A team of family office professionals, private wealth managers and trust experts met in the last quarter of 2022 at Carlton Tower in Jumeirah for a roundtable discussion on issues facing the management of family wealth.

This in-depth discussion from industry experts concluded that emotional intelligence, empathy and an understanding of the difficulties faced by wealthy families today were equally as important as market knowledge. The event was conducted under the Chatham House rule and sponsored by IQ-EQ, an investor services group.

Attorney-at-law Dr Edgar Paltzer counts wealth structuring and giving a second opinion on legal advice for family offices among his areas of expertise.

The Role of the Family Office

The role of the family office is to act as a financial advisory service for families classed as high net worth, typically with investable assets of $100 million or more. The key aim of the family office is to protect and grow that wealth, with a view to transferring it through multiple generations.

Family offices may also provide services in other areas, including help with legal matters, tax compliance, commercial business ventures, philanthropy, governance and more. The services of a family office may be in-house or outsourced, or they could also be a combination of the two.

The main difference between a family office and a wealth manager is not so much in the type of services offered as it is in the number of clients being served.

The Emotional Quotient

The roundtable discussion, which was titled ‘Family Offices and Trustees: Marriage made in heaven?’, highlighted how essential emotional intelligence is when dealing with the often-complex affairs of wealthy families.

Alex Dean, the head of private wealth in the UK at IQ-EQ, commented on how striking it was that the entire group of professionals agreed that having great interpersonal skills and an emotional quotient was just as important as having market knowledge and a high IQ. The conclusion reached was that, while technical capabilities are still an essential part of the family office service when talking about ultra-high-net-worth families, emotional intelligence is just as important.

Many family offices have to deal with complicated and challenging aspects of family life as part of their financial services, so an understanding of how this works is vital.

The results of the roundtable were presented at Spear’s 500 Live in association with The OWO Residences by Raffles.