The WealthTech Podcast Transcript

Host: Mark Wickersham

Guest: Arnaud de Coninck, Trusted Family

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Mark Wickersham: all right, Arnaud welcome to The WealthTech Podcast I'm excited to have you on the pod. I was wondering if you could just give a brief introduction and give an overview of Trusted Family.

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Arnaud de Coninck: 100%. Well, first, thanks a lot Mark. Thanks for inviting me, a really pleasure to be here in this podcast today. So my name is Arnaud. I'm chief revenue officer in charge of the growth at Trusted Family. I've been working for Trusted Family for now over 13 years. I started my career at Procter and Gamble joined. Trusted Family it's been.

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Arnaud de Coninck: It's a company that I discovered through our own family business, so fortunate to also be a member of a Belgian family company called Solvay. It's a chemical company. And yeah, 1st users, 1st clients of Trusted Family. So saw it as a user saw the impact it has as a user and then decided to join the company to help grow and develop the firm

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Arnaud de Coninck: around the world. Trusted Family is a company that employs around 30 people. Today we have clients in over 30 different countries, over 200 family offices, family businesses who are using

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Arnaud de Coninck: our solution. We provide 3 things to families. One is what we call the technology, the Trusted Family operating system which really serves as a technology platform to help family businesses, family offices, work together, communicate, prepare the rising generation, and, you know, make sure that they ensure a smooth transition to future generations.

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Arnaud de Coninck: There's also another department called the Family Success, because at the end of the day it's not the technology. It's the team we put in place. It's the content. It's the best practices. It's the way we adapt the platform for each family office that will make it a success, and it's the way we enroll it within the needs of the family office. That will make it a success.

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Arnaud de Coninck: And then the latest addition to our offering is what we call the family community, realizing the importance of sharing best practices amongst our clients around. How do you communicate?

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Arnaud de Coninck: How do you prepare the rising generation? I believe there is not enough value given to the people running the families running the engagement, running projects for the family. And so we're bringing them together on an online platform to also help them share best practices, share learnings. And yeah.

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Arnaud de Coninck: be better

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Arnaud de Coninck: suited and better formed, and be able to connect with other. You know large families who do certain amazing things in in their field. So really exciting times.

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Mark Wickersham: Well, I'm excited to get into it, not only to talk about your experience as a as a, as a family member, and the hundreds of conversations that you've had with families

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Mark Wickersham: around next gen governance. Before we get into some of these, what are what makes Trusted Family unique.

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Arnaud de Coninck: So Trusted Family was created, yeah, over 15 years ago by a cousin of mine, Edward Johnson, and another family next Gen. Member called Eduard Thiesen. So it's kind of was, it was built from a need. I think, that we had in our own respective families, whereas we started organizing the governance of our family, starting, creating family council, started creating.

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Arnaud de Coninck: you know, family offices, all sorts of committees, and realize that what was really missing for us is the glue of how do we put everything together? How do we organize all our meetings? How do we organize all our information? How do we professionalize the way that you know, we share information within our families to make sure we don't miss out on anybody right? So because it's too easy to forget someone in a

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Arnaud de Coninck: BCC or in an email. It's so it's so difficult to understand. If an email that you've sent out has actually been reached as if it's actually been read. If it's actually being you know, well appreciated by the members of the family. And so

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Arnaud de Coninck: you know, the premise initial premise is all about, you know. How can we better, you know, align our family members and align our stakeholders. So I think that's the 1st thing is that it grew up from a need, and it was designed from family businesses, and it keeps being that way. Right we were. We are in this niche family, office, family business market. We only serve family offices and family businesses.

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Arnaud de Coninck: I think what's also sets us apart is this concept of being kind of an all in one governance and communication hub. In a sense.

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Arnaud de Coninck: Where, you know.

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Arnaud de Coninck: I don't need to explain for the audience here, but the family business is a unique industry with very different personas depending on who your role that you have in the family. Those 3 circle models implies that you have many different personas and stakeholders with whom you need to engage. With that it'd be an in-law that it'd be a next generation member that it'd be an external board member that it'd be someone in charge of the foundation, and so on, and someone in terms of finances. So there's a lot of moving parts

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Arnaud de Coninck: and people working around the family, and I think the real strength of what sets us apart is, that is this purpose built application really for the client that brings all these stakeholders, and, you know, bring alignment for the family and helping them operate.

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Arnaud de Coninck: I think that's also something else. I think I mean security. I know that it's not unique to Trusted Family, because it's a it's a, you know, a lot of a lot of other tech companies take security extremely seriously. But you know we breathe, live, and I think the data belongs to our customers. And I think that is also a very important distinction. And it's a very important message that we share.

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Arnaud de Coninck: And then we have a lot of, you know, features that are also quite specific to our industry, right? The even the fact that everything is there's an audit log and a track trail for everything that's being uploaded. So whenever you upload a video, a photo or documents, you can see who's viewed that document, how many times who's downloaded it, how they've interacted with it. And believe me, to run a family, you need to have that insight, right? You need to know what's happening with the information

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Arnaud de Coninck: features like automated vault distribution that automatically assigns K-1s. Financial statements, you know, documents to each beneficiary, I believe, is also extremely important

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Arnaud de Coninck: and done in a secure way.

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Arnaud de Coninck: You know the fact that we can also collaborate with external advisors. There's a family tree in there, and there's a lot of moving parts and moving features that we keep developing on an ongoing basis to help them perform.

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Arnaud de Coninck: And then, maybe one last thing I believe that I'm thinking of right now. That really says Trusted Family apart is, it's just. It's not just a technology, you know, we might discuss more about it. But it's not just the technology. And I think families really value the fact that there's also a family success team that's

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Arnaud de Coninck: has access to over 200 families that do amazing things. We benchmark families. We compare best practices. We bring templates and content available to our platforms to make them available for other clients to consume. And then this new addition of the family community to help really educate and also elevate the general expertise of, you know, members managing the family, that it be secretaries, that it'd be family council members, that it'd be

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Arnaud de Coninck: family office staff who really engage on an ongoing basis with family members and shareholders while giving them access to other family office staff that has the same job, the same role, the same challenges, is extremely fulfilling for them to learn and keep educating themselves.

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Mark Wickersham: I love it. I love the fact. This is great example, I think. Trusted Family of innovation that's born directly from the needs of families, and that that this kind of

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Mark Wickersham: purpose built type of platform to be able to serve families and family offices is you're seeing more of it in a family office, and I think it's fantastic. I think it's good for the industry. I think it's good for families. I think it's good for the family office. And it's and it's an exciting time when you see this type of

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Mark Wickersham: innovation within the family office space, I can certainly appreciate the security need we've been trying to get going through the New York rental situation for family member. And, my god, the amount of information that they want to transmit via Gmail is just.

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Mark Wickersham: It's criminal. It should be illegal. I mean the not to overlook the security aspect of it right to be able to securely communicate sensitive information across families in a in a secure way. I mean, obviously, it's a best practice. But you guys are enabling that for that platform which I think is fantastic, and in this day and age is certainly needed. What are some of the main problems that that

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Mark Wickersham: families are coming to you, and then have. How have you seen that evolve over the over the past couple of years?

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Arnaud de Coninck: Yeah, well, I think. And to continue on what you were a bit saying. And it's also so we'll reply to how

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Arnaud de Coninck: the problems that we solve. I think you know, it feels very basic. But like centralizing. The information.

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Arnaud de Coninck: you know, is one of the 1st projects we do with a lot of our clients when we come on board right. They have so many information. Every family members has access to different information because of their journey within the life of the family. It's all about centralizing it and making it available for others to be able to have access to it.

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Arnaud de Coninck: You know, too often conflict arrive in a family, because one family member receives an information before another one, or because someone's like, why did I not receive that information? And he, my brother? Did you know there's like? And so one might feel left out or feel privileged. And this is just ridiculous. Today, when you look at it. And when you think about where we are today, and the way we work

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Arnaud de Coninck: a family is has become more and more of, you know, an operating company. You know, these family offices. They invest a lot, they work together, they make decisions, and families need to be equipped with the right tools for that.

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Arnaud de Coninck: I think some of the common problems. So I mean, why do clients come to us? It's can be very different, depending on the family, right? And I think you've said that in the previous conversations we've had is like, once you speak, spoken to one family office. You've just spoken to one family office right? So before rolling out a project like this, we really need to understand what are the pain points that each families are solving in order to, you know, to cater our conversation best for them, you know. And so

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Arnaud de Coninck: some families come to us saying, Hey, they have saying they're having difficulties, really, you know, securing and distributing k. 1 s. And private files to each beneficiary in an easy way. The one that comes the most often, I believe, is this

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Arnaud de Coninck: a willingness to

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Arnaud de Coninck: get the next generation on board to start making sure that we start informing the next generation about the businesses, about informing the next generation, about the family, the legacy, the values. What's been happening in the journey and the history of the company and the family.

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Arnaud de Coninck: making sure they have access to certain information. Make sure that they can ask questions around the family, make sure that they can also feel involved in the family, and you know, I think that is a lot of the

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Arnaud de Coninck: problems that we see and that we solve through our application is, you know.

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Arnaud de Coninck: creating a safe space. And what's really funny is like, you know, we often families also come to us because they want to, you know, improve, and make sure they prepare their succession. Right and

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Arnaud de Coninck: succession feels sometimes to be a very rigid or structured like, you know. No one likes to talk about succession. Let it be the senior generation, you know. They don't necessarily want to talk about succession, and the next generation who also feel it's the business of their father or aunt. They don't necessarily see themselves fully involved. Right? So so.

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Arnaud de Coninck: And I think one of the

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Arnaud de Coninck: biggest advantages we see wholesale here is the fact that you have a centralized place where anybody can go ahead and share information. Suddenly you start talking about themes and

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Arnaud de Coninck: passing on a lot of information, and therefore dealing with this topic of succession without really knowing it, you know. Suddenly the senior members, by just sharing documents, sharing files, sharing stories they don't realize but they're actually passing on a lot of knowledge. And for the next generation it doesn't feel to be imposed with them. It's not like you receive an email saying, Hey, have a look at this and

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Arnaud de Coninck: 99% sure. The next gen is just going to archive it or not going to open their email here. They can consume the information at their own pace in their own rhythm. They can also select. Do they prefer, you know, topics around philanthropy? Do they prefer topics around education? Do they prefer topics around the business and the investments that the family is doing, and I think it's important to provide a space for everybody to feel

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Arnaud de Coninck: welcomed and to consume the information that they want to consume and evolve in their own pace.

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Arnaud de Coninck: And I think that's also so.

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Mark Wickersham: I think that's great. I mean, half is just finding the information. If it's scattered on Google drives and emails. And you're maybe you had access to that information, but you can't put your fingers on it. So having a centralized repository. But then I think also your point about self discovery, you know. Maybe when you get that that notification or email is not really a great time for you. But there are other times where you maybe want to dive a little bit deeper on

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Mark Wickersham: what's going on with the next Gen. Committee or the family business, and they can. They can do that discovery on their own, which is, which is fantastic.

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Mark Wickersham: How do you see the platform evolving especially, you know. Talk about the digitization of the family office.

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Mark Wickersham: Obviously, I think the next gen is digital native. How do you see platforms like Trusted Family evolving within the family wealth, ecosystem.

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Arnaud de Coninck: That's a that's a great question. A 1 million dollar question. And an important one, I think so. I mean

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Arnaud de Coninck: both industries. We're in being the family office and the tech are just going through a lot a lot of

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Arnaud de Coninck: development disruption, maybe even we can call it. You know.

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Arnaud de Coninck: I think from a family office, family business perspective. They've professionalized so much over the past 10 years. I can't even imagine how it's going to be over the next 10 years to come right with the rising generation coming on board, wanting to review a lot of the work that their parents are doing in order to be better suited for the younger generation behind them to come. So I think there's an ongoing

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Arnaud de Coninck: development there of how families are operating together, and you know family offices are also professionalizing themselves a lot, you know, putting governance side to side. You know where they've set up all these committees, these working groups, you know, it's not easy to learn how to work with your family, right? And this. But you need to find a way to work with your family. So there's a lot of professionalism that more and more has come into play which requires them to be well equipped and

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Arnaud de Coninck: then moving to the technology side. I think, you know.

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Arnaud de Coninck: I mean, we're talking about AI, I think to like tomorrow, if your company doesn't have an AI built in or uses AI to develop, you're gonna be obsolete, right? And we can talk more about that. And maybe there's a special podcast just on that that we should do once on with the wealth

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Arnaud de Coninck: but I think how I see it for Trusted Family is. So we've been extremely good at bringing all the stakeholders of a family together, to work together and to communicate together

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Arnaud de Coninck: where we're working on as we speak, and I think it will be. The future is what we call this. That's why we call the family operating system is because I believe the right tool for the family is not having 10 tools, but having one tool that can integrate with all the systems that our clients are using, I think one of the biggest strength of Trusted Family. It's a really easy tool to use for every generation.

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Arnaud de Coninck: and having an integrated system that can embed with the accounting solutions, with the SharePoint, with the CRMs, with the financial.

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Arnaud de Coninck: the technologies and dashboards that exist out there for financial reporting purposes, and to be able to have one central sub that can plug into all these environments, pulling the information and make them accessible via one single login to the users, I think, is extremely powerful, and that's where Trusted Family is heading, at least, and I think that's where I think the future of Trusted Family makes a lot of sense, because there's a lot of new actors, a lot of

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Arnaud de Coninck: of technology providers today in the family office space

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Arnaud de Coninck: and not are all fit for everybody. But I think you know, for our clients that uses tools. We need to be able to integrate with those and provide more value there, because certain family members are more interested in finance, as I said, but if they, if they get a notification on their Trusted Family app

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Arnaud de Coninck: on a financial dashboard that they receive from an external aggregator, once they're on the Trusted Family app. They'll see. They'll be able to also see everything that happened new in the business. Everything that happened new in the family, everything that happened new in the foundations or other projects that they're working on. And again, having everything centralized, I think, is a big added value to attract the different personas of the family.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think you know.

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Mark Wickersham: providing that information to the family is one of the key functions that a family office does. But why do it for a separate

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Mark Wickersham: portal or for a separate means where the family is already using this this operating system. We're already using the Trusted Family portal, you know. Add another layer and some login that they're not gonna use or forget about, and just one more moving part where you can kind of just they can have that more holistic view is great. You're seeing

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Mark Wickersham: a lot of progress has been made over. I think the past 5 years in terms of best of breed type of technology experiences and be able to plug and play family office, can mix and match whatever makes sense for their business. Right?

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Arnaud de Coninck: And imagine if once you have all those things plugged in in a central place, and then you add a layer on AI there that could be like, Hey, I want to do this investments. But does it? Does it align with all the data I have of the family on this platform. Does it align with the values? Does it align with our family constitution?

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Arnaud de Coninck: You know what? What are some of the watch points I need to be careful of. If I'm looking to do this investments, I mean, there's a lot of things that we can then do to really help families better perform. Better invest better, align for them to better operate.

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Mark Wickersham: Conversation with their data right, and to be able, to their natural language, kind of way, be able to explore their family's legacy or the latest investment that that definitely sounds

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Mark Wickersham: exciting. Let's talk about governance. Obviously a key component of

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Mark Wickersham: what Trusted Family does is around governance. What are some of the key pillars for effective family governance.

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Arnaud de Coninck: Oh, and that's that you need to ask an advisor in family business. So what are the key fillers? I've

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Arnaud de Coninck: I think it's a difficult question, because I think it maybe differs per family and per maturity of that one specific family. Right? I think a family sometimes that does no governance can also perform. Very well. We have a client. They're all they did everything themselves, and they because they don't, they're

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Arnaud de Coninck: vision, is that if we have someone external that brings these structures. There's too many structures. And they're not happy with too many structures. Right? And I can understand that perspective. Also, I think they need to understand, have the right principles they need to align on certain aspects, but they don't necessarily all need to have.

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Arnaud de Coninck: You know, all these committees, all these boards they need to maybe just align, have a shareholder agreement as to what it means to be part of the family. What are our values? If that's fine for the family, it's the best, you know. I think that's why it's difficult to answer that one, I think.

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Arnaud de Coninck: But when you look at our clients and the typical things that we maybe see most of the time. It can be you know, depending on the size of the family, but more and more of our clients have a family office.

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Arnaud de Coninck: Because they want to separate often like there was one legacy business, but more and more of our clients. They don't just hold one business. They hold multiple businesses, multiple assets and therefore structuring that through a family office makes a lot of sense, and they can also

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Arnaud de Coninck: provide other services through the family office, which are, you know, developing more and more from concierge services to shareholder management, and so much more so. So a lot of our clients have a single family office. And we see, I think there's, you know, hundreds of family offices, or thousands of family offices every year that gets created. And I think it's a proof that there's clearly a trend there.

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Arnaud de Coninck: if you ask me, I think it's really important. If a family is in the 3rd generation to have someone in charge of family matters, you know there's the financial capital which very often is the key focus 1st for the family office.

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Arnaud de Coninck: And so this financial capital is often kind of looked at, being one of the main things that needs to be looked at when you look at succession or tackled when you look at succession. But I believe it's really crucial to have someone to look after the human capital side of things, to look at education, to look at. What? How do you want to raise and engage with your rising generation? How do you want to inform them about the business?

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Arnaud de Coninck: How much involvement do they want to have around the business? Or do you want the family members to have around the business, and having people really looking after that, engaging, picking up their phones, speaking with the family members

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Arnaud de Coninck: to make sure they're aligned with the vision. The values of the family, I think, is extremely important. And so, and you know the often with our clients, the people who are most of the times in charge of the human capital is maybe once you have a family council.

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Arnaud de Coninck: you know, they're often the ones that kind of are the guardians of this human capital. There are the guardians of

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Arnaud de Coninck: yeah. Managing those relations

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Arnaud de Coninck: organizing family assemblies, organizing training materials, education programs. I did an amazing webinar with a client 2 weeks ago in the Middle East that talked about their generation to generation transition programs that they've set up. And I believe if you don't want too much structure, I do think having someone in charge

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Arnaud de Coninck: of looking at this new generation. Transition from an education standpoint, I believe is an is really an important one.

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Mark Wickersham: There's been a lot of talk about next. Gen, obviously, there's a massive wealth transfer that's going on.

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Mark Wickersham: How are families preparing the next. Gen. What are some of the best practices that you've seen? And then also, where do you see kind of families going astray and not

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Mark Wickersham: engaging, preparing the next Gen.

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Arnaud de Coninck: So

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Arnaud de Coninck: just to pause there on the whole topic of next Gen. I had this conversation with a client the other day who told me that the 1st thing they did when they wanted to prepare the next Gen. Was actually to prepare and educate the senior generation, and I found it really, really fascinating and enlightening? Actually to think it that way because they 1st needed to get the senior generation

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Arnaud de Coninck: to be

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Arnaud de Coninck: aware of this transition, to be ready for it to be educated, to be able to be hands off, because I think the worst thing that you can do is when you look at the next generation is to kind of gradually involve them, but give them 0

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Arnaud de Coninck: power or 0 legitimacy or 0 control over certain aspects of the family moving forward right? It shouldn't be like a top down approach. I see it more as a collaborative approach, and I think it starts by getting the senior generation, probably aware that the timing is right, and aware of how their role will change

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Arnaud de Coninck: in order to make sure that there is room for the next generation to also rise. So I just found that fascinating to also look at it that way now in terms of next generation. So I guess the question was here, Mark, it was. How do you prepare them? Right, or what are the best practices to?

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Arnaud de Coninck: Oh, that's a loaded question. I think so.

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Mark Wickersham: Hold on the webinar.

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Arnaud de Coninck: It will depend on the size of the families of the complexity we're onboarding a family right now. They're starting to involve the family members starting the age of 12 years old, which I found also fascinating, because there it's never too early

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Arnaud de Coninck: to start onboarding and start raising and start informing the family members about what's happening at 12 years old. Everybody has an iPhone. Apparently. I'm not there yet with my kids, but apparently at 12 years old everybody has an.

00:27:27.270 --> 00:27:28.980

Mark Wickersham: As long as long as you can.

00:27:28.980 --> 00:27:52.450

Arnaud de Coninck: Yeah, so and so. And you know, once they have an iPhone, you kind of or not a phone, you need to start educating them, preparing them, informing them about what are the best practices, how to consume information the right way. And you know, there's already education that is important there. And I believe the family has a role to play around that. So I think it can start relatively soon.

00:27:52.570 --> 00:27:59.790

Arnaud de Coninck: I think what I see work a lot in a client in our at our clients is kind of organizing.

00:27:59.890 --> 00:28:26.589

Arnaud de Coninck: not necessarily summer camps, but you know, sessions with families to learn 1st to learn about one another, you know, learn who their cousins are, learn what their skill sets are. Learn, you know, if what traits they are, because ultimately you'll need to one day be able to work with them. Right? You cannot like in a business again, choose who you hire because of his or her capabilities or skills.

00:28:26.970 --> 00:28:41.230

Arnaud de Coninck: You need to either build them or learn to work with different people who have very different mindset, very different skills. And you don't have much choice than to work with them, because they're family, right? So I think

00:28:41.370 --> 00:28:51.299

Arnaud de Coninck: on the family aspects. I'm talking right on the business. You can always have external management, and I think it's maybe even a good practice when you start having certain generations. But

00:28:52.130 --> 00:28:56.390

Arnaud de Coninck: but from a family perspective. I think it's important to learn

00:28:57.050 --> 00:29:16.319

Arnaud de Coninck: who your family members are, to educate themselves, to organize camps together, to try to get outside your trenches. In a way we have one client. They have kind of a 1 week military camp, because I think it's really when you surpass yourself that you can learn to live together also in a way, or that you create amazing memories.

00:29:16.770 --> 00:29:31.039

Arnaud de Coninck: So you know, every family again is different, right? But I think learning to live together, learning to what are the skill sets, and understanding. Also the skill sets of your family members is really important.

00:29:31.060 --> 00:29:55.769

Arnaud de Coninck: because once you have that, and you know what is required to be a good shareholder or a good leader. Then you can start planning. And you can start building programs specific for each family member based on his or her skills capacity, or you know. And again, it depends. If you're 1015, it's easy to do it 1 1 by one, and and really, mentorships do personal training programs.

00:29:55.930 --> 00:30:14.009

Arnaud de Coninck: I still think it's possible when you're 100. It's a different budget, clearly. But I still think it's possible. And it's really important to do it. But once you start having more and more shareholders, you might want to also understand. Not every. There's not a seat for everybody right? And there's not a role for everybody. And so you also need to help the each individual members develop

00:30:16.450 --> 00:30:28.840

Arnaud de Coninck: Develop outside, make them realize that they should not live out of the dividends, but they should all need. They all need to work, they need to, you know, create their own projects. They need to have their own.

00:30:30.550 --> 00:30:39.169

Arnaud de Coninck: you know. And also I think it needs to remain fun, right that they need to have their own motivations, their own

00:30:40.730 --> 00:30:55.750

Arnaud de Coninck: desires in life, and I think, and that requires also, you know, mentoring, sometimes educating, introducing them to to different people who can, who can support their journey of, and things that you can't necessarily learn in school.

00:30:56.470 --> 00:31:02.039

Arnaud de Coninck: So I think that's an important one for the family, and the next Gen.

00:31:03.350 --> 00:31:09.600

Mark Wickersham: Yeah, how do they be their best version of themselves, how they become productive members of society? I mean, these are all

00:31:10.366 --> 00:31:16.600

Mark Wickersham: questions for any family, really? But certainly I think there's some challenges when you talk about.

00:31:16.970 --> 00:31:38.080

Arnaud de Coninck: I think we have clients that do an amazing thing also, and I find it fascinating that they do so is, is, you know, they also provide, like, you know, some doing. There's a lot of tools out there that exist for that, you know. Some provide like they have these games where they're like, okay, here's a hundred $1,000. Either it's fake money or some families even do it with real money like, okay.

00:31:38.080 --> 00:32:03.050

Arnaud de Coninck: now invest in it. Make your mistakes. We're not going to handhold you. We're just going to do a report in 12 months time to see how you've performed and what you've done with this with your investments. Have you done your due diligence? You know, once they get older, put them into situations that they will be, and ultimately, once they become shareholders and leaders. So I think it's important to have them make mistakes.

00:32:03.730 --> 00:32:10.880

Mark Wickersham: Yeah, that's a great way. Can they make mistakes in a in a in a way that that they can learn from the failures in a safe, safe manner. Right?

00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:40.089

Mark Wickersham: Next. Gen. Is obviously a lot different than the boomers and the Gen. X's. You see, the Gen. Z's and the other generations digitally native. They have different attitudes about wealth. They have different expectations around technology. What are you seeing in terms of what's the impact is the next Gen. Having on families. And how are they driving? Kind of the customization, and what they expect out of their family offices?

00:33:19.810 --> 00:33:29.469

Mark Wickersham: How are they shifting there? The expectations that they have from, say, a technology provider like Trusted Family from their family office, from

00:33:29.630 --> 00:33:35.939

Mark Wickersham: what they expect from, and how they expect to deploy wealth. What do you.

00:33:41.570 --> 00:33:42.550

Arnaud de Coninck: I think

00:33:43.120 --> 00:33:59.430

Arnaud de Coninck: the next Gen. What? I see a lot with our clients. And you know, we're fortunate to be working with a lot of very large family offices, very large family businesses in general, and it's not about the money looking at it from a next gen perspective, right? It's often not about the money.

00:33:59.510 --> 00:34:18.310

Arnaud de Coninck: maybe because they don't yet own all the shares, or have all the dividends, or have all the assets yet, you know, but it's not around the money, and you know, when you speak to them, and when you even see the activity on our platforms, what generates traffic on our websites, and what generates interest and what generates questions is not

00:34:18.380 --> 00:34:41.970

Arnaud de Coninck: the new investment that the family has done, or a new business that the that the family has opened. It's more the impacts that those companies are having in society or in on the environment. Or, you know, it's more like. I think that what, general, what's the rising generation is mainly is that they want to inherit something

00:34:42.120 --> 00:35:01.579

Arnaud de Coninck: or a business that is also ready for the future in a sense, and what that means is, they also want to make sure that the businesses have the right values, but also are conscious about the world around them, and that requires many different things, like a lot of our clients for that purpose also set up foundations

00:35:02.290 --> 00:35:25.060

Arnaud de Coninck: because they realize the. And it's not just to please the next generation. Right? They realize that the business and the family will be better off together by also solving. You know, crucial needs that have been their local community, or more larger, you know disasters. When I see what a lot of family, office and family businesses did

00:35:25.060 --> 00:35:37.089

Arnaud de Coninck: to support the fires in Los Angeles. When I see that there's, you know, we have a lot of clients that have disaster programs. Whenever there's a hurricane in a certain country. There's a lot of

00:35:37.180 --> 00:35:49.619

Arnaud de Coninck: philanthropy and money going out to support society. And I think this is having a lot of impact when I see, like during Covid. I think this was the most eye opening moment throughout the Covid. I think

00:35:49.740 --> 00:36:19.619

Arnaud de Coninck: everybody was struggling, and the work that certain of our clients did to keep employing the company member like to keep the keep employment there to keep them paying for, because, you know, their bills were still there. So even they're not working. They still need to be paid right. And there's a lot a lot of our clients that kept that created the funds where shareholders got back in to support

00:36:19.650 --> 00:36:37.820

Arnaud de Coninck: the employees, to support the business, to support the families, and I think that, I believe is really what brings the next generation closer to the family and closer to the business, and willing wanting them to engage more. At least, that's also what we see on in terms of traffic on our platform. Right?

00:36:38.370 --> 00:36:40.489

Arnaud de Coninck: So I think that's a a big one.

00:36:40.930 --> 00:36:50.849

Arnaud de Coninck: is finding purpose in the business and finding and having the right causes that are supported by the family and letting the Fab the next generation be involved there too.

00:36:52.960 --> 00:37:13.220

Arnaud de Coninck: Now, I think it also depends. At what age do you consider the next? Gen. Right? I think if you're looking at a 1617 year old, that may be making more the case. I think there's also, you know, make all, I think the next Gen. You know, that are also in their thirties and forties. I think they also look at how they can help

00:37:13.310 --> 00:37:31.789

Arnaud de Coninck: grow the business because they're also they have a new world, a new eye to the world that their parents didn't necessarily have. You know, there's a lot of disruption happening in every industry today, and I believe the next generation is often very well equipped to be able to see them anticipate them. And

00:37:32.160 --> 00:37:39.490

Arnaud de Coninck: and I think, yeah, I think giving the possibility for the next generation to define

00:37:40.470 --> 00:37:47.770

Arnaud de Coninck: the businesses and the wealth of tomorrow, I believe, is extremely important, and we need to empower them, you know, once they start working.

00:37:48.820 --> 00:38:03.330

Mark Wickersham: I think that it's not just accumulation of wealth for wealth sake, right? They want to have impact. And they want to have things that that maybe weren't as prevalent or top of mind, such as sustainability community. Those type of things

00:38:04.540 --> 00:38:19.700

Mark Wickersham: are more important to them. And certainly you know what made the business successful in the past isn't necessarily gonna what make the business successful in the future? And that's where that next Gen. Can really add a lot of value, right as consumer preferences change as the business environment changes.

00:38:19.700 --> 00:38:25.921

Arnaud de Coninck: About entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship. You know a Trusted Family is a good example of this entrepreneurship

00:38:26.460 --> 00:38:55.749

Arnaud de Coninck: programs, and I think you know, families were built by entrepreneurs. Businesses were built by entrepreneurs and cultivating this mindset at the next generation is paramount. It's something that we need to continue pushing all around the world. And I believe it's also something that attracts a lot, the next generation to be there to be owners of their destiny, to be able to do what they like and develop their own projects, I think, speaks very nicely also to the rising generation.

00:38:56.760 --> 00:38:57.055

Mark Wickersham: Great.

00:38:57.460 --> 00:39:04.879

Mark Wickersham: So you're coming to America in the fall, you're gonna be relocating to Austin. Great town.

00:39:05.617 --> 00:39:07.469

Mark Wickersham: Why, the move?

00:39:09.410 --> 00:39:36.109

Arnaud de Coninck: It's not for the heat, it's because it's 35 degrees here in Brussels today. And I'm having difficulties coping with that. But so no, it's not the heat that I'm looking forward to, but no jokes aside. I think the Us. Market has always been the biggest market for us at Trusted Family. Edward moved over there 6, 7 years ago, started developing the market. We've always had a team over there in the Us. Developing Trusted Family, and I think

00:39:36.440 --> 00:39:42.420

Arnaud de Coninck: we've there are multiple reasons why we went faster in the Us. You know. I think, the

00:39:42.540 --> 00:39:44.610

Arnaud de Coninck: one. The market is larger.

00:39:44.900 --> 00:40:00.699

Arnaud de Coninck: you know, in Europe. You need to deal with all these different languages. The markets are smaller, you know, certain countries have different structures have different priorities. And so it's a more difficult market to penetrate.

00:40:00.980 --> 00:40:08.859

Arnaud de Coninck: And so the Us. It's 1 language, huge country. So, and lots of opportunities. Right? And you know.

00:40:09.050 --> 00:40:16.010

Arnaud de Coninck: that's clearly one of the reasons. I think also the structures and the maturity of governance in the Us. Is

00:40:18.260 --> 00:40:38.710

Arnaud de Coninck: I'm being recorded here, but I think it's I do feel that they're the family offices and the family businesses, thanks to the trust and organ structures that they have, are really better, more mature, better equipped, and they have better structures. There. Now, there are, of course, other regions, you know. I think the Middle East is catching up a lot.

00:40:38.730 --> 00:40:54.610

Arnaud de Coninck: but I think the Us. Is a very mature market when it comes to family governance, and that is really critical for us, right? Because I think the families to have the right structure once they have the structure, then Trusted Family is a no brainer. They need to, you know, run that structure, and that's where we come into play.

00:40:55.163 --> 00:40:59.810

Arnaud de Coninck: So very much more professionally run, I would say, in the Us. Than they are in Europe.

00:40:59.820 --> 00:41:25.620

Arnaud de Coninck: They also come always to us with like they know what their problem is, and they want to solve their problem. You know, in Europe I often need to educate the family on the importance of communication. I need to educate the families on the importance of governance. I need to educate the family on, you know. Why do you need to start planning for the future. And in the Us. That's just. Those are conversations that families don't. I don't have necessarily with families, because

00:41:25.670 --> 00:41:40.890

Arnaud de Coninck: there's enough best practices enough thought leaders in the in this, in the country that, you know, have already well communicated this need, and have helped families really be well established to be prepared for the future. So I think

00:41:41.230 --> 00:41:57.540

Arnaud de Coninck: you know, families in the Us. Come to us with a pain point, and well, we're there to solve their pain points right? And that's not. And you know, versus in Europe, there's a lot of time we need to educate the families on maybe potential future pain points that they'll have if they don't do anything

00:41:57.996 --> 00:42:27.070

Arnaud de Coninck: they're also more open to technology. For some reason I don't know if that's a generality. But yeah, they understand that having the right tools will help them perform better. It's a larger market, and it's the. And it's where we have most of our customers today. So it was important for us to settle down. I'll be relocating, as you said to Austin, we'll be building a team. We just hired 2 people right there and looking to hire more to help to help develop the company further.

00:42:28.140 --> 00:42:38.200

Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I mean, certainly the Us. Is a lot bigger in terms of the especially talk of family office market. Right? It's a. It's a mature market. It's significantly

00:42:39.213 --> 00:42:43.649

Mark Wickersham: bigger in size and than really the other Europe, Asia, India.

00:42:44.344 --> 00:42:57.099

Mark Wickersham: Certainly there are other areas that are growing rapidly like the Indian family office market, is growing very rapidly, but it is a mature market. That single family office model is well established right? And then.

00:42:57.100 --> 00:43:18.199

Arnaud de Coninck: Technology. When you look at all these software that family offices are using in the Us. It's really driven by the Us. Market. Those the only that family offices are using. And so we need, we need to be there. We need to be close to these, to our partners or the biggest family business advisory firms. They all started almost in the Us. And started have grown outside.

00:43:18.200 --> 00:43:32.239

Arnaud de Coninck: I'm making generality, but the biggest ones are in the us that it'd be academic institutions that it'd be. You know, family business advisors and practitioners. The most known companies out there today are Us. Firms.

00:43:33.640 --> 00:43:40.459

Mark Wickersham: So I like to end the podcast on a personal note with 3 questions that have nothing to do with wealth, tech.

00:43:42.070 --> 00:43:48.799

Mark Wickersham: What are you gonna miss the most about living in Europe? And what excites you about living in the Us.

00:43:51.724 --> 00:44:07.489

Arnaud de Coninck: What excites me 1st about living in the Us. Is so I've traveled all over the world. I grew up in Singapore. You know, and I think what I really enjoy also in my work today is just continuously

00:44:07.730 --> 00:44:13.509

Arnaud de Coninck: meeting with, you know, making new connections, new working with new cultures.

00:44:14.336 --> 00:44:17.360

Arnaud de Coninck: And I think you know, it's different to do

00:44:17.530 --> 00:44:32.680

Arnaud de Coninck: calls via zoom than to really live in a country and experience it firsthand. Right? So I think that's clearly something that's most. You know what excites me about coming and living in the Us. It's what it's. It's to help to

00:44:32.780 --> 00:44:55.679

Arnaud de Coninck: provide an opportunity also for my for my children, to be able to open up to the world. In a sense, I think, with AI and the technology that keeps disrupting. I think the biggest asset you can educate your kids on is to make them socially capable of easily adapting with different cultures, speaking different languages. They speak Dutch at school. We speak French at home

00:44:55.680 --> 00:45:09.360

Arnaud de Coninck: now. They'll start learning English, plus Spanish in Austin. So there's, you know, I think, being able to easily make friends, easily adapt to different cultures, to different circumstances, to different people, I think is a really important

00:45:09.360 --> 00:45:14.280

Arnaud de Coninck: education, and I think that's what excites me about coming to the Us.

00:45:14.990 --> 00:45:26.190

Arnaud de Coninck: Plus the opportunity for Trusted Family. Now look! That's more personal. But looking at from business perspective, I think there's a huge amount of work still for us to do. We have around 120 families today in the Us.

00:45:26.260 --> 00:45:41.110

Arnaud de Coninck: I'd like to leave there in 3 years and say, we have a thousand families in the Us. You know. So, and I think it is achievable with all the work we're doing, it's all a question of focus and getting the right product fit also for more and more families. So I think that's a really exciting time for us

00:45:41.140 --> 00:46:02.529

Arnaud de Coninck: with our developments and our product developing fast. So I think that's from a professional standpoint, also really exciting. And then, being closer to our partners. As I said, the biggest family business advisors are in the Us. Being close to them, being able to have lunch with them, being able to have a beer, maybe not the beer. I won't miss maybe the wine a bit. If you're coming back to what I'm going to miss in Europe.

00:46:02.990 --> 00:46:10.480

Arnaud de Coninck: The beer the Us. Has everything. The one I do feel, you know, wines in Italy and France are

00:46:11.080 --> 00:46:35.749

Arnaud de Coninck: might be missing me a bit, I think the but Europe is an amazing country, because there's so much culture in the size of maybe Texas State, you know, like, you know, from Brussels, I'm an hour train ride to Paris. I'm an hour train ride to London. I'm an hour train ride to Amsterdam, and there's so many different cultures there, so many different people, so many different

00:46:35.940 --> 00:46:46.199

Arnaud de Coninck: food, so many different ways of thinking. And I think it's 1 of the biggest assets, I would say of Europe is to be able to. You know, the quality of life, I think, is unique.

00:46:46.480 --> 00:47:12.260

Arnaud de Coninck: But that's why I think it's also good to move right? It's too. It's too much. It's too nice to just not enjoy, or I think it's important for the kids to see. There's other than other things than Europe. But I'm not making them a huge difference, because the Us. Is probably a bit more developed. But I think, having lived in Singapore in my youth period, clearly helped me realize and open up to the world.

00:47:12.950 --> 00:47:20.489

Mark Wickersham: Well, you gotta love it. I mean, there's a great music scene in Austin, really thriving technology scene in Austin as well.

00:47:20.620 --> 00:47:32.559

Mark Wickersham: Great downtown there. I think you know Europe. Europe's great. I love Europe. I have a strong affinity for Europe, Italy in particular. I'm a fan of.

00:47:32.670 --> 00:47:35.389

Mark Wickersham: and we agree with you on the wine. I feel like it's

00:47:35.580 --> 00:47:39.695

Mark Wickersham: not only is it better, but you feel better after you know drinking it, but

00:47:40.450 --> 00:47:41.470

Mark Wickersham: What

00:47:41.720 --> 00:47:52.050

Mark Wickersham: with your work, with some of the most prominent families in the in the world, what have you learned kind of personally from working with some of these families. How have they impacted you?

00:47:58.370 --> 00:48:02.779

Arnaud de Coninck: Maybe I can resume that in kind of 3 words. One is is

00:48:03.140 --> 00:48:14.340

Arnaud de Coninck: the humbleness. I think the families with whom I've been able to work. The biggest assets that I've seen, and it has really helped me realize is like, you know, it's not because you have

00:48:14.870 --> 00:48:20.160

Arnaud de Coninck: a lot of wealth that you know you necessarily

00:48:22.550 --> 00:48:33.690

Arnaud de Coninck: that you know it's remaining humble. All of our clients like the conversation I have. Everybody is extremely humble about it. They extreme, you know, they really recognize the

00:48:33.730 --> 00:49:01.189

Arnaud de Coninck: great asset that their father and grandfather has developed. And I think it's really important. And it's 1 of the big, you know. A good lesson for me, you know, when I've been working with all these families is to realize that, you know it's it's not about how much money you have. It's what you do about it. It's how it impacts you and remaining humble, remaining honest about it remaining true in yourself. I think it's a real value that I've seen working in this industry and working with our clients today.

00:49:01.190 --> 00:49:09.740

Arnaud de Coninck: And it's really been a blessing. So I think being humble is a lesson that I've been able to learn, with thanks to the work and thanks to the clients that we work with.

00:49:10.646 --> 00:49:11.340

Arnaud de Coninck: I think

00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:35.979

Arnaud de Coninck: I mean a lesson that I've heard also is like to keep things fun. You know. Life is too short. I think we need to make things fun. And you know, working in this industry is a fun industry to be in, you know. Of course, there's business to be made. There's the impact of the decisions that certain shareholders and families are making is humongous for their organizations. But

00:49:36.670 --> 00:49:42.539

Arnaud de Coninck: But there's a lot of fun in doing it. There's a lot of responsibility. But there's a lot of fun. And

00:49:43.100 --> 00:49:57.290

Arnaud de Coninck: and it's just yeah, it's really nice to be able to be with family members around the world who share the same beliefs, share the same values. And

00:49:57.460 --> 00:50:09.120

Arnaud de Coninck: and this desire to yeah, to work hard. But also, you know, don't take it too seriously, either, because the business is bigger than any individual person you know.

00:50:09.250 --> 00:50:16.199

Arnaud de Coninck: I think so, having fun in what you do and in the roles that you play, I think, is important.

00:50:16.490 --> 00:50:30.879

Arnaud de Coninck: And then what I was amazed also is to and what I learned a lot is the whole impact. You know we talked about it a bit beforehand. But I think it's amazing the impact that these families have or are able to have.

00:50:31.580 --> 00:50:37.580

Arnaud de Coninck: They realize it more and more, and they take more and more actions around it. And

00:50:37.810 --> 00:51:01.560

Arnaud de Coninck: and that makes it even fun, you know, that makes it even funner. And so I think that's also a great lesson I've seen is the impact and that families have had for their employees, for their communities, for their for societies, for the environment. Whatever calls they support. It's really been fulfilling to discover all of this.

00:51:02.450 --> 00:51:05.985

Mark Wickersham: Yeah, they can certainly have significant impact on the communities that they've

00:51:06.660 --> 00:51:28.679

Mark Wickersham: They're part of, like, I've seen it firsthand in in cities like Chattanooga and Grand Rapids, like the ability for these families to be able to kind of redevelop these downtowns, to make them thriving communities that people want to live in. I've seen it firsthand with some of the family offices I've worked with. They can have a significant impact on the greater community.

00:51:28.830 --> 00:51:35.859

Mark Wickersham: And I I think your points there about staying humble and having fun. I I think those are 2 great takeaways.

00:51:38.310 --> 00:51:39.230

Arnaud de Coninck: Yeah.

00:51:40.080 --> 00:51:44.450

Mark Wickersham: Alright! I knew this has been great. I appreciate it. This has been a fun conversation.

00:51:44.450 --> 00:51:54.673

Arnaud de Coninck: Yeah, thanks a lot, mark for the opportunity. It's always a pleasure speaking with you. And yeah, if I'll let you know I'll be. I'll be traveling quite a lot. I'll be in Boston in October,

00:51:55.350 --> 00:51:56.230

Arnaud de Coninck: and I hope.

00:51:56.230 --> 00:51:58.279

Mark Wickersham: Time to come to Boston.

00:51:58.420 --> 00:51:59.190

Arnaud de Coninck: Yeah, I wanna go first.st

00:51:59.190 --> 00:52:00.880

Mark Wickersham: Not so much October. Yes.

00:52:01.120 --> 00:52:07.190

Arnaud de Coninck: Okay? Well, we'll we'll make sure to meet up in the Us. Thing when I travel.

00:52:07.580 --> 00:52:08.510

Mark Wickersham: Sounds, great.