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Redefiners
All in the Family: Leadership Lessons from the World’s Biggest Family Offices with Stephan Roche
00:35:44
Since the establishment of the first family offices in the 19th century, there are now more than 8,000 single family offices globally. These offices hold over $5 trillion in total estimated wealth today, an amount expected to grow to over $9 trilli...
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- [00:00]
A
Call them change makers, call them rule breakers. We call them redefiners. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Redefiners. I'm Marla Oates, a leadership advisor at Russell Reynolds. I'm thrilled to be joined once again by my always curious co host, Chief Science Officer, Dr. Tomas Chamorro from Music.
- [00:28]
B
Hey Marla, it's great to be here.
- [00:30]
A
It's good to see you, Tomas. Before we get started, just a quick reminder to our listeners that you can find all our episodes of Redefiners and Leadership Lounge on YouTube. If you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. And for our audio listeners, don't forget to write Redefiners. Wherever you get your podcasts, we love to see your feedback. Today we're going to talk with someone who has helped lead two of the biggest family offices in the world. For those listeners who may not be familiar with the term family office, it's a private company that manages the wealth, net assets, financial and personal needs for a single ultra high net worth family.
- [01:09]
B
And I have to tell you Marla, I'm really, really impressed by some of the staggering statistics and facts around family offices. I mean, I know people who work in this industry, I know some friends, some clients, but some incredible stats for our listeners. So since the first family offices were established in the 19th century, they have grown to over 8,000 single family office globally and they manage over US$5 trillion in estimated wealth, a figure that is expected to increase to 9 trillion by 2030. So this is a huge industry and
- [01:46]
A
looking beyond just family offices, we are in the middle of the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history. In just the US Alone, baby boomers and the older generations are projected to transfer an estimated 85 to 125 trillion. That's right, trillion dollars to Gen X millennials, Gen z by around 2045.
- [02:09]
B
As that family wealth is transferred, the question is what? Or rather who drives the strategic agenda for these investments and what will happen with this wealth, not just in terms of the investment, but also influence around the world.
- [02:24]
A
It sounds like we have a lot to talk about today, so let's get to it. Our guest today is Steven Roach, who is a partner with Banyan Global Family Business Advisors. Prior to joining Banyan Global, Steven has held several leadership and investment advisory roles, including as CEO of Walton Enterprises, the philanthropic and private investment group for the Walton family. He also served as the COO of Cascade Asset Management, the private investment office for Bill Gates and and the Gates Foundation. He serves on the board of Silver Ventures and is an inaugural member of the Family Office Initiative advisory for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
- [03:03]
B
So, Stephen, welcome to Redefiners.
- [03:06]
C
Well, thank you so much. It's really wonderful to be here.
- [03:09]
A
Before we get started, Stephen, we really want to hear all about your exciting and illustrious finance career. But we heard that you have actually climbed Everest Base Camp with your daughter. And as the mom of two girls, it's absolutely on bucket list as well. Tell me a little bit about what that experience was like.
- [03:28]
C
Well, the word for it is extraordinary. And I should probably start with the fact that I have triplets. That may be the hardest leadership role in my life, to be quite honest. But the two of them actually joined me on the trip to Base Camp. And really, the story of why I went to Base Camp was not for me, but was for one of my daughters who, about a year prior said, dad, I would like to climb Mount Everest. Well, would you join me to go to Base Camp? And of course, the first answer that comes to mind is not heck, yes, it's what? It's one of those things that in the moment, you just realize, if you can support your daughter to do that, imagine the things that she can be able to do once she has that achievement and understanding that many, many people who attempt to climb Mount Everest don't make it to the top. So that the trek itself was magical. It is a spiritual journey through the Khumbu Valley in Nepal. The three of us got to Base Camp, and I have to tell you, it was extraordinary. We were there for one night, my one daughter and I, to see my other daughter off. And as we turned around to walk back down, I gave a big hug to the leader of the expedition, Garrett Madison. And I whispered in his ear, all I care about is getting her back down safely.
- [04:43]
A
And she came back.
- [04:44]
C
She did. She did. Well, she got to the top, and she came back. Ed Veasters. I don't know if you know Ed Veasters. He's this extraordinary mountain climber. He's, you know, Kiro in the mountain climbing world. And he has a saying, and his saying is optional to get to the top, mandatory to get back down.
- [05:00]
B
Very good. Very good.
- [05:02]
C
And that's something I think about all the time. So she did. She did get to the top. She got back down. And this is a kid now who has the confidence of being one of the fewer than 100American women who have ever summited Everest.
- [05:13]
A
Oh, my goodness. What an amazing story. You're Clearly a fantastic father.
- [05:18]
B
Thanks for sharing that fantastic inspirational story. I'm sure many of our listeners and viewers will want to do this. Let's not forget compulsory to come back. Yeah. Especially since COVID So let's maybe switch gears from mountain climbing to climbing the career ladder. And you had an interesting and I'm sure not always predictable path to where you are today, including things like Procter and Gamble and Bain. Tell us a little bit about your journey.
- [05:43]
C
It is a very peripatetic journey, for sure, but each step of the way, there was a set of decisions that I was able to make that really did make sense. So the journey started at Proctor and Gamble in brand management, but really where the journey started was training and being able to work with Procter and Gamble and then at Bain are two of the most extraordinary organizations in the world. And for a couple of reasons. One is they have great cultures. When you work at Procter and Gamble, you're called a Proctoid. Not the best name, but it actually speaks to the fact that you really feel a deep sense of belonging to a great culture and a legacy of a great business. The same thing at Bain. You're called a Bainie. So you're a proctored than a Bainie. You have this training that goes on during the year, your formative years of your career that allows you to become a better business person and a better manager and ultimately a better leader. And that really was the foundation of my career. I then have opportunities along the way. And, you know, you talk about luck, but I tell you, a lot of my career was also about falling down flat on my face, getting myself back up, brushing myself off and saying, okay, Monday morning I got to go back and do this again. And I think if I had to look back and say, what was more important, was it the luck or was it the resilience? I would say it was some balance of the two, but resilience was a critical component of that.
- [07:03]
B
And tell us a little bit about the decision or the transition from that world to leading the investment arm for two of the biggest names in family wealth, the Walton family and the Bill Gates and Gates Foundation. And a lot has been written about their approaches to making, spending, donating and maintaining or growing wealth. But how would you summarize their philosophies or approaches?
- [07:27]
C
You know, what's funny is it all began with a LinkedIn email, if you can believe it. Wow. I was actually on LinkedIn and I got an email that said, would you be interested in the position of COO for The private investment office for Bill and Melinda Gates and the Gates Foundation. And what do you think I thought when I read that? Message fraud, Spam.
- [07:45]
B
Spam.
- [07:46]
C
Total spam. But the truth is, it launched me into a career that to say it was unexpected would be an understatement. I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. Like many of the of your listeners and viewers, I didn't really know what a family office was at the time that I got that email. I wasn't really aware that there was this whole industry. And quite honestly, this was in 2012. The industry was much smaller. It was much less known. And quite honestly, there weren't a whole lot of people talking about it publicly. I believe that there are probably closer to 12,000 family offices globally today, but they're so private that you don't know them all. So I was very fortunate to be able to work with the Gates family, but most importantly with Michael Larson, who is the chief investment officer of Cascade and has been for a number of years. He is truly one of the great investors of the last quarter century. The way I think about my role with both the Gates and the Waltons is that I'm there to build a team of top talent. When I have a team of top talent, that top talent then does the work they need to do to achieve the results that we need to achieve on behalf of the families we serve. And it's really that simple. And so back to your question, which is, okay, what do they do? How do they think about wealth? They think very long term. And it is such a gift and a privilege to be able to think in 25 years or even 100 years. And neither family thinks about capital preservation. That's not their goal. Capital preservation is one way to ensure capital erosion. They think about, how do we take this wealth and turn it into something even greater. And obviously, in the case of Bill Gates and Melinda, who was close partners with Bill at the time that I was there, is they thought about their wealth as the tool that would power the foundation. Being able to work for a firm that was generating wealth that you knew was going to go into the foundation and improve the lives of people all over the world was really, really powerful. It's actually not that different for the Waltons. They just have a different set of assets because they are still primary owners of Walmart, and they think of Walmart as. As being one of their vehicles for transforming the world. And so it's a different vehicle than the Gates foundation, of course, but it is equally influential I want to get
- [10:00]
A
into purpose and philanthropy, because I know those are both two topics near and dear to your heart. But before going there, you've got this multi generational family. You're managing the family office. There's a lot of different family dynamics that I'm sure are going into the wealth planning, the family services, how you think about philanthropy. What advice do you have for leaders, you know, in managing when they're stepping into this family dynamic? And how do you influence their perspective, you know, for the long term?
- [10:34]
C
Marlo, that is one of the great challenges of being a family office leader. And one of the things about family offices that I don't think a lot of people consider is that you may be stepping into an organization that in some cases can be quite large, other cases is quite small, but you're stepping into a really funny business structure, which is that the owners are also the clients. And so think of it like a co op. I think you pointed out that you're also dealing with a family dynamic. And there's another thing about family offices where you can't fire the clients and you can't fire the owners. I often talk about that. You're at the top of one pyramid as a family office leader.
- [11:12]
A
Yeah.
- [11:13]
C
And then you're at the bottom of another pyramid, and the other pyramid is the family. And then as a family office leader, you get squeezed between those two points. It's a really privileged place to be, as you say, because you are able to have influence. And you know, as a leader, there's positional power. Hey, you're CEO, you're a president, you're a managing director. But the truth is, is positional power doesn't get you very far. It is about influence. How can you influence a group of people to do great things together? And so within a family office, that is something that. That is critical for the leader and is to say, how can I understand what the family's needs and interests and purposes? And then how do I organize my team to make sure that we have the right people in the right seats doing the right job to get to the right place in the way that is most effective on behalf of the family?
- [11:58]
A
It requires, you know, obviously, professional training, all these technical skills. We've talked about influence. But what are the other key skills that you think are required to be a family office leader? You know, is. Is that empathy? What do you think next to influence you need?
- [12:16]
C
The number one skill you need to be a great CEO of a family office is diplomacy. The second skill you need is therapy. And then much deeper into that list. Do you need leadership and technical skills? You mentioned empathy. I actually often use the word compassion, and I know they're very similar words and they have very similar meanings, but when I think about compassion, it's the ability to really understand the drivers of another human and how they think, what their interests are, their needs are, where they come from, so that you can help them achieve their personal goals, their personal aspirations. In any family office, you have to start with a sense of empathy and compassion for each of the family members and think of them not just as a monolithic whole, but as individuals within a family, as a family office, as you're really leading a multi family office for single family.
- [13:10]
B
Your description and your story reminded me a little bit of, you know, when firms, organizations say we're like a family, I always think you mean dysfunctional because that's the first thing that comes to mind. But I think what you describe, and, you know, maybe I'm projecting because I'm a psychologist by training, but you have a deep psychological role here, understanding, interpreting, and improving some of the dynamics. Right. That exist there. And aligning, I mean, alignment is key to any leadership role. But a lot of the times people think about leadership as tied to these formal titles. The cfo, the CEO, the CEO. And you have various roles. But it seems from what you're saying that you see the actual process of influencing as something separate and more dependent on soft skills or other competencies. How do you think about that?
- [14:00]
C
You really do have to have great humility, because I was also CEO of a private company. When you're CEO of a private company, you set the vision. When you're CEO of a family office, it's the family's vision, it's not yours. And that can be hard, particularly because the family's not monolithic. They might not have that vision. Marla, you mentioned how important purpose is to me. Yeah, I came to that over time. It was not as obvious to me in my first roles as CEO about the importance of purpose. But when you're working with a family, you understand if they have a common purpose that they have together, then the wealth is in service of that purpose rather than the family being in service of the wealth. So many families are in service of the wealth. And what I mean by that is the wealth defines them, instead of the wealth being part of what they can utilize, that can serve them as they are stewarding their purpose.
- [14:53]
A
I think that's a perfect segue into where I wanted to head next. Right. Which is the philanthropy aspect. And you think about some of the great families like the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, what they did for health, art, education. As a CEO and a leader, who's influencing the family, what's your perspective on philanthropy? And also what do you feel is your role around influencing a family in terms of giving back?
- [15:23]
C
You know, that's a great question. One of the words that you're hearing more and more is impact rather than philanthropy. I kind of like that, honestly, because philanthropy has a very specific connotation, which is you are giving money away, which is super important. It is incredibly important to healthcare and social services and the arts and culture. But impact takes a broader lens. If you own Walmart, what is the impact you can have on the world through this extraordinary institution? That impact can be as great as all the money that they give away. What we as CEOs can do, we can help great families make great decisions together. And it's one of the things we talk about at Banyan. Like all consultants, we want there to be extraordinary results. We are really good at helping those families that we work with make great decisions. And at the end of the day, that's what matters. When you're talking about impact or philanthropy, you have to have that consistency of understanding how to make that decision to do it. And then you got to step back and say, and then how do we do it better than anybody else in a similar position so that we get the maximum impact out of those resources that we're deploying on behalf of the impact.
- [16:35]
A
We'll be right back with Steven Roach. But first, let's head to the west coast to our LA office to hear from Jeff Warren, leadership advisor at Russell Reynolds. He'll share what truly distinguishes today's most effective family office leaders and why this role is more complex than ever.
- [16:52]
D
Family offices are navigating a level of complexity that would have been hard to imagine even 10 years ago. We're seeing multigenerational families with different risk appetites, rising expectations from next gen investors, significantly more sophisticated investment strategies, and growing operational cyber and reputational risks. So the question becomes, what kind of leader can successfully navigate this environment? In our research, we found that the most effective family office leaders share four key behavioral characteristics. To learn more about what these characteristics are and what defines the modern family office leader, you can find the full article in our show notes or@russellreynolds.com now
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A
back to our conversation with Steven.
- [17:43]
B
Staying with purpose. What role does it play in your firm and in your career? And did you find that over time or was it always there, you know, from the beginning?
- [17:53]
C
I love that question because it really does start with you. This is a concept that goes all the way back, you know, frankly, probably to the beginning of mankind. Why am I here? We talk about the importance for next generation family members of waking up with a sense of purpose every day, because when you inherit wealth, that idea that I just have to survive goes to the side, and then it opens up all these other extraordinary opportunities. But you still have to wake up with a sense of purpose. What am I doing? Where am I going? I wish I knew back then, right? I mean, this is the classic, you know, third act of your career. I wish I knew back then what I know now because I. I would have spent more time really trying to articulate my purpose for some reason. I've always had a sense internally just that I could have impact in the world. I've always had that, but I couldn't define it. And so that's something that I think is absolutely worth everyone stepping back and saying, what am I doing here? How can I make my community, my relationships, my family, the people around me better? And I'll just. I'll leave you with Lou with one thought here, which is last night, I was at an event with the Seattle Art Museum, and I asked a woman who's a major art collector what she had most recently acquired. And she said she got a piece that spoke to her because the name of the piece was leave this place better than you found it. Which is, of course, the camping credo. And so in some ways, that's the. The credo that I. I think that I can live by, which is, how do I leave the place better than I found it in whatever role that I play.
- [19:25]
A
That's truly inspirational, Steven and I actually feel like the next generation are really looking for purpose. You know, it can't just be about the money anymore. It's what am I on this earth to do, you know, that's why sustainability initiatives, how do we keep the world green? You know, all of those things matter. And at Russell Reynolds, too. I mean, look, I think our purpose is to improve the way the world's led Here at the firm, of course, we talk a lot about succession. How do we develop the next generation of leaders? I can imagine that when you're working with these families and thinking about intergenerational, what role do you play? And how do you develop that next generation of the family to really take over the wealth, the foundation?
- [20:07]
C
I'm going to share an anecdote from this Week with a really, really important family from the Washington D.C. area. We spent frankly weeks of preparation to help ensure the smooth transition both in the CEO but also in the next gen of family owners because they're happening simultaneously and it's really powerful. It was super successful and I have to say it was in partnership with Russell Reynolds, which was critically important to our achieving that success. And so let me rewind a bit just to give you a little bit of context, if that's okay.
- [20:40]
A
Please.
- [20:41]
C
70 year old business, they had only had two CEOs, the founder, the patriarch, and then the second CEO who was non family. That non family member had been CEO for 18 years. The second generation of family owners who were the children of the founder are in their 70s and they are absolutely getting ready to step back so that their next gen can step up. In the next generation. There are seven cousins. Those seven cousins are really trying to make sure that they are ready to take on the leadership mantle. So we needed to do a CEO transition a 70 year old CEO to a next gen, and then transition that next generation of owners into a leadership position. The first thing we did with the family is we said, let's talk about purpose. Do you want to be a family owning this business for 100 years? Because if you don't, this is a really good time to step back and say maybe we sell the business, we distribute the proceeds and then we all live our own lives. And this family came together and said, nope, we want to do this together. It's really critically important for us. So if you don't have that, if you don't have that binding sense of obligation and opportunity, none of this is going to work. So then we go through this whole process of preparing the family itself through creating the right governance structures for the family. Super important. Think about governance as just how do we make decisions as a family. One of the concepts we talk a lot about at Banyan is you've got the four different rooms, your owner's room where you owners make decisions, the boardroom where the board makes decisions about the governance of the business. And then the management room where you make the day to day operating decisions. And then over here is the family room where you do philanthropy, you do learning and development, you do all the things that families do. The conflict resolution happens there. So when in this process we invited Russell Reynolds to join us in helping select the next CEO, identify the right traits that are going to be necessary for that CEO to be successful in this job. And they ended up selecting an internal candidate. Russell Reynolds is working side by side with that internal candidate on doing a leadership assessment and leadership profile. We're also doing work on providing an executive coach to help this CEO step into this role successfully and ensure that they can get off to a fast start. At the same time, we're helping that next generation start to learn what is necessary for them to be effective leaders and then helping the G2 who are the current leadership level of the family say, how do you step back to give space for the next generation to step up and be successful owners? And I can tell you that on Wednesday afternoon, once we had gone through this process and done all the communication, including the press release and the company email, the family turned to us and said, that couldn't have gone better. And we can't thank you enough for helping create an extraordinary outcome.
- [23:36]
A
Thank you for sharing that, Stephen.
- [23:38]
B
Yeah, and it's a great illustration of how the best investment starts with investing in people. Nothing matters more than investing in your future leadership talent and harnessing that potential. Now, two things that have been happening over the past 100, 200 years is poverty has been trending downwards and wealth has been increasing. Some of the figures that I want to highlight here. According to a recent ubs report, the US alone added a thousand new millionaires a day in 2024. And there's almost 3,000 billionaires now in the world, up almost 9% from the previous year. And I'm sure, Stephen, you're going to say that's what's reported. It's probably even higher than that because we only see maybe, you know, the tip of the iceberg. So hopefully our listeners, our viewers, are about to sell their company for a couple of billions or 1 billion or maybe, you know, have this money. Who should be thinking about this kind of setup?
- [24:36]
C
One of the questions I get asked quite often is, okay, at what level of assets does it make sense? And the answer is that is not the dimension on which you should be making the decision of whether to start a family office. So imagine you just had a liquidity event and you as a family just generated a significant wealth. The very first thing you should do is step back and not spend a dime of it for a period of time that you can really do the deep dive into. How do we want to think about the purpose of this wealth for our family? And I know that that sounds a little woo woo. And I though I know some entrepreneurs shake their head and say, gosh, I don't know that I can do that. I will tell you the first conversation should not Be with your tax advisor and lawyer. And that is everybody's first instinct is, let's talk to the tax advisor to minimize taxes. But the real conversation should be with each other. How do we want to think about this wealth? And again with this idea that you don't want the family to be in service of the wealth. You want the wealth to be in service of the family. And if you have a great sense of purpose, then it's the wealth and service of a family purpose. And just think about how powerful that is. The next thing you want to do is, and I mean, this is hire a chief of staff, somebody who can be your gatekeeper, somebody who can help you really understand the landscape about what you're trying to accomplish and can help you decide, do I want to build my own family office? Is there a multifamily office solution that could be superior to building my own family office? So that's one thing to strongly consider is let somebody else do all the hard work for you. Okay, you decide to build your own. Great. You understand your purpose and how you want to think about the wealth. Great. You've met with the lawyers now and this and the tax planners to help build the entities and structures you need to help enable what you want to accomplish with that wealth. Now you need to decide, okay, how do I invest it? How do I deploy it? The wealth is a tool and a resource that you can deploy that can help reinforce the set of skills in your family around leadership and ownership. And that's something that not a lot of people think about, is how do I think about this wealth as more than just a pile of assets that needs to grow over time and again, you want to make sure you're not just focused on capital preservation, but actually growth and its potential. But then think about, how do I utilize this with my family so that I can create a great hundred year family?
- [27:01]
A
I feel like you've talked, you know, during this a lot about longevity. You build the right purpose and empower the generation and think about leadership. As we were doing some homework in preparation for this episode, we came across this stat, the 30:13:3 rule. So perhaps it's oversimplified, but for our listeners, you know, about 30% of family businesses survive into the second generation. So 13% reach the third, and then just 3% endure. Beyond that, how can family leaders ensure the success and longevity, you know, for their family, for their wealth?
- [27:37]
C
That set of stats is so deeply ingrained in everyone's mindset. And, you know, the problem with it, Marla, is It is. It instills fear and anxiety. I think in a lot of families that fear and anxiety holds them back because they say, gosh, we don't want to be that family. We don't want to be that the 97%. We want to be one of the 3%. The truth is, if you want to be one of the 3%, you're already a long way towards being One of the 3% is having a mindset that we want to have this durable family institution. And if you have that mindset, you'll make decisions to reinforce it. Stepping back from that and say, all right, well, what are the important things to do? I will tell you. The most important thing you can do is learn how to make great decisions together as a family. Because if you say, why do families fail? And there are pretty extraordinary stories of families that have failed disastrously, if you really dig underneath, you'll find that they did not have good decision making frameworks in place to enable them to make great decisions together, to hold the family to deliver on their purpose. And what does that mean? It means having really good governance. What we talk about at Banyan is helping them practice great decision making together. Most families don't have to do that. Think about, for us, like, some of the hardest decisions we have to make is where to go on vacation together or God forbid, on Friday night when we're all eating pizza, what movie to watch.
- [28:57]
B
Well, that could actually lead to a big marital dispute. I gotta say. Despite advancements in Netflix algorithm, you know, when you decide to think for yourself, it can be two, three hours of nothing, no movie.
- [29:09]
C
Yes. And Tomas, now imagine owning Walmart together.
- [29:13]
B
Slightly more complex it is.
- [29:15]
C
And yet they've done such an extraordinary job being stewards of that great business. And so I'll give you one other example of something that's important that not a lot of people think about. We call it a Banyan vocabulary alignment. And this gets to this concept. Are we talking about the same thing here? Because if we're not talking about the same thing, then we can't make a great decision together.
- [29:35]
B
Yeah. So, Steven, you had all these incredible roles and various facets in what has been a very rich and incredible career. Can you think about a specific redefiner moment that impacted your leadership or how you think about leading?
- [29:52]
C
I was coaching my daughter's soccer team. Right. A classic dad role. I had a moment at a game when they were playing against their fiercest rivals. All the parents took it more seriously than they probably should have, but. And as coach, I You know, really wanted to win because one thing about me is I do like to win. We were out on the field and we were watching the girls and they were losing. I was frustrated because I was like, gosh, what is happening? Why isn't this quite working? And so I was looking at the whole field, looking at all the players and trying to figure out, do I have the right players in the right positions? And the answer was I didn't. And so I moved three players to different positions on the field and suddenly our team started out playing the other team. It created this moment of clarity for me, like this belief that I had that it's all about high performance teams. I believe that the CEO should make as few decisions as humanly possible, that the decisions in the company should be made by the people closest to the issues, closest to the data, closest to the customer or the client. I believe that so deeply when I watch the girls go from really being, you know, overpowered to shift that quickly. It was a moment, like I said, of clarity, that just getting really, really great talent into the right seats is the difference between a good team and a great team.
- [31:07]
A
That is such a powerful analogy and I love the personal anecdote. And look shamelessly. That's what we believe in as well. Let's get the right folks into the right seats. We're going to move into rapid fire questions and this is really an opportunity for our guests and viewers to get to know you a little bit better. So here's the deal. I'm going to ask you, along with Tomas, a series of questions. We just want you to respond as quickly as possible. Are you ready?
- [31:32]
C
I'm ready.
- [31:33]
A
What's your favorite way to decompress after a long day at work?
- [31:37]
C
You know, I just love reading. I, I, I really can just dig into whether it's substack or a book or a New Yorker magazine. It is my way to decompress.
- [31:47]
B
Thank you. Now, define what success means to you in five words or less.
- [31:52]
C
Achieving my personal purpose.
- [31:55]
A
If you were going to spend the rest of your life doing philanthropic efforts, what cause would you choose?
- [32:01]
C
Helping humans work and be together in a way that helps each of them achieve their full potential in whatever community, organization or arena that I was leading.
- [32:18]
B
Fantastic. Now we started this conversation with your story of trekking up to Everest camp with your daughters. Any other adventures in your bucket list?
- [32:29]
C
I am going with my daughters and my brother and his children and my sister in law and her daughter to trek the Inca Trail and end at Machu Picchu in June in Peru and I couldn't be more excited.
- [32:42]
A
You're going to have a great time. I did it. It's, it's awesome.
- [32:46]
B
Fantastic. We have a couple more to go. So first, what is a risk in your life or career that you took and you're glad to have taken?
- [32:55]
C
I will tell you. Responding to the email about the opportunity to work with Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and the Gates Foundation. Quite honestly, it was a huge risk in the sense that I would be leaving a business and a company that I was doing very well in entering in a world that I didn't know much about.
- [33:09]
A
So moral of the story, always return the recruiter's email.
- [33:12]
C
Always return. Even if they look like fraud.
- [33:16]
A
Okay, last question. Steven, look, we talked a lot about purpose and values in our conversation today. What is one value you think should never be compromised? On?
- [33:26]
C
Compassion. Full stop. You should never compromise on compassion because if you can understand other people and you can understand where they're coming from, you can build a relationship of trust that allows you to do great things together.
- [33:38]
A
Stephen, you have been such a delight today. So full of knowledge and wonderful anecdotes. Thank you for joining us today on Redefiners.
- [33:46]
B
Great to have you with us, Steven. And let me do a little attempt to summarize some of what I think have been the key points, many, many key points in this amazing conversation. The first is that I feel now very equipped to have a strategy and a purpose for my own family office. I'm just missing a couple of billion, but there's time to work for that. But I think Stephen has given a lot of interesting, valuable expertise in this field. But what really, really stayed with me is his thinking around some of the fundamentals on leadership, team effectiveness. If you're the CEO, make as few decisions as possible. Hire smart people, develop them, help them find their purpose. Purpose, of course, came up in so many of his answers. I love this notion that money is a form of energy, but without purpose it's pointless. And as he has shared with us, part of his role and his job and the role of the family office is to help multi age families identify what the true north or North Star is. Find the purpose. And that isn't easy. It requires a lot of alignment and it requires bringing people together. But that's one of the fundamental aspects of the job and task. And then as he has told us, there can be no bigger investment than investment in people. And as he started this conversation, sharing with us the importance of culture and the various cultures that he has inhabited or passed through. As we always think and say, it all goes down to leadership. So in that sense, not too different from other industries than other leaders that we had in the show. Great conversation and hopefully some very, very useful insights for all of you.
- [35:34]
C
Well, thank you. It has been a great pleasure to speak with both you, Marla, and Tomas. I've really enjoyed this. Thank you.