As family-enterprise advising develops in Canada, there’s a lot of discussion about the best way to offer a full range of services. Many firms begin with a narrow focus, such as investment management, law or succession planning, then rely on recruitment, professional development and partnership with trusted associates to serve the evolving needs of clients.
But what’s the best model for collaboration?
Patrick O’Connor, FEA, who is based in Winnipeg, is building a national family-office framework that’s a bit different. After years of working independently, the founder and CEO of Blackwood Family Enterprise Services is bringing together a network of specialists across a wide range of related fields, and today it’s supporting legal, financial or investment firms seeking to provide a broader range of professional advisory services.
A uniting value for the Blackwood team is strategic harmony, O’Connor says.
That’s the firm’s mission, in the sense that they strive to work seamlessly together and help enterprising families find harmony among themselves as well. The concept of harmony is also reflected in the name “Blackwood,” which is another word for the African mpingo tree, often used for manufacturing musical instruments because of its innate harmonic qualities.
“I like the metaphor of the tree because it provides many things: shade and growth, and the idea of sharing, as in philanthropy,” he says.
Ultimately, Blackwood will link about 20 internal advisors nationally, with representation in every major market. Currently, Blackwood is planning for expansion into Atlantic Canada.
O’Connor started out at London Life Insurance Co., where he worked from the early 1980s to the turn of the millennium, mainly supporting small-business-owning families. “What was very obvious to me then was that these families didn’t really have anywhere to go for help with this complex work of family governance,” he says.
Upon leaving London Life in 1999, O’Connor began to explore this new territory in an early iteration of what would later become Blackwood, initially as a sole practitioner working with a small group of staff. In 2014, he acquired the Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA) designation.
“That was a real eye-opener for me, to see that there were other people in Canada who understood the complexities of working with business families like this,” he says.
Later, during the COVID lockdowns, tax specialist David Blom, a friend of many years, approached O’Connor about collaborating to scale up Blackwood’s operations. Not long afterward, psychologist, family wealth consultant and executive coach Moira Somers became a third founder of what O’Connor calls “Blackwood 2.0.”
The idea of working in a team with the support of other advisors was appealing, he says. “That’s part of the business plan with Blackwood, to create this ecosystem of like-minded advisors across the country. … We are seeing the silos breaking down.
“The concept of a one-stop shop is just not viable anymore. You need to collaborate with other advisors.”
To this end, these advisors work with the firm at one of two levels. Among the “senior advisors” are Montreal-based family legacy guide, coach and facilitator Steve Legler and Calgary-based CPA Penny Leckie. On the Blackwood “faculty” roster are philanthropy advisor Sharilyn Hale, business and human-resources advisor Gerry Meyer in North Vancouver, and Darren Rawson and Mary Cameron of Ozone Advisory Group in Edmonton, which helps private companies create high-performance governance structures.
O’Connor adds, “I don’t look at us as a family office; I look at us as a service to family offices.” He explains that the advisors who join Blackwood do their family-enterprise work though the firm but may continue to practice privately in their own disciplines with other types of clients.
For instance, Moira Somers is Blackwood’s “chief learning officer,” responsible for curriculum in monthly advisor workshops and occasional “academies,” or mini-conferences for internal advisors and faculty. However, she also practices independently.
Blackwood’s in-house professional development program encourages advisors to teach and learn from one another.
“It’s a sharing model,” O’Connor says, “so it’s very transparent, and we’ve designed our business such that everybody is actually a partner, so it is important that we’re aligned together. As each individual business does well, we’re able to share that success.
“It’s a business model that people really seem to like. I’d hazard to say there isn’t anybody else doing what we’re doing.”
“What’s also interesting is that just because you’re an advisor in Toronto, that doesn’t mean that the families you’re working with are all in Toronto,” he says.
O’Connor says he has hopes that in future the family-office industry will be able to support enterprising families throughout Canada and the U.S., support that did not exist 30 or 40 years ago.
“I would look back to 30 years ago when the advisors were all siloed; I would hope we can continue to build this unique and vibrant sector to really support and have an impact on the families we’re working with,” he says.
“When we can help navigate a tricky transition for the family and come out the other side with a good result, it’s a generational impact. This is why this sector is so important, and that’s why we all have to continue and collaborate together.”
Please visit here to see information about our standards of journalistic excellence.