Ownership Project 2.0: Private Capital Owners & Impact

The ways that family businesses, family offices, and family holding companies can create impact are often shrouded in mystery – not just to the public, but also to other families. Events like the Ownership Project's Family Business & Family Office Workshop last week--held as part of the Family Business MBA course co-convened by Brice de La Morandiere and Bridget Kustin--are key for family offices and our practitioner community to engage in peer learning. Insights our panellists shared include: 🎯 Professionals report that language of ‘ESG,’ ‘sustainability’ and ‘impact’ does not resonate widely. Framing these concepts in the language of markets, gaps, and why sustainable products and services will deliver good returns tends to have a much more positive reaction. 🎯 Impact reporting is not enough. There must be evidence that “impact” is embedded in the product and systems themselves. 🎯 Entitlement was critiqued. As one family principal said, “The legacy I want to leave for my future generations in an enabling one – that ensures they’ve had the education and resources to go in the direction they want and give back in the way they want.” 🎯 Find an “emotional glue” to promote active engagement with the wealth and the investment portfolio, to ensure that, as another family principal said, “you are controlling the wealth, and the wealth is not controlling you.” It can be hard to get next gens excited about IRR and financial indicators; family heritage and impact narratives can be powerful forms of family connection. Join our community and participate in these conversations. We are currently interviewing family offices with AUM 100+ million USD. Reach out to ownership@sbs.ox.ac.uk. #FamilyBusiness #FamilyGovernance #Impact

Today, as part of the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford Family Business MBA course, co-convened by Brice de La Morandiere and Bridget Kustin, the Ownership Project brought together family offices, family businesses, and next gens from the Oxford Saïd community for a workshop. What unfolded was a candid and insightful discussion on the intersection of family wealth, business, impact, and legacies. We kicked off with Ownership Project 2.0 Director Bridget Kustin in conversation with Harlin Singh Urofsky, Managing Director and Global Head of Sustainable Investing at Citi Global Wealth, and Jonathan F.P. Rose, founder and President of Jonathan Rose Companies, about impact investment innovations and measurement strategies. The panel surfaced challenges of securing buy-in from wealth holders and crafting narratives around impact, when 'impact' language does not universally resonate. Investor-philanthropist father-son duo Ian Laing and Hamish Laing and Jamie Cayzer-Colvin, Deputy Chairman, The Cayzer Trust Company, then joined Brice de la Morandière, 4th generation Chief Executive of Domain Leflaive, to discuss what leaving a legacy means to them. Milan Samani explained how his joint venture studio, Unmarkets, is pairing the financial and social capital of family businesses and family offices with philanthropic capital to build impact-based solutions in Africa. Our immense gratitude to speakers for their candour and engagement with our students. Thanks also to Soumitra Dutta, Jun Cao, Hannah Arrighi, Saksham Kapoor, CA, and the MBA students' Family Business and Family Office Circle for their support. #familybusiness #familyoffice #impact

We are delighted to welcome our new Senior Research Writer at The Ownership Project 2.0, Geetika Mantri.    Geetika worked as a journalist in India for over six years, winning multiple awards and fellowships. She investigated social inequalities and published over 800 journalistic pieces, honing her skills in humanised storytelling as well as multimedia writing and editing. Driven to engage more deeply with the issues she had uncovered as a journalist, she completed her Master of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford in 2023. Before joining us at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Geetika was researching the relationships between political polarisation and national curriculum revision at the Lemann Foundation Programme at the Blavatnik School of Government.    Geetika is keen to bring her interviewing, writing, and storytelling skills to her role as lead for the Ownership Project’s case study work. She is excited to understand and uncover the challenges as well as innovations in deploying private capital for social impact. Watch this space as Geetika's case studies on impact-driven single family offices and impact mechanisms roll out over the next year. #familyoffices #familybusiness #impact

Ownership Project 2.0 is delighted to welcome Paul Ziesche, Executive Vice President at our partner organisation, Generation Pledge, for his weeklong residency here at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Together we are working on the next publication in our white paper series, Ownership Project Insights. It links the history and philosophy of ideas about ‘wealth’ with trends in the modern wealth management industry, and our experiences engaging with wealth holders to shed light on a pressing question:    Why do so many families begin with diverse financial, familial, and personal goals for their wealth, yet so often end up defaulting to a ‘preserve and grow’ approach to their wealth, resulting in a real and often seemingly significant limitation of their agency?   For those interested in reclaiming some agency, we present off-ramps from the dominant ‘preserve and grow’ paradigm and explain how wealth holders can formulate a ‘Theory of Wealth’ for themselves and connect it to their wealth management strategy. Watch this space for the release of this paper, as Ownership Project Insights No. 2.   Before joining Generation Pledge to work with future inheritors to identify their values, purpose, and goals and use their wealth for positive impact, Paul was a consultant at McKinsey, focusing on sustainability strategies for multinational companies in various industries. He complemented that with work for public and social sector clients. Paul holds a BSc and MSc in Physics and a BA and MA in Philosophy from University of Konstanz in Germany and the Australian National University. You can read our first publication in the Ownership Project Insights series, 'Succession Beyond the Family', here: https://lnkd.in/dhif22YZ #ownership #impact #ownershipprojectinsights

📣 Media coverage of Ownership Project 2.0 in Asian Investor, following our Director, Dr. Bridget Kustin's recent comments at the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute's annual meeting in London (link below). Regarding sovereign wealth funds co-investing with family offices: “One of the problems for sovereign funds is the scarcity of information about family offices, their investment interests and appetites,” said Kustin. She pointed to a literature survey she had recently completed of the 48 leading business and nance journals, in which she found only two articles about family offices.  #familyoffice #sovereignwealth #privatewealth

📣 Media coverage of Ownership Project Insights 📣 The world's first practitioner-focused white paper series dedicated to large family-led organisations, providing guidance, discussion, and case studies on how to scale their impact and deal with global challenges, is featured in this week's 'In the News' edition of the Financial Time’s business school newsletter: Business School Insider. 🔹 Read the article here: (https://lnkd.in/eGWQzYzJ) 🔹 Visit our website to read Ownership Project Insights No. 1, a collection of essays by Anna Aden, Abhinav Verma, and Shanzeh Mahmood on future trends in family offices and philanthropy.    🔹 We welcome submission inquiries from practitioners, academics, and family businesses; contact ownership@sbs.ox.ac.uk for more details. CC Bridget Kustin Marya Hill-Popper Besharov Sarah McGill Robert Eccles Andrew Bryson Alexis du Roy de Blicquy Karim Harji Alexander Hayward Harlin Singh Urofsky Damian Payiatakis Sid Efromovich Paul Ziesche

In some jurisdictions, the borders between a family office, family business, and sovereign wealth fund are blurry, raising questions about the organisational forms, strategies and governance mechanisms for investable family-led assets -- and what this means for scaling impact to address global challenges. Join our Director, Bridget Kustin, in London next week at the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute's global conference to explore the intersection of national wealth and family wealth. #familyoffices #sovereignwealthfunds #familybusiness

We are very excited to introduce our new Senior Research Writer at The Ownership Project 2.0, Dr Sarah McGill.   Sarah specialises in translating academic research on environmental sustainability, economics, finance, business, and psychology into publications for non-specialist readerships. She has written and edited extensively for audiences in the private, public, and third sectors as well as academia. She previously worked at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment - University of Oxford, where she was a research writer and project manager for a multi-year research programme on the future of social protection and the future of work. Prior to this, Sarah earned a DPhil (PhD) and MPhil from the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. She also holds a BA (summa cum laude) in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.   Sarah is excited to bring her experience as a writer, researcher, and editor to the Ownership Project 2.0, as well as to learn more about the challenges and opportunities private wealth managers face in aligning their portfolios with sustainability objectives.

Thank you 100x Impact Accelerator for your coverage of our inaugural Ownership Projects Insights white paper, on the future of family offices and family philanthropy according to recent MBA grads -- the next gen of non-family professionals. Read on for distinct points of view regarding blended finance, the importance of Singapore, and participatory approaches.

Risto Väyrynen, 4th gen family business member and Co-Founder of The Impact Office (TIO) along with Adela VILLANUEVA, recently spoke at the Ownership Project 2.0's event at the Skoll World Forum about how TIO's investment syndicate model moves family offices from good intentions to material impact. Join TIO for their upcoming webinar for family offices and family businesses to learn more! #familybusiness #familyoffices #impact