“I think succession is different in every generation. The way we handled the hiring of [current Van Eeghen Group managing director and cousin] Jeroen was excellent. We outsourced the hiring process. In 2011 the supervisory board sent a letter to the broader family and said I was about to retire in a few years. We also said if no qualified candidates presented themselves, we’d look outside the family. People had to send a cover letter and CV. They made a committee with an external head hunter with an HR person, and they did the preliminary assessment.”
Chris Cecil
President, Biltmore Family Office and chair of the Charlotte chapter of TIGER 21
“ ‘Each generation is the first’ is advice I give at the onset of a governance conversation. The mindset and framework that created entrepreneurial wealth must not be lost through the sale of a business and conversion of balance sheet from concentrated and illiquid to cash and liquid investments. Today so many families are ‘sold’ the concept of relative returns. Family governance must acknowledge that wealth wasn’t created relative to the S&P 500. It typically isn’t spent relative to the S&P and is rarely given away relative to the S&P.”
Alvina Lo
Chief Wealth Strategist, Wilmington Trust
“The choice of trustee is so important. I worked with a family that had significant wealth from an invention on the grandparent level. There were two sons; one was not in good health. There was some resentment about what drove the son to the state he was in—they seemed to blame the son’s wife. It was decided that if anything happened to that son, the money would go to his kids. The question was who would control it: the wife or the remaining brother? I suggested bringing in an independent third-party trustee who could cast a deciding vote and be the ‘bad guy’ if need be. The family chose a corporate trustee to professionally administer the trust to terms agreed and made a list of reputable names and requirements for future trustees in case the original one didn’t work out. The son died, and while there was tension, everyone had agreed on the terms of the trust and the third party. The more objective you can make things, the better it will be.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.