Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Patricia Angus, Founder and CEO of Angus Advisory Group, an independent consulting practice serving enterprise families. A former international trusts and estates lawyer, Patricia is a thought leader in the field of multi-generational family governance, wealth and philanthropy. She has been advising global families and their companies, family offices, and foundations, for three decades and is the author of The Beneficiary Primer, among numerous publications. She founded the Global Family Enterprise Program at Columbia Business School, where she teaches graduate and executive education courses, and is a Fellow and board member of the Family Firm Institute and a frequent speaker at industry and family events. Patricia is a long-time friend and collaborator of FOX.

Patricia is one of the pioneers in the family wealth space and has been at the forefront of the industry for over 3 decades. As she reflects on the past 30 years, she shares what she believes has changed significantly and what has stayed the same.

As Mark Twain famously said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Today, we find ourselves once again in a time of significant geopolitical and economic shocks, armed conflicts at home and abroad, and the return of populism and authoritarianism even among western democracies. Patricia offers some of the lessons she has learned and would like to pass on to families and their advisors on how to best weather such times of conflict, instability, and disruption.

Throughout her career, Patricia has developed a number of practical tools for families – one prominent example of a tool she utilizes with her clients is the Trustee and Beneficiary Primer. She tells us more about these tools, what is in them, and how families and their advisors can benefit from them.

In the family wealth space, there is a mix of practitioners and academic programs aimed at helping families of wealth achieve success throughout their multigenerational journey. Patricia provides her insights into how families should think about utilizing practitioners vs. academics, highlighting the utility and limitations of each of these resources and offering tips into how families can achieve the right balance between the different kinds of knowledge and tools both academia and practitioners provide?

Do not miss this deeply insightful conversation with one of the veterans and original thought leaders of the family wealth space.