sense of not so much giving back, but paying forward. Because if they pay forward, they’re going to do a lot more. That’s my concept. So that to me is already on the organized side of things.
I want to make sure I don’t leave a mess. I want to make sure that we’ve had those conversations, and I teach them that this enterprise was built for a reason, cause, et cetera. They have the option to take over, but they’re not entitled. They need to figure out their place in the puzzle. They’re not expected to take it over either. The option is there, but they need to know the vision and so on.
I’m fine if they change the course of the business at some point I’m not even going to see what’s happening to it. But the importance of not leaving a mess behind, because I know what that is, and that’s not fun. So I want a clean legacy, a conversation around it, philanthropy, making it a better place. And from there, we’re good.
Ashley: Okay, Danielle.
Danielle: When Elke was describing how she sees legacy, I think I did go through a shift. Because originally, I guess growing up, you thought legacy was all part of the estate planning. It’s what is left behind.
When I went through my journey and started to put my defining moments and what stories can I leave behind to my kids, that’s where my shift happened. I saw legacy as, what am I living today? And with the way I’m living today, what are the stories I would be leaving behind?
It’s the stories told because of the way I’m living today that really becomes my legacy. So for me, it was to focus on being the best person I can be today, giving all ways possible today, and every person I touch potentially has a story that will then become my legacy when I’m no longer here.
Ashley: That’s beautiful. Luke?
Luke: That was very well said. I guess all I’ll add to that is, the way I look at legacy is my children. I think a lot of my life I will be the first generation that has lived through what the next generation will experience. My dad grew up with nothing. My mom grew up from very humble means.
It’s my responsibility that the next generation of my family is prepared for what’s coming to them. And so, that means ensuring that they find purpose, or at least knowing that that’s a priority. It’s understanding the burden of wealth and the risks that come with it.
And then, you know, I also think about it just really as our community. And, I hope that, like my parents have left a lasting effect on their community, I hope I can do the same, and then it also gets perpetuated through my kids. So, it comes down to my kids. That’s the most important thing to me.
Ashley: Wonderful. Okay. And sort of staying with this theme and talking about, you know, the softer side of things, do you find that family offices focus enough on the softer side of things? So, you know, family governance, succession planning, wealth education. And is there one aspect of the softer side of things that you wish got more attention?
Danielle: I’ll take that, I guess.
Luke: Sure
Danielle: My first thought to that question is, absolutely not. You know, every family office or new family office or someone ready to give that service might say, “Hey, we help, we’re holistic,” but the moment you then go in, it’s all about your AUM, it’s all about the investments, it’s all about how can we save you taxes, how can we consolidate your reports, and how can we, you know, save you – sorry, I said the taxes -anyways, it’s all based on the numbers. And I still have to see a family office that truly equally, or more so, focuses on the soft side, bringing the human capital at the forefront before the financial capital.
And if I were to say where would I wish there was more attention, in keeping the family together and focusing on keeping the family together, on finding the areas where the family could come together to celebrate, or, like I said earlier, fun times, and create more fun times together.Create that learning journey that has the ability to explore together, not just the fixed, “Hey, this is a financial statement, this is your balance, this is your balance sheet.” But get into a journey, a scavenger hunt, something that brings more true connection other than just the literacy of it.
And, you know I’ll say, one of the sayings I love to say is that a family that plays together stays together. So how can a family office make sure to incorporate that play within all they do for the family?
Ashley: Okay, Luke?
Luke: I’m going to echo a lot of what Danielle said. I think the answer is probably not, because often the motivating factor of creating a family office is for management of meaningful assets. So that ends up, you will often hire a person who’s financially inclined, and that’ll be sort of the beginning, is focusing on that.
But I agree with Danielle as far as really focusing on family engagement. I think there’s an element of focusing on, how can you be flexible that allows people to contribute in their own way, and really taking time to understand what matters to different family members.
And then figuring out, okay, maybe we don’t have a charitable initiative focused on, you know, the arts world. My mom was an artist, my brother is an artist. You know, we’ve really emphasized that recently, because we used to give to sort of the classic charities of, “Okay, let’s just focus on the children’s hospital,” or whatever. And so allowing them to be part of that process to help vet those donations, or, you know, whatever it may be. I think making sure you’re flexible and open-minded to figure out how you can get people contributing is really a key part of it.
The only other thing I would say is just the “play together, stay together” idea that Danielle said, I think is bang on. Make sure you schedule time to spend time together where there is no agenda of business.
And so, like, we go on our family retreat, and we have one day where we spend six hours or so in a boardroom. At that point, we’re all ready to stab each other. But the other day is very much so, nothing to do with business. Let’s just go and spend time having fun together, have somenice meals. We go to an art gallery or whatever. And I think that is the part that becomes difficult is committing to time together where there is not a business agenda.
Ashley: Yeah, that makes sense. Elke?
Elke: And from my perspective, I need to be careful because that’s what we do. I can tell you that many of the clients we deal with came to us because they went elsewhere, and elsewhere said, “Well, if we liquidate the enterprise, if we manage the assets, if we take over asset management…”
And when these people have come to us, the first thing that came out of their mouth was, “This is a legacy. This is a family enterprise. This is where we’re headed. This is where we want to go. We don’t know where it’s going to end, but this is what we would like to see.”
So when I hear “legacy,” “keep family,” “protect family,” and so on, I don’t know what the solution is, but I’m not going to recommend asset management to begin with.
I’m a big fan of analogies. Let’s pretend this is a hospital, “What’s hurting? Tell me what hurts. Tell me everything, because I might send you to the wrong doctor if you don’t tell me everything. But let’s diagnose the situation. Maybe the solution is an aspirin. Maybe the solution is open-heart surgery right now. But let’s make sure that everybody’s talking. Let’s sit down.” You don’t start with asset management. Let’s talk about the blueprint. Where do you want to go? What’s important to you? What are you proud of? What are you scared of? When did you feel alone? Tell me about your family dynamics. Was your kid interested, involved, curious, too young, completely disengaged, addictions, fears, entitlement, broken relationships, marriages and second marriages and third marriages?
All those things are going to start infusing the flavor to the path we’re going to walk together. And you didn’t get here in two years. We’re not going to fix this in one week. This is a lifelong journey. We want people that are open to the conversation, that today they say, “Oh, somebody had a kid, not my grandma.” Great. And all the planning can start again, but we don’t allow tax or asset management or numbers to wag the dog. Because at the end of the day, the conversation is never about money. It’s harmony in the family. We want to stick together. How can we make it happen?
And the plan can tell you: how much money do you need to never outlive your savings? How much money can you give while you’re alive and not compromise your old age? How much are you leaving behind? And are your recipients of wealth ready and able? And it’s a human conversation. It’s not rate of return or tax efficiencies or acquisitions.
Ashley: Yep. For this question, it was actually sent in by a reader, and I am positive all three of you have fantastic stories that you cannot share with me, but maybe offline one day. So my question was: how important is conflict? And sorry, Elke, I’m just trying to move along a bit because we only have 15 minutes left. So many questions. So mine was, how important is conflict resolution in all of this?
And the reader question was: In supporting family enterprises, advisors often encounter unspoken tensions and communication challenges that can derail even the best-laid plans. From your experience, what role can process facilitation or conflict management play in helping families maintain both harmony and momentum across generations?
Who wants to start?
Danielle: I feel this has already been answered. I was going to say, first I want to reiterate that conflict is normal. We all face it, and we have the choice of how we want to respond to it. You can put up the brick wall and say, “No, no, no,” or you can say, “Wait, there’s something here. How can we come together?”
So if there’s one thing that I would say is most important, which has been said throughout this, is communication. And to have a constant cadence to communication. Make it intentional conversations where every voice is heard and a safe space is created. Every individual has toshow up and really feel strong in their own two feet to be able to deal with any potential conflict that will be there.
Elke: You know how companies are big on ESG and so on. I always say E and S are great, but without the G nothing happens. If there’s no governance, or let’s not use governance as a fancy word, rules of engagement, we don’t know when conflict is going to happen, but we know it’s going to happen. Because you’re going to think I said something, and I said something else, and I was actually under slept and didn’treally mean that.
So, conflict will show up. How do we handle conflict? And literally, I mean, at the right time, build your little family constitution. How do we resolve, how do we vote? Is it one vote? Is it a unanimous majority? And then the rules can change as time goes on, or the family grows, or everything. But have something in writing.
I’m a big fan of prenups. I’m a big fan of shareholders’ agreements. I’m a big fan of family constitutions, because then you’re not arguing against the person, you just have to refer back to what you signed, what you agreed to, what was acceptable at a time when everybody was flowing and in the right mindset. Trying to agree when there’s conflict is a lot harder.
Ashley: Yeah. Luke?
Luke: Yeah, I’ll just add two things. One, and I would say probably the most important thing that we’ve found is, we have a third-party CEO that I work side by side with, and he’s been with our family now for a decade. And having him in our board meetings and having him intricately involved in our family office as a third party, “no family baggage” team member, he can really bring a lot of professionalism to the table and help us bring the temperature down if things are going off on a quagmire or a tangent with family members. And I think that presence of a third-party person, a non-family member, it will make people bring out the best part of themselves as well, because it’s not sitting around the dinner table with just family. It’s sitting around the boardroom table, and this person is there as well. So, I think that is a really, really undervalued asset that a lot of people will think, “Oh no, I need to keep it all family.” But whether it’s an advisor or a full-time person, I can’tspeak enough about that.
And then I’ll just add onto that by saying, I also think you really want to think through, sorry I just lost my train of thought here, you also want to ensure that you are having an open discussion, or let me rephrase that, you set the tone for open discussion. So the first generation or the older generation is making it clear that everybody has an equal voice. They can be criticized; other people can be criticized. And so that open discussion is really only possible if the tone is set from the top down. Because a lot of the time I find you can end up skirting around the real honest discussions, and you need to set that tone, otherwise it won’t happen.
Ashley: Okay, and final question from me. I like to close on a positive note, and then I’m hoping we can squeeze in two reader questions.
What are you hopeful about when you look at the next generation? If you can give me a few characteristics. I’m sure there’s some.
Danielle: Yes, there is. I guess, you know, well, with my kids being the oldest on this panel here, one area I really think that I’m very hopeful with the Next Gen is you are resilient. I believe you can tap into your courage to ask the questions that you have to start the meaningful conversations, to lead your family in having family meetings, if they haven’t happened yet.
You have the ability to begin a learning journey and to create those fun moments with your family. And so yes, next generation, you’reresilient. You have the capabilities. Show up, be you, and know that you are enough for who you are.
Luke: Elke?
Elke: Yeah. I think it’s exciting when I see the next generation and the kind of questions they ask. It’s incredible, because they come to you with a lot of information already, and they come to you for clarification.
So, if you enable that conversation space for them and make it safe, it’s great. To any young person, it’s always going to be all right. Everything’s going to be fine. Go at it. Be curious. Have fun. Fun is the most important thing.
I think in my generation, the fun piece fell out somewhere, and I think now I’m committed to bringing fun to the table. Don’t react to headlines. Don’t buy into what somebody tells you at face value.
Normally, news will sell when it’s bad. You don’t want to decide from a negative place. Really sit down, go have fun, obviously be responsible, understand accountability and consequences of your actions. That kind of goes with the territory. But be a kid again and have fun.
Ashley: Luke?
Luke: Yeah, I think the main thing for me is, first of all, having empathy. That’s a difficult thing to teach people, but if my kids show empathy,and they certainly do today, I know that they will be well served over time to follow that empathy.
I think having the confidence to follow their own passion, which I think is probably the hardest one, because I’ve at times struggled with that. I know many people that struggle with that. So having that confidence to actually go and follow your own purpose.
And then being honest. I’d really love my children to be honest with me about how they feel about all of this. And I will try to set the tone, as I said, and do the same and share with them, as Elke said at the start, the bad moments I’ve had and the good moments. And sort of tell them the truth of what this has been like for me. And they can then decide how they want it to be for themselves.
Ashley: All right. We’re going to jump down to one or two reader questions. Any recommended books to better understand or serve the rising gen would be greatly appreciated. Danielle, I know you’ve already mentioned a few books, but yes, any recommendations?
Danielle: In the line to what Luke was just saying, if anyone’s, the one I highly recommend for everyone to read is Robin Sharma: The Leader Who Had No Title to really find your own path forward, find your passion. Because you can be a leader not in the traditional way; you can be a leader and define it in your own way.
So find what your passion is and lead with what you have. And I think that’s an awesome book that brings that forward.
Ashley: Okay.
Elke: I mean, an easy Google “Next Generation,” and you’ll be in, you can die suffocated by all these books. But start really basic, like Rich Dad Poor Dad. It’s a good philosophy.
What’s the other one, Philosophy of Money or The Psychology of Money is good too. Wisdom of Wealth is good. What else?
Ashley: I think those are pretty good.
Luke: Yeah. I’m not going to lie; I don’t read a ton of Next Gen books specifically. What I’ve found, probably my favorite book, is the bookAtomic Habits. It gives you a sort of guideline of how to achieve different things in life. And sometimes as the next generation, when you’re looking at the generation before you that’s achieved so much and other people outside your family put a ton of pressure on you to be like, “Oh, you’re obviously going to be this prolific entrepreneur, or create a huge amount of value,” it can be very daunting. And I really like books like Atomic Habits because it helps sort of break down the methodology of, “Okay, what do I do tomorrow? How do I actually build these disciplines that over time will add up to something very meaningful over time.” So, I know it’s not a family wealth book, but it’s been very meaningful to me personally.
Elke: Okay, I was going to say another one, quick one. I’ll add, it’s not financial in the least, but Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is one of my life favorites. It’s really, really good about leading with meaning.
Ashley: Okay, and I think this next question from another reader/viewer, thank you so much for sending it in, how do first-gen wealth creators create a different culture that does not require second gen to hold themselves to such unrealistic goals?
But Luke, I feel like you’ve answered that.
Luke: Yeah, I mean, so how does the first gen create a culture that doesn’t require the second gen? I mean, I think the problem is it’s not up to the first gen a lot of the time. It’s the external world that creates that pressure, in my experience. My parents didn’t put pressure on me saying, “We expect you to join the family business and become an entrepreneur.” To be honest, it was much more my friends and colleagues and teachers and things like that that probably, without realizing it, put that pressure on me. So, I think it’s probably more important that the first generation, or any generation that has a next gen, recognizes that reality. That, hey, you’re going to have people expect you to become basically your parents. But that’s the worst thing you could do. I mean, you need to become your own person, and if you want longevity, I mean, the world is changing at a rapid pace. Whatever my dad did in the seventies certainly is probably not a good game plan for the world we’re going into now, right. So I think that would be my answer.
Ashley: Danielle or Elke, anything to add?
Danielle: I would just add, as Luke was speaking, I was thinking of a client I had, and for one generation to the next, I would just put caution to the wealth maker that if they are very financially savvy and their children are more artistic than they are financially savvy, not to put that pressure on. Right. And I think, like Luke had brought in his example, if you allow every individual, every one of your children, to really bloom for who they are, you help eliminate that.
And I can speak, similar to Luke, the pressure was never on me to be that next big business creator or to get into the family business and be the next big person in there. But there was a perceived expectation to do the best I can, on my own. And I think if we give that to our children, that second generation can, if they are put in a position where they can stand strong in their own two feet and really feel that they are significant, valued individuals, part of a greater good, that that in itself would allow the second generation to be able to come through with flying colors.
Ashley: Okay. Elke, anything to add?
Elke: Yeah, and I think it goes back to our very first point: talk about it. There’s very few I can think of other than telling your kid, “I’m not expecting you to run with this,” or “I’m not, you are not expected, don’t have the pressure.” Because if you want to fail royally, try to be someone else, right? “I’m not expecting you to do it the way, I would love for you to take over. It would be great because I built this based on that, and these were my passions, and these were my drivers, and these were the things I had to overcome. I’m here to guide you if you’reinterested,” but the venture’s going to go south if you’re assuming a lot of things, you’re not guiding, you’re not open, you don’t have the conversation, and everybody’s going to hate everyone.
And the value of the enterprise is going to go down, whether it’s marginally or terribly. But again, it starts with a conversation, and the sooner you start, even if it’s light, better. But do say the words: “I’m not expecting you … You are not … You don’t have that burden.” And then see what happens.
Ashley: Communication, transparency, have fun.
Okay, we are out of time today. Thank you all for tuning in, and a big thank you to our panelists for sharing their views.
Have a good day, everyone.
The Canadian Family Offices newsletter comes out on Sundays and Wednesdays. If you are interested in stories about Canadian enterprising families, family offices and the professionals who work with them, but like your content aggregated, you can sign up for our free newsletter here.
Please visit here to see information about our standards of journalistic excellence.