Wealth Strategy | Uncomplicating the Family Office Model

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So today, we're going to

talk about the family office model. We're going to start. I want to hear

from you kind of what the traditional family office model or business looks like, move into some some of the

shortcomings of that and then talk about what we're doing and what we're doing differently. So

Sune, I want to talk to talk to you today about your experience out in the world with the family office model as I

said um and what inspired you to build something entirely different. Um, I

wrote, "Not only have you traveled and lived all over the world for, but for 20 years you've been advising entrepreneur

entrepreneurial families across the globe. Um, and your aim has always been to be a protector of visionary builders

and the value that they create. You're a firm believer in the power of entrepreneurship to shape economies and

societies, which is very cool, and I want to talk to you more about that maybe at the end." Um, but I want to

begin today's conversation. Yeah, with what you observed in the family office space that made you feel

that the model just simply as it stood wasn't enough. Um,

and yeah, why you think it's failing families are not built to serve the innovators and visionaries of the next

generation. Yeah, interesting questions and I think with hindsight it's always easy to kind

of piece together a logic transition towards you know where we sit and look at the world today. But I think there's

tremendous wealth being built uh often by maybe sort of first generation particularly in the US in the technology

space and then in the let's call the last five six years you really see the rapid movement in the transition from

wealth from the older generation to generally younger people and/or the wife

um in in most cases just because of how demographics tend to work out and so I think when you have change you always

have kind of a challenge to the status quo and I also think that the status quo I got very comfortable in a model that was really focused around optimizing

from their perspective. So the idea of being able to pack it and sell a product in a most profitable way is essentially

nothing wrong with that. But I think it it does come at odds with the end client

specifically when you're dealing with generational wealth because that will be a need for some products and if they

executed well there certainly I mean I spent most of my days looking at products on behalf of clients and so

nothing wrong with that but I think where a lot of the confusion that I perceived in the space when I started my

journey was that there's a very big difference between being an advisor to the family and being an advisor on the

product of the firm that you're selling products for and Very few firms like to

make that differentiation on their business cards. And so in most large firms who are selling some form of financial product whether it's party

banking or various asset management strategies um or even in the legal profession to some degree they would like to call

themselves advisers um where your advisor but are you really advising them

trying to deal with their unique questions, challenges, opportunities or

are you advising them on a suite of products that you have available uh within your firm or within the range of

your profession? And so that was kind of my first friction point a little bit in the journey as I started moving in and

working with private families. I often found there was limitations to the firms I was working at in the time because

there was maybe somewhat of an objective towards placing certain products or at least keeping it as simple as possible.

And then when you sat down with the family and you actually listened to them, which again my profession is not fantastic at historically, but when you

actually listened um then you started figuring out that hold on, this is not

exactly the building blocks I'm bringing with me into this meeting are not exactly the building blocks that are actually going to solve these issues.

Now, if I'm a fantastic communicator, I might be able to convince them that these building blocks are, you know, the

building blocks they need. But obviously over time there's really no hiding place when you have generational wealth and

you're out at the sharp end of things and eventually you'll be seen as a salesperson because you've been bringing

products that were not exactly solving that their issues that they want solved. And so I found that people are rotating

searching for answers and I didn't feel my industry would provide it. Um and I think that that's particularly true in

the US. Again the US is a very dynamic economy very dynamic financial industry

um and a fantastic place to build businesses. Um, but I I did feel again

you had this schism between a lot of new wealth being built and seeking answers

and support and an industry that was very much steeped in what used to work

and what was working very well for them. And I think that that was kind of the friction point I got curious about um

and wanted to try and figure out what are some different models and I'd kind of landed somewhat uh haphazardly in the

Swiss model which is somewhat different um and more of a even within Europe it's very unique um and we could probably

spend two hours talking about Switzerland in the context of all kinds of areas where I think it's relevant but

I think for this particular question the the relevance where what resonated with

me as an advisor to families was that in the Swiss model at least with some firms you are allowed to be a fiduciary

advisor so working for the family and you are independent of the private banks of the different service providers of

the different product uh providers and therefore you're in a position where you can start with the client listening and

understanding and then starting to build a blueprint and then you go out and try and find the solutions versus the

opposite and so that would be kind of the journey in and what I think is probably some of the bigger differences

that we are facing So talk to me about this idea of a fiduciary because the is this is is a

is the structure of a family office or an asset management firm in the United States as it were or the older model not

built like is not built with fiduciaries people who are standing alongside the

folks that they're working with. So this is rather in any industry and

particularly the financial and the legal there's a lot of very long documents with a lot of very small letters on them and that allows when you take a step

back and look at them it all looks very gray and I think when you look at the actual as an SEC registered advisor

which Bespoke is you do have the responsibility of a fiduciary in serving your clients but you do have scope for

the offering that you're bringing to the client and specifically if you're working in the family office or what we call the accredited or the qualified

investors that is it's deemed that those families or those individuals are able to differentiate and make decisions at a

more advanced level and so I do think that that has been a sort of a mission creed from the fiduciary that is maybe

where the agreement starts to what is the end product and how people are in interacting and I think it's

particularly true so one of the things that struck me a little bit initially when I started building is specifically working with us families um was that

there was plenty of what we would call a multi family office and I think it's maybe important just to click on we say

family office and interchangeably between all of these things and I think those should be defined. So you can have

what you would call a single family office. A single family office would be a family who's built generational wealth

in some way or the other and they have organized themselves around that wealth and their family's needs and generally

built an in-house team for solving their issues and they may rely on you know an

outside accountant or lawyer for some of the work but generally a single family office would house just one family's

activity. Then you got what is a multi family office model which again in the

European setting is a little bit different and it's actually more common I think to some degree which is where

specifically you got in my mind if you have families with less than a billion dollars in total wealth then it's very

difficult to build a truly scaled family office solution that actually is going to solve for all your needs in a cost

effective way. There's very limited talent across the industry and so you're

fighting to attract the right talent. You are still trying to figure out a lot of things and if your background is not

legal or financial in nature and you made a technology company or you know real estate or something there's a lot

of areas that you may not have the expertise in to really make decisions and then you're going to make a lot of trial and error if you go out there on

your own. And so in theory the multi family office should be this kind of plug and play solution where you get to

tailor with some you know experienced and wellused building blocks and having if you don't have within the family or

your sort of existing non-family uh closely knit team maybe from an operative business people who understand

these aspects then you could go out and have someone from the multi family office put those building blocks in

place around you so that the family could focus on if they wanted to continue to build a business or manage a

business or if they want just to go sailing or if they wanted to focus on philanthropy or anywhere in between the

idea that you can kind of build uh with Legos uh kind of the total solution you

need obviously makes a lot of sense but what had happened again was back to this kind of optimization and the financial

industry and when you looked at a lot of the traditional multi family offices particularly in the US model um you

ended up in a place where there was certainly some beautiful websites and a lot of language around you know

preparing next generation and family And but when you look at sort of their actual detailed proposal offerings or

even better their reg regulatory documents, you can see what they charge fees for. And in most cases once you

dive a little bit into those very small letters, um you find that they're primarily there to sell funds, private

funds generally as private funds has a place within a portfolio and they're certainly valuable, but it wouldn't be

where I would start a relationship if I was building someone's family office. And so that was just kind of the definition just it's not necessarily a

negative. It just can't be the leading solution or your primary business of of placing funds if you're actually

supposed to be building someone a family office. And you're telling me that that is common in the United States for family

offices to be focused on pushing funds certain funds. Yeah. And again not all and there

certainly good providers out there etc. But yeah yeah I would say the majority have some

component of that and then it's you know how prevailing is it? Do they also have other services alongside it that

they actually committed to delivering or is it really sort of we'll talk to you about it and then we'll send you to some

third party provider and then we'll get back to our primary objective which is to place your portfolio into 5 10

structured products that we have some nice fee incentives built around. Okay. So, I want to get into these more

kind of specific areas of like the Swiss model and and what our advisory looks

like and we're going to do that in a minute. But before we go there, um I was going to ask you to touch on the kind of

the cost benefit. You you were starting to kind of allude to some of the challenges that really come to come with

putting together your own family office. Um but I wanted to hear if you wanted or if you wanted to touch on just the cost

benefit or um of that. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's an interesting one.

Again, the reason why I picked out the billion dollar is not because I think that there's some kind of magical number, but again, if you it's like with

any business and a family office when structured is essentially a business. And

you know, there's an overhead cost to operating any business. And obviously, you want to make that as balanced as possible while still getting the value

and the outcomes you're looking for. And when you start looking at smaller levels

of aum um specifically if the ambition of the family is to have a well-rounded

full investment team inhouse maybe to have legal to be active philanthrop philanthropically

um maybe they have global footprints. So now you're dealing with multiple jurisdictions, you're dealing with operations, maybe travel and all of

these aspects and pretty quickly it becomes very complex you know then pretty quickly you're ending up spending a significant amount on overhead and

specifically if you want to acquire the top talent and so then you have this cost/benefit analysis that you have to

think about and I think again you know for some it can be that can be that can be valuable money can be well spent. I

was thinking there's there's parts of a family office that is probably not great for you to have to build from scratch

specifically if you don't have the inclination to spend your time doing that work as a family or if you don't

have much experience in it. I mean, one of the one of the interesting things about generational wealth in my mind is it should free you up, not constrain

you. It's supposed to allow you to spend your time the way you want to spend it and maybe for for next generation to be

able to grow in in ways maybe the first builder was not allowed to because they were 100 hour weeks trying to build

something. And sometimes I find families are so tied in to trying to build and operate a family office that they kind of maybe

lose a little bit of that and lose the joy of it, lose the opportunity to truly be free and make decisions with their

time. And so then again is this thing if I'm going to pay someone else to do it, am I getting value? And again, I'm not

against higher cost point. We are not cheap, but we do deliver value, I believe. And I think that that's the difference in some cases where I look at

the portfolio model or the portfolio model within uh a family office and the

operative model within a family office, and I'm not sure they're getting the value for what they're spending. Yeah. Complex, expensive, and a

full-time job for many. You don't get away from that. And I think the complexity is a really

interesting area because again I think you know there's there's definitely a lot of stuff that is complex within

wealth and family all families not just wealthy families as as everyone can probably attest to but you know I do

think that my industry and perhaps the legal industry has made business out of making maybe what should be more simple

more complex because then you can be the gatekeeper or you can be the expert who is explaining this to everyone else.

And so the acronyms and the the weird vocabulary and all of these things and I think some of these some of them are

relevant but I think a lot of it hides really what should be much simpler. I think it was Alan K who was one of the

early guys developing software for the personal computer and he had the saying that the simple things should be simple

and the complex things should be possible. And I think that that is that

guides my thinking about what what a family office should be and how we should be supporting a family because I

think there are things that are simple and some of them are very big and values based. Some of them are just simple

things you know that you don't need to over complicate like what but there's also a lot of complexity and

those things should just be made possible. We shouldn't hide from the complexity. Um the simple things I think

communication should be very simple again. Am I your advisor or am I someone who's advising you on products from a

certain institution? That's a pretty simple question, but I think it can get very complicated pretty quickly if you sit down and ask that one. I think

there's things within family conversations that probably should be kept more simple. So, we in the middle

of a big wealth transition. Everyone is certainly the industry of consultants is very keen to, you know, kind of paint

that as some kind of conflict between generations and the big problem. I would say I see it differently. Uh, I see the

next generation as human capital that should be valued and should be appreciated and should be certainly

mentored and given space to make mistakes and grow. But if you're truly going to transfer wealth, you also have

to transfer values. And I think that that's where you get the benefit of working with the next generation. And so

I think sometimes we want to make that whole thing very complicated where again I think it shouldn't be at the high

level. Um, and so those are some of the sort of bigger things I I mean then you got very practical aspects of how you

operate etc. Again you should always try and get towards simplicity if you can. Yeah. Let's talk about human capital now

actually. Um human capital is something that honestly I never thought about. I didn't even know was a a term until I

started working with you and working at Bespoke and this company is like investing in the young people in their

company and like creating a company of humans for the long term if that's what

like if that's a mutual desire like right but and I think that what I what I

saw too was like this was leadership who were kind of like walking the walk of of

the talk they talk and and doing for the doing for their their team what they do

for their clients and and what I guess I mean by that is you know there has to be out the way that we you know you all

serve is with this generational mindset because the money is going to live beyond the family and like how does

somebody think about that and that being reflected within the company because there's going to be a day where you all

die and then and then there's you know Like sorry nobody wants to talk about

the fact that we're going to die at some point. That's just the inevitable. I think we all what we see in the world is

actually just like major efforts to kind of like deny that everyone the world is getting hotter

father time is father time is undefeated and so you know no matter what you're doing eventually

that's it. Um, I think it's a really important point on many levels. I think let's let's

start with sort of the top level of it. So for me to sit down with a family and let's say I'm speaking to someone who's

about my age, so in their 50s who might be the first builder. And if I'm going to sit and say to him, we're here to

help you manage generational wealth. We're here to help you envision what your legacy might

be and how we can then go forward and execute on it. If I'm not thinking

beyond me, then am I am I am I again a true fiduciary

because I'm not going to be around to execute on that. You know, maybe hopefully in a long time from now, but

eventually I'm not going to be. So if I don't have a team around me that is growing and is going to be part of that

solution maybe working with their daughter or their son um both in the future

then there will be kind of a hollow promise that is probably one of the most important promises that you can make in

my in my role which is I'm going to be there to your point we're all going to pass and I think often when you're a

founder who is larger than life who's built done something extraordinary and you're super busy you can get to a place

where you think ah this is just going to keep going on. And I think that's often where we have some of these kind of difficulties in families talking about

wealth or having any kind of plan beyond the initial builder just because those types of personalities are not generally

people who sit down and reflect too much on their own mortality because that's not what gets you to those types of outcomes. But again at some stage it's

going to happen and and the the problem is that if it happens without a plan without a structure without the human

capital whether that's within the family and the external support team but ideally some part of the family then

that's where you have all these horror stories about you know everything was made in one generation and lost in the

next it's often because there was no thinking free beyond the initial phase and the initial builder and I think

again when you ask me the question about what is a family office in many ways The family office is about operating here now. But if the family

office houses generational level well, a large part of its role is the transfer to the next generation in whatever

format that is, you know, and they can also go beyond, you know, the not necessarily most most clients that we serve

currently are not interested in most of the wealth going directly to their children. They often have a

commitment to their community to the larger world that they want to see some of this wealth used towards. And so the

generational shift is not just one of can I move my money to my children? It's also can I move my money so that it

continues ideally perpetually to support some of those outcomes or values that I have? Um and so I think that that's an

interesting angle to look at the family office as a vehicle for that not just for the here and now.

Yeah. And now I'm thinking about how we're talking

about the family office. We're talking about the multi family office. When we try to describe what Bespoke is, we kind

of, you know, we're very much, I think, figuring that out. Multi family office is a way that is something that

makes sense, but I would argue that we're even more than that. I mean, what's the elevator pitch? And it's like a multi family office operating on a

single family office model with both an asset management and an advisory arm. So, a bit of a mouthful. Um, but can you

like tell like what does that mean for us? Well, there's a couple of things I want

to step into on that one. One is this whole the use of office in this tensions

and family together. For me those are like specifically with with with younger clients maybe and and maybe

I think very few people want their family to be an office or have their family all sitting in some office

together you know but it's the term where we all kind of know what it means

and so everyone uses it. You can all point and say, "Oh, that's a family office or I work in a family office or we have a family office and the world

around us knows." So when I sit in one of the airports and someone asked me what I do,

you know, you're kind of like, well, I could say something super interesting. I could say something as bland as I have I operate in a multi family office and

then we go okay and then we can get on with whatever small to but the

so clearing that I think the you know what is Bespoke one of the things I would say so again back to this kind of

question of is the industry meeting the needs of the potential clients and kind of that question mark that was kind of

my initial search you know one of the things I started seeing was what when I started in the

role what would the what we would call the edge cases increasingly become more

of the norm. The edge basically being the edge, the edge of the outcomes. And so like the rare the rare client in

my early days would be a woman for example would be a younger person would

be someone with more of a global lifestyle perhaps. You know initially when I

started very few US people were thinking about living or spending time overseas in an extensive way. They may have a home

in France or a home somewhere in the Caribbean, but it was not the norm. But

now increasingly I think I see more of the edge cases and maybe some of it is just that we attracting that because

we've grown organically from that type of person and they bring their friends and people with them. um when you look

after them. But I would say that I have a hunch that the edge cases so the women

the younger generation the more globally minded people who are maybe thinking more about stewardship than ownership

which I think are two interesting words to maybe spend some time on. The

other thing I used to say even in the earlier days of these this transition that is underway was very common for

people to build a family a family business that have been successful to kind of now my you know next generation

has taken over so it's time to exit and I saw earlier on maybe five six years ago there was a lot of private equity

liquidation so now we have a family office and we got this cash event I'm seeing more that that may have been a

mistake for some families and I'm seeing families now where what was

after just selling the business without, you know, now I got a big tongue of cash instead of having an operative business

that someone spent 30 years building and building a community and a team around and

you know I see more of an interest maybe in some families where I want to we want to retain the family business as an

asset within a family office and how could that work and that might have been the rarity five six years ago but I'm

seeing more of it today and so the The reason why I bring up this this piece is

that I think this focus is somewhat built around the idea of solving for those types of clients. I mean the majority of

our large family office clients that we serve today are women or the family office is somewhat women led for

example. Well, all of our very large family office clients have large philanthropy targets. All of them have

not a commitment to some kind of ESG nonsense, but they have a very large commitment to impact and stewardship

across all assets, not some sleeve on the side. That that lens of what is my

values when I sit and do strategic asset allocation with all our fans that has

changed. That was not the case 10 years ago. It was really more about ownership and how can I continue to grow.

But now it's in every conversation I have. And the reason why I say that is back to I think the incumbents were

sleeping at the wheel in the context of where we already were. But if we are seeing this big shift to what I would

call the edge cases becoming the norm then there even more drift from that the

outcomes that those types of people seek and again Bespoke somewhat is being built around those concepts and so I

think when you ask me we are multi family office again if you're going to use a term that someone in the airport

will understand when I mention it and I don't think there's anything wrong with being a multi family office I just think it drifted what was a family

office doing and I think it's time to reclaim the multi family office because as I said I think many families who have

let's say less than a billion or where the family is maybe not super engaged or wanting to be engaged and maybe the

asset management side which is often the most expensive one to staff they would probably better off working with a

multi family office if there was more multi family offices who are actually there to provide solutions and so I

think the um I think the space is opening up for that and I'm you know I'm hoping Bespoke will grow and help a lot of families but we always going to be a

boutique So, I'm also hoping that the industry more broadly will start evolving and change and ideally start

serving some of these families. Yeah. And I think it's interesting too. who I've when I when I

speak to I'm starting to get more of the sense that like that younger maybe like

that younger uh entrepreneur, visionary, founder, somebody who created something

amazing and and built this massive wealth might not even know like might not because they are part of like

traditional finance might not even know the word family office or like what that even really means. I was talking to

people my age who work like in investing but kind of more on the creative like and I said family office and they're

like what is that? So I don't know like can you put like how would you like now

I'm just like in in in the effort of like not in the effort and in of not

using like this exclusive language. It's like it's really just building or it's

it's finding people that you want to work with with different expertise and different disciplines that can help you

achieve the outcomes that you care about and build around your wealth. That comes with a whole set of new challenges. Like

that's kind of just what it is. Yeah. I think

you know again it's there's a a a famous saying a couple of famous sayings around

family offices like if you seen one family office you've seen one family office because they're all different and the other one is it depends which our

good friend Jonathan one of the founders of this book he loves that term because specifically at the planning side it

truly does depend on what the client is trying to achieve but I think there are some commonalities that you can sear in

on and one of these is you need to have generational wealth And you need to be a family to have the need

for what I would call the construct that a family office is the definition of. And then when you start pulling back the

layers on that then you see okay well there's some kind of structure. So what does that mean? It means a legal entity

what we call how to own which is thinking about where do we start this whole thing off and what are the

opportunities to deliver some of the outcomes that a family naturally will seek when they have that level of wealth. And so things like asset

protection, privacy, specifically privacy in these days where everything is digital, um

things like governance around family, um you know, things like tax planning obviously. And what does governance governance mean

for the lay person? Yeah, governance is one of those fancy terms that my industry likes to throw

around. I think governance is really about establishing the values of the family and then building the habits and

the systems that give you those outcomes. And overall you might title that as family governance. And

essentially what it means is what are some of these key things? What is our for you know like let's say you have

generational wealth. Maybe one of the first questions I like to when I meet a families talk about is what's the enough

number for you as the here and now. Let's say you have $500 million. How

much of that right now can we set aside to solve your lifetime and ideally if you have younger children? What if I

don't know that journey? Well, that's that's the start of the journey is to try and figure that out

because what that leads to is what about the rest then? So then

it's back to this ownership stewardship thing. You want to have ownership of a lot of these things and you're going to need the structures that matches

ownership and active living building businesses enjoying you know your financial freedom etc. But then there's

the other bit and that's some ways almost more interesting. So then for some family that's a lot of philanthropy, for others it's next

generation and empowering them to do things maybe building businesses and so then you almost end up with these three

different segments of the wealth and each of those will have to have some kind of structure attached to them. If

it's philanthropy philanthropy structures, if it's middle ground as we call it or the hybrid, then you're doing

something that can convert to philanthropy but gives you flexibility to the here and now. And then there's kind of the here and now. And so when

you ask me what is the family office, the family office is some way of building structure around how to address these three pockets. And then after

that, then you get into what we call where to own because if you have bankable assets, you're going to have a custodian at the end of those

structures. So that's kind of where we get into the private banking or some of these different solutions. And now we

got some assets sitting that could be a family business, it could be Bitcoin, it could be traditional securities, it could be real estate in most cases, some

mix of all of those things. And so that's where my official job generally starts which is strategic asset

allocation the asset management side how do we think about this in the context of the world we are facing and the outcomes

the family seeks and so that's kind of what we would call the what to own which

is those activities that I would define as asset management advisory at a high level and the initial phase of a client

relationship is essentially that journey which is complicated should be some of these are big questions like

specifically the governance, the philanthropy, our values as a family. I can't tell you that. The family will

have to have those conversations and at least get to an approximation of it. A lot of the stuff can be changed if it's

done right. It's flexible, but it's also permanent. It has the strength to it, but it also have enough flexibility for

the family to change, for the world to change. And again, that's back to that thing about listening and building

solutions. If you don't listen and build solutions, then you're not going to get the nuances

that are important to deliver some of these outcomes. Yeah, it's important to meet people

where they are. Um, I've noticed that you've been saying families a lot and I want to clear that up because you it

might not be a family, it might be an individual. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We have clients where that starts

and again in the you know we have clients where I would have they have some family and they have generational

full level wealth and then we have other clients where they they're early in their journey and they might be a single individual who's built one maybe two

successful businesses. Yeah. Maybe they're still figuring out family. Maybe they're still figuring out exactly what the path is.

Yeah. And probably most of their wealth is going to be reinvested in whatever they're building. But it doesn't mean

they don't need some kind of organizing principle and a few building pieces and we can work with them. And so I

think again when I use family it's really more about the context than more than one person because then more people more problem also more

opportunity back to my thing about human capital but you are thinking about a little bit differently if I'm thinking about

there's a next generation, there's a husband wife or there is multiple generations. Um, again back to the

toolbox, which pieces do I need? I need different types of building blocks for those different kind of outcomes.

I think that it's becoming more and more common to not like get married and have children. Like I think that as you were

talk, you know, you you mentioned earlier like the people on the edge, which could be women, people who are

more global. I mean, there's all different types of those types of people. I think that part of that also

is singles. And like I mean even if I'm I'm just talking for myself like I like honestly the idea of marriage

doesn't look super attractive to me. The idea of having children doesn't look super attractive to me. Like I'm you

know and we've talked about this before like maybe that would change. I don't know but like if for you know more women

are career women like a lot of people are like people are finding their purpose right now in careers versus what

I think maybe a few decades ago was families. And so I'm just thinking about like in the effort of expanding this conversation to include people who might

be sitting on the side of the table who are like I actually don't relate to the idea of a family. I maybe I'm more community oriented. I think for me like

a word that is more powerful now and I think resonates a lot in like this generation and the younger generation is

like this idea of community like moving outside of just like the exclusive family unit. So I just want to kind of

create space for that as well because as you said like that just because you're not part of a family unit and have maybe

children to pass something down to like I think there is a single still very much have that feeling of like

stewardship it just might look a little bit different 100% and I think again we're already

seeing that I mean obviously you know what was 30 years ago is not even last 10 years ago. So you have what whatever

you want to call it. You know, you have families that are often people have been through maybe one merits and some

children and then they merit again and maybe there's other children. And so I would say that a lot more of the work we do in that context is already changed.

That's maybe more the older generation and so to the and so within that there's you know new complexity, new

opportunity. Sometimes they're bringing in all kinds of interesting people and now you got those to think about in the

context of the world. Um but yeah what you describing I think you'll see more kind of again whether it's a family of

10 or two or three or just one person it's the same thing in the sense of back

to my free buckets you know because if you're one person and you have $100 million and you're saying cool I'm going

to have 30 year this is going to be my spending my life my whatever I'm doing

and then I'm still then I got 70 what are we doing with that and so again it's the same conversation what is your stewardship what is your use. What are

your community and how do we make sure that wealth is working in those directions as opposed to you know

obviously other outcomes which is you lose it or the tax man takes it or you end up in a place where you pass away

with no real plan and then we've got you know people arguing and fighting over it and all of these kind of the the horror

stories of of generational wealth which unfortunately is true many of there's just a couple points that we

didn't get to hit yet. Um, I actually want to follow your lead on maybe what order you think makes most sense between

just kind of exploring what our advisory arm looks like because it's more about, you know, stewardship and alignment and

and um more it's more than just managing assets. So, I want to give you kind of an opportunity to talk about those

benefits. So, let's start with Bespoke Advisory and kind of the asset management side. So, I joined Bespoke to build basically

be part of building. Um so initially it was just me uh doing all of it and now

we got more team and that's still growing as you say we're investing in people but I would say a couple of

things again back to this compare and contrast I think you know we come with a global mindset to this we come with

probably an unconstrained mindset to the assets and that includes the assets that we will have clients bring to us as

their starting point we have large clients with Bitcoin for example which again I mean now it's more common but

you know five six years ago when we first started with some of this it was pretty unusual um so edge case and so I think we have

this open-mindedness there's really no constraints on on kind of how we think about what wealth should be it's just

different you know and they have different characteristics and I think again if I'm comparing a speaking to a

US audience many US managers tend to focus on US markets and US dollar nominated assets as a primary way of

allocating and we don't um in fact we probably see the the counter to that

many clients come to us because they want non US other denominated portfolio allocations and so we go where the

opportunities are at least how we perceive them to be uh present um and we think maybe multi-layered about that and

what I mean by that is instead of just thinking should I buy you know tech stock in this geography or should I buy

industrials in this geography we are thinking which currency do I actually want to own my assets in

because currency when we talk about risk maybe that's a good starting point when

we talk at risk. I think a lot of people associate that with market volatility. I think for the average person, that's

probably true. But for a generationally wealthy family, market volatility is actually the opportunity because when

people are selling off and if you have a high conviction, you want to be buying at those selloff moments because you have a much longer time horizon. And Bespoke

Advisory, the asset management side is built around the concept of understanding the world around us so

that we can take advantage of the longer time horizons that our families have. And so that does mean looking globally

and that also means that one of the actual risks of permanent loss of wealth, not of volatility or price is

the debasement of currency. And so if you're sitting just in one currency, um then that is a very real risk with any

currency. Um but there's obviously currencies that are backed by more stable economics and frameworks and back

to the governance word governance and Switzerland is one of them. And so we like the Swiss Frank for example specifically versus things like the US

dollar or the British pound or the euro. And so we think about currency as the

entry point that we're going to be owning with and we think about then the industries we're going to be within and

the markets we're going to be within. And so back to the risk aspect the way we see risk over longer time horizons is

true for family businesses but it's also true for how we invest in the markets. And we see two major top down risks. One

of them is geopolitics which leads into the currency aspect. So understanding the larger geopolitical

trends particularly in times like we are in currently where there is a big shift from sort of a unipolar world to a

multi-polarity situation. You can have drastic outcomes. I mean this year has been the worst year for

versus the Swiss Frank for example. And so getting that wrong can destroy wealth. Getting it right can enhance

your wealth. The other long-term trend is technology based. So creative destruction is well understood. And

there's companies in every decade that ride the right side of that and the companies that get destroyed on the

wrong side of it. And again that that can lead if you are singly focused on one industry, you could be on the wrong

end of that or you could be really really on the good side of that. And for us it's a little bit about balancing it. So we generally try and see can we

understand some of the major trends in technology and innovation and can we understand some of the major trends in geopolitics and can we make sure that

our clients are on the right side of it and so building the research capacity and how we think about allocation is

really through those two lenses and then the second or the third lens is attacking it from the bottom up in the

sense of trying to understand these companies that we've now identified or these positions or these commodities or

whatever it might be. Let's understand those and the dynamics around them, how they operate, and make sure that we have

a pretty good understanding of the business. We have the saying that we wouldn't buy one share of something unless we would buy the whole company

because we're not here to trade or speculate. We're here to invest. And if I didn't truly have high conviction this company was worth for my clients to own

in total. I shouldn't just be letting myself off with let's take a little bit of a flutter and take a small position

in this. Now, we would obviously scale and build into positions, but it's the mindset around how we allocate And so

the Bespoke Advisory is built around those things. So risk first, risk a permanent loss of capital and then trying to

harness the longer time horizons that we have. And then the idea that the opportunity set may not be right in

front of you in your home country wherever you are. It may be global. And so how can we identify and understand

those? How can we build portfolios around these concepts over time? Um and I would say the other big difference is

that we have a this is one of my core uh beliefs that has been built into Bespoke

Advisory’s approach and now it's been taken on by the team that does much more of the day-to-day which is liquidity being a very valuable aspect to have

when you have generational wealth. There's been a traditional mindset in the last two or three decades

that the opportunities were in the liquid asset classes and everyone wanted to invest in private equity and private

credit and in the illiquid so you're giving up the ability to make decisions because now you've

handed over your money for a decade or for whenever you can get an exit uh you know

mapped out and I think with generational wealth particularly there's certainly spaces for that but if the client for

example is already building private businesses and has an illlquid asset it's not my job to add more liquidity to it

because with liquidity comes optionality allows you to make those decisions of buying when others are fearful because I

have cash I have liquid assets. Um it also means if I'm wrong I can get out or

if the world changes I can change but if I don't and so I think it's this thing when when you build businesses or if

you're making career choices thank you space as you said it but you have two types of doors. One is a

one-way door and one is a two-way door. And for me, the choice of ili liquidity

is a one-way door, at least a limited. You're going to have to stand and wait on the other side of that door for quite a while potentially. And so when you're

making a one-way door decision, you should really do the work. If you do a two-way door, test it out, come back

out, but we do liquidity. And so most of what we build is basically focused, can we harness these ideas through liquid

markets? And if we can't figure that out, then we may look at the liquid markets, but we don't start the other

way around. And I would say those the global perspective and the liquidity factor is probably what makes Bespoke

Advisory the most different than most other managers. For today, let's wrap up. I want to I

want to wrap up with this with the story that you told me yesterday. Um, and what I'll say is that you your career started

in sales and clearly that experience shaped how you look at just service

providers and sales today. I mean, I think that really colored your lens. So,

um, no, yesterday you introduced me to this idea of of a shift from sales to

solutions and how that changed the way that you approach honestly the world, I

think, work. It sounds like kind of a very pivotal moment. Um, so I was hoping you could kind of share the moment that

kind of captures that shift for you. Sure. And the mind may play tricks. I think it

was probably more of a gradual thing, but it was certainly that particular situation. I remember reflecting and that became kind of a crystallization of

maybe some concerns I had, which is some of the stuff that we discussed on the way into this conversation. But again, I

started on the asset management side. I worked for firms that there was certainly a sales component to it. I

think I was pretty good at sales. um and had these questions around it and I

think the and I also had questions around if you want to truly serve generation of fit families can you

really do that and build a business around it if you're just doing sales and obviously I came to the conclusion that the answer was no but one of the moments

that kind of caught me early on and it actually speaks a little bit again to the work I actually do today and kind of

how we shape Bespoke Advisory in some way is that initially I thought I'm doing macro I'm doing cool investing

you know, serving my clients incredibly well with these things I'm giving them access to. And you know, you want to

believe that that is the most important thing. And I was working with a client who was one of my first sort of larger clients where we were sort of dealing

with more than, let's say, a very defined strategy, a defined kind of set of solutions that we're bringing to them. So I was kind of becoming an

adviser. This client was a very experienced investor, had run had his own fund businesses. And so I was trying

to impress him. I was running around trying to pick out things that I could show to him that was unique and you know the different and contrarian and all

this good stuff and he kind of played along. I think we delivered some value. But one, you know, after 6 months or

something of me having increasingly becoming closer to him and seeing kind of what he worked and being part of his inner circle

over dinner one night, he said to me, you know, you don't have to focus so much on all this, you know, bringing me

these ideas. Everyone does that. You know, every day is like that for me. said, "What I really liked about you

when when we first met was that you were one of the people where you actually told me no and you actually spoke your

mind around some things that I brought to the table or some things I wanted to do." And I kind of remembered it. It was

a pretty nervous when you're starting with a new client and you're kind of thinking, you know, this doesn't quite add up to

me at least. But then you start doubting yourself. Do I really know and this person, you know, have much more experience? But I did hold my ground and

I remember I was kind of worried that that might end the relationship. But it didn't. And obviously, you know, he was

a smart guy who realized that he was somewhat in the eco chamber. And what he was happy paying fees for was not so

much me running around trying to find some company for him to invest into. What he valued was me to be a sort of

thought partner or someone where he could go and get a different opinion on things because he found himself perhaps

surrounded by people who were either selling him things or who were just saying, "You're the smartest person. Everything."

Yeah. telling him what he is telling him what he wants to hear versus telling him the truth. Yeah. And I think that that that resonated

with me. I started realizing that being the Ford partner and the adviser and helping families of very smart people

make informed decisions often with very few data points in very complex times

and often having to move pretty fast. that has real value and that rings true

from the investment side from family relationship side from the planning side

and a lot of what we do at Bespoke is much more that much more the thought partner much more the trusted advisor

than it is I'm going to manage this in this way over here and over here those are things

that are part of it but I think if you ask most of our clients what they really value is a true thought partner who is

sitting on the same side of the table as um who's not afraid to push back and who's not afraid to ask difficult

questions and also sometimes say I don't have the answers but we can work on them

together because this is pretty complex and I think when you build that type of relationship with a client it becomes

something very different than let's say the sales role where you might bring something of limited value it may have

value but it may be limited and it certainly does not solve the bigger problems or challenges the family faces

or the individual faces you know when we were talking about this it's like you were describing how a lot

of these subjects can be something that I think service providers have might historically just like you checked off

the box or it's like the papers put in a drawer and you kind of walk away from it because a lot of what we're talking about you know earlier we were joking we

were mentioning death but like no like that is very much a real part of these that becomes part of these conversations

and how to plan for that and what does that mean and all those things so I don't know I liked how you talked about the willingness to kind of have those

conversations cuz I think there's a bit there too that's hard It's like as you said like people are kind of maybe maybe they're in their moment like they've

built this thing they're thriving they're like I don't rain on my parade like I don't want to talk about this stuff.

I think it's a I mean we can round out on it because I actually think it's a good bridge to being a trusted advisor and I actually find myself often

speaking to some of those aspects because again what is truly important to someone with generational wealth is

probably not whether I can figure out a way to get them 5% on one and a half% of their wealth. It's probably much more

about if something should happen to me, will you be here? So, my wife or husband or children, whoever it is, is going to

be not left alone dealing with my death, which they obviously would assume would be a very big negative. Um, and kind of

the whole world around them suddenly taking them in directions that they may not have been super engaged with before.

We worked on a case like that last year um with a with a family where someone passed away unexpectedly and suddenly a

person was left to sort of manage the whole wealth side where they had been in more of a limited role and that can be

that can be a very stark reality suddenly to find yourself in and so I do think that you know even if you do the

planning and and the structuring to your point what is that really it's a stack of papers often in a beautiful folder

that you can then put in a safe deposit box somewhere and then it's kind of some spreadsheets with the money. But that's

not a family, that's not a value, that's not a transition of something. That's just bookkeeping and some documents that

are supposed to tell you what to do, but doesn't unless you're super qualified to read them. And I think a lot of the and

a lot of is to be done probably you do have to have difficult conversations about you know who do you trust how do

you think about your children how do you think about your wealth and children how do you think about your husband wife and

wealth you know what is really important to you to happen you know and I think some of those things those are those

takes sometimes those conversations can be very difficult within family and actually I find a lot of the time people

kind of like to at least practice it out on someone who is a trusted partner but who is about family. Um, and so I've

certainly had my share of those conversations and I think it's a really important piece to it. Um, but yeah,

again, back to kind of where we started, the idea of stacks of papers in a safe deposit box and some spreadsheets.

It's not a family office. A family is to get rid of the office and then to say, okay, what is the family? And if the

family is not going to do the operational aspects of it, then you got to put other people in so that these

things are addressed. And again like when you specifically when you think about second generation one of the some

of the times the the conflict is that there's a perception that now you're going to join the family office and then

you're going to you know wear a shirt and tie and sit with me and some lawyer guy and talk all day and very few people

of your age would find that a super interesting activity to be giving their life to. But if you say to them, you're

going to be the steward of $300 million and now you may want to do a lot of this work and be involved, but you should at

least understand the basic principles of it. And you may have some vision for what stewardship looks like. Not maybe not so much the ownership interest, but

maybe the stewardship interests you. And so making sure that that is communicated

um and that's then executed on beyond the documents and the spreadsheets. That's probably the biggest value

proposition I find in a lot of the work I do. I'm going to leave it with this. So as

somebody you talk about families and planning for families and you're a dad. That is the best job. That's like my

main title is dad. It's you know that is that's special to me. That's sweet that my dad did this. My

dad would say the same thing. He was a doctor. He is is a doctor and he would say first I'm dad then I'm doctor. So

first you're dad and then you're most interesting man in the world.

Well, that's the good thing about having kids is that they will put a real quick check on you thinking you are the most interesting man in the world. So, it

does keep you on your toes. But, no, your dad is a smart guy. So, I can only agree with what he his definition of

those two roles. Do you hear this siren in the background? There's a fire alarm going off now. Maybe that's our cue to end. I

was going to but I wanted to ask you. I was like, what are you what's most important for you to instill in your in your children, especially if it's your

favorite job in the world? That's a very big question. I think again I think most me it's just finding

some you know if you can get to a place where you spend your time doing something you truly enjoy

most of your time and again when you're younger often you have to trade off those things because you need money and you're going to experience different

things and you may not even know what's going to keep you happy for a long stretch of time. So it's important to experiment with it. But I would say for

me personally finding this part of my journey I enjoy what I do. I don't think of it as a job actually. Neither the dad

thing or like what I do at Bespoke. It's really much more about I like to spend my time in these puzzles and I wouldn't

I'm not a retiring person. I don't play golf. And so for me wrestling with these types of things and getting to help

people and work with really interesting people both in our team and on the client side that for me it's really important. And my hope is that my kids

find something that is that to them. You know, I would hope that maybe they would be part of this business in some form in

the future, but you know, I think that would be my biggest hope for them is that they find that um you know, and I

think maybe broader where we started is um part of what I learned through investing is just the power of

entrepreneurship and the idea of funding innovation and building of businesses and the community around the business

and seeing those things whether it's a family held private business and just seeing again back to the human capital

employing people and letting them go and have careers and you know be able to look after families and I think we

underestimate how important that is. I think there's a lot of focus on the wealth and the unicorns and these very wealthy people. And I think in reality

most people who build significant wealth are not those people. They are people who own the businesses around you that

employs you know 500 people plus and less these days because of technology. But that's like that's that that level

of wealth the below the billion downwards. Most of those people have done something like that or are still

doing it. And I think that should not be underestimated the benefits beyond the value within the family that's been created. And so that would be my the

entrepreneurship and the building and how important that is for everything to kind of function and what that leads to in terms of innovation and how we solve

problems as humanities generally through that. Um and then obviously my family which is my closely held community and

what I want to see for them. All right. Thank you Sune. I got to deal with this fire alarm and hope that

there's not a fire. Yeah. I wanted to get stuck in there during the fire and your dad is going to come after me.

Thank you.