Location

Union League Club
38 E 37th St, NYC

DATE

Thursday Jan 24, 2019

2019 AGENDA

Printable Agenda Here

Last Year’s Agenda Here

8:00 AM
REGISTRATION & BREAKFAst sponsored by AllianceBernstein (AB)

8:15 AM
WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

8:30 AM
Resilience of 100-Year Family Enterprises: How Opportunistic Innovation, Business Discipline, and Family Alignment Guide the Journey Across Generations

Dennis Jaffe, PhD, Wise Counsel Research
Edward Vergara, Arnold & Porter (Moderator)

9:20 AM
Governance Structures that Actually Fit a Psychological Model of Human Behavior

John W. Ambrecht, Ambrecht & McDermott, ACTEC Fellow
Michael D. Whitty, Freeborn & Peters LLP, ACTEC Fellow

10:10 AM
BREAK

10:40 AM
Adapt, Change or Disappear: Four-Dimensional Wealth

David R. York, York Howell, ACTEC Fellow

11:30 AM
Fiduciary Challenges & Resolutions—Case Studies

Daniel F. Lindley, Northern Trust, ACTEC Fellow
Laurent Roux, Willow Street Group
Holly Harben Swan, US Trust
Babetta von Albertini, PhD, Lansberg, Gersick & Associates, IFG Founder & Chair (Moderator)

12:30 PM
LUNCH Sponsored by Willow street group

1:40 PM
KEYNOTE sponsored by pitcairn

Strengthening the Family Business by Empowering the Next Generation

Andrew Keyt, President of FBN North America
Carolyn A. Reers, Norton Rose Fulbright, ACTEC Fellow (Moderator)

2:30 PM
Crisis or Opportunity? How Best to Work through Challenging Family Business Transitions

Scott Mitchell, Mitchell Stores
Jamie Forbes, CAP, Forbes Legacy Advisors
Mitzi Perdue, Chair of Perdue Family Education Committee (Moderator)

3:30 PM
BREAK

4:00 PM
NextGen Beneficiary Involvement with Social Impact Investing—Passing Fad or Transformative Opportunity?

Donnel Baird, BlocPower
Erin Harkless, Cambridge Associates
Drew Mason, Jade Capital Management (Moderator)
Justin Kamine, Co-Founder KDC AG

5:00 PM
KEYNOTE sponsored by Meritus Trust Company

Texas Patriarch—The Rise and Fall of a Family Business

Doug Box, Box Family Advisors

Babetta von Albertini, Ph.D. | IFG Founder & Chair

Babetta is the Chair of the Institute for Family Governance. She is an expert on family governance and U.S. tax law and has advised large domestic and international families on their governance and succession planning for approaching 20 years. Babetta currently divides her time between ATM Capital Partners (a SFO), where she serves as General Counsel, and Lansberg Gersick & Associates, where she serves as Senior Consultant. Prior thereto, she was with Withers (a global trusts and estates law firm) for 9 years, and Shearman & Sterling (a capital markets law firm) for 3 years, living and working in New York, London, Switzerland and Hong Kong. Babetta is a dual-qualified common law/civil law attorney (admitted to the bars of New York and Zurich, Switzerland) and holds both a Tax LL.M. and a Corporate LL.M. from NYU, as well as a Ph.D. in law from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She currently serves as elected U.S. representative on the STEP Global Council (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners).

John E. Oden | Vice-Chair

John is a Principal and twenty-five year veteran of AllianceBernstein ("AB"), a global money management and research firm with over U.S. $500 billion under management through forty-eight offices in twenty-three countries. He has senior responsibilities in working with the firm’s non-U.S. and offshore clients, and currently heads the firm’s family office and private wealth business in Asia. In addition to similar client responsibilities in the U.S. John is the Founder of the China-U.S. Business Alliance, an organization of the senior professional advisors in both the U.S. and Asia who concentrate their business activities in China. He is a former Chairman of the New York Branch of STEP. A strong supporter of athletics, John writes and speaks about the sport of boxing. His first book, White Collar Boxing – One Man’s Journey From the Office to the Ring, was published in 2005. It was followed in 2009 by Life in the Ring – Lessons & Inspirations from the Sport of Boxing. He holds BA and MBA degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D. | Vice-Chair

Dr. Jaffe, a San Francisco-based advisor to families about family business, governance, wealth and philanthropy, recently completed the working papers Governing the Family Enterprise: The Evolution of Family Councils, Assemblies and Constitutions, Releasing the Potential of the Rising Generation, and Good Fortune: Building a Hundred Year Family Enterprise, published by Wise Counsel Research, based on his current research with global multi-generational family enterprises. Dennis is author (or co-author) of Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations;  Stewardship in your Family Enterprise: Developing Responsible Family Leadership Across Generations, and Working With the Ones You Love, as well as management books Rekindling Commitment, Getting Your Organization to Change and Take this Work and Love It. He has a BA degree in Philosophy, MA in Management, and Ph.D. in sociology, all from Yale University, and is professor emeritus of organizational systems and psychology at Saybrook University in San Francisco.

Mitzi Perdue | Families Liaison

Author, speaker, and businesswoman Mitzi Perdue holds a BA with honors degree from Harvard University and an MPA from the George Washington University. She combines the experiences of two long-time family businesses. Her father Ernest Henderson co-founded the Sheraton Hotel Chain and her late husband Frank Perdue was the second generation in the poultry company that today operates in more than 100 countries. Mitzi loves to point out that the Henderson family business began in 1890 with the Henderson Estate Company. If you combine the 127 years since it began, and the 97 years that Perdue Farms has been in business, she represents 224 of family history. She likes nothing better than to share tips for what worked in the two long-running families that she’s a part of. Recently Mitzi authored How to Make Your Family Business Last: Techniques, Advice, Checklists, and Resources for Keeping the Family Business in the Family.

Rosie von Lila | NextGen

Rosie is a Millennial (also known as “an adult under 40”) and our NextGen liaison. She is passionate about  politics and governance, and currently works as a management consultant. Based in New York and working frequently in Washington, D.C., the Midwest and California, Rosie speaks around the world on how to increase stakeholder engagement, and advocates for civic participation. She is the creator and host of the What Comes Now podcast, and is an advisor and consultant to Burning Man headquarters. Rosie has been invited to be a guest at the U.S. Pentagon several times, and was a guest lecturer at the U.S. National Defense University. She is frequently invited to participate in strategic discussions about diversity and collaboration. Rosie is a member of NEXUS and formerly served on the Board of Directors for Bay Area Council (BAC), the most powerful trade policy advocacy group in northern California.

Anne Jones | Simmons Foods & Affiliates, Inc.

Anne Jones is the Director of Family Financial and Estate Planning for Simmons Foods & Affiliates, Inc. She works closely with family members and their advisors to serve this multi-generational family in its various financial planning activities, along with directing the family foundation. Anne is passionate about empowering others through effective financial education and teaches personal finance to high-school students. Prior to her role with the Simmons family, Anne worked in the California wine industry. Anne is a CFP® practitioner and completed a Master’s degree in Personal Financial Planning at Kansas State University. She serves as Chair of the Board for the Walton Arts Center Foundation and has served on the Advisory Committee for the Southeastern Family Office Forum (SEFOF).

Christina Lawrence | Barnum Financial Group

Christina Lawrence has extensive experience in advising clients on comprehensive multi-generational succession and legacy planning (including working with families and closely held businesses on planning for liquidity events, income tax mitigation, exit, estate tax and philanthropic strategies). She is fluent in Spanish and graduated with a B.A. in Spanish Studies and Psychology from The American University in Washington, D.C., and later earned her MBA at Thunderbird School of Global Management. Christina is on the Planning Committee for “A Leg To Stand On” (ALTSO), a non-profit organization providing free orthopedic care to over 18,500 “CoolKids” with limb disabilities in the developing world, whose families cannot afford treatment. She is with Barnum Financial Group.

John W. Ambrecht | STEP Business Families SIG

John W. Ambrecht is a senior partner at Ambrecht and McDermott and focuses his practice on integrating sophisticated estate and tax planning with family business succession planning, including developing appropriate transitional structures with an emphasis on conflict resolution among generations and constructing a lasting framework for family business management and ownership succession. John’s practice also includes sophisticated multi-state domestic trusts and estate planning, national and international asset protection, and tax controversies (IRS).

Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D. | Wise Counsel Research

Dr. Jaffe, a San Francisco-based advisor to families about family business, governance, wealth and philanthropy, recently completed the working papers Governing the Family Enterprise: The Evolution of Family Councils, Assemblies and Constitutions, Releasing the Potential of the Rising Generation, and Good Fortune: Building a Hundred Year Family Enterprise, published by Wise Counsel Research, based on his current research with global multi-generational family enterprises. Dennis is author (or co-author) of Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations;  Stewardship in your Family Enterprise: Developing Responsible Family Leadership Across Generations, and Working With the Ones You Love, as well as management books Rekindling Commitment, Getting Your Organization to Change and Take this Work and Love It. He has a BA degree in Philosophy, MA in Management, and Ph.D. in sociology, all from Yale University, and is professor emeritus of organizational systems and psychology at Saybrook University in San Francisco.

Edward Vergara | Arnold & Porter

Ed Vergara is a tax lawyer whose practice focuses on advising individuals and private companies making investment and succession planning decisions. He represents clients with personal and business ties to a variety of jurisdictions in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, and his diverse client base includes fund managers, family businesses and entrepreneurs, in each case pursuing important tax and succession planning objectives that must be balanced against practical business considerations and the demands of outside investors. Ed regularly advises clients on tax-efficient structuring of investments in both the domestic and cross-border context, tax issues relevant to immigration into or out of the United States, multi-national families owning US and non-US businesses, and beneficiaries of foreign trusts and foundations.

John W. Ambrecht | Ambrecht & McDermott, LLP

John W. Ambrecht is a senior partner at Ambrecht and McDermott and focuses his practice on integrating sophisticated estate and tax planning with family business succession planning, including developing appropriate transitional structures with an emphasis on conflict resolution among generations and constructing a lasting framework for family business management and ownership succession. John’s practice also includes sophisticated multi-state domestic trusts and estate planning, national and international asset protection, and tax controversies (IRS).

Michael D. Whitty | Freeborn & Peters LLP, ACTEC Fellow

Mike Whitty concentrates his practice in estate planning, taxation, and estate and trust administration. He has extensive experience with various types of trusts, family limited partnerships, corporate recapitalizations, shareholders’ and redemption agreements, private annuities, installment sales, intra-trust sales and other transactions. Mike is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and served for three years as an adjunct professor at the Northwestern University School of Law. He has been named to Illinois Super Lawyers and Illinois Leading Lawyers.

David R. York | York Howell, ACTEC Fellow

David R. York, Esq. CPA is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Salt Lake City law firm York Howell & Guymon. He has extensive experience in designing and implementing advanced tax and estate planning strategies for high net worth clients, along with non-profit and business planning counsel. He is a Fellow with the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), a member of the Utah State Bar Budget and Finance Committee, and former Chair of the Utah State Bar Estate Planning Section. Noted as a Mountain States Rising Star in Super Lawyers Magazine, Utah Legal Elite in Utah Business Magazine and as a Top-Rated Lawyer in Trusts & Estates with Martindale-Hubbell, David has successfully represented clients before the Internal Revenue Service at all levels (Audit, Appeals, and Tax Court). David is co-author of Entrusted: Building A Legacy That Lasts and Riveted: 44 Values That Change the World. He is also the creator of Rivets™ Core Values card game and Rivets™ Certification Training.

Babetta von Albertini, Ph.D. | IFG Founder & Chair

Babetta is the Chair of the Institute for Family Governance. She is an expert on family governance and U.S. tax law and has advised large domestic and international families on their governance and succession planning for approaching 20 years. Babetta currently divides her time between ATM Capital Partners (a SFO), where she serves as General Counsel, and Lansberg Gersick & Associates, where she serves as Senior Counsel. Prior thereto, she was with Withers (a global trusts and estates law firm) for 9 years, and Shearman & Sterling (a capital markets law firm) for 3 years, living and working in New York, London, Switzerland and Hong Kong. Babetta is a dual-qualified common law/civil law attorney (admitted to the bars of New York and Zurich, Switzerland) and holds both a Tax LL.M. and a Corporate LL.M. from NYU, as well as a Ph.D. in law from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She currently serves as elected U.S. representative on the STEP Global Council (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners).

Daniel F. Lindley | Northern Trust, ACTEC Fellow

Dan Lindley is the Fiduciary Practice Executive for Northern Trust’s Global Family Offices practice (GFO), a role in which Dan specializes in the development of wealth plans using trusts for ultra-wealthy families, particularly trusts located in Delaware, Guernsey and Cayman. Previously, Dan was the London-based Managing Director of GFO’s business for the EMEA Region and the founding President of The Northern Trust Company of Delaware from 2005 to 2012. Before joining Northern Trust in 2005, Dan was in private law practice in Delaware for 25 years, and authored some of Delaware’s seminal trust legislation. Dan has a J.D. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, and a B.A. degree from Williams College. Dan is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Delaware and is a Fellow of The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.

Laurent Roux | Willow Street Group

Laurent Roux has some 38 years of experience working with families and family offices worldwide. Activities range from strategic wealth management (family legacy and stewardship, family dynamics and organization, family office construction, coordination, trouble-shooting and consulting) to international asset management, asset allocation, portfolio management, manager selection, performance reviews, mutual fund administration and global custody. Laurent is a Principal and owner of the Willow Street Group and WS Trust Company in Jackson, WY. Prior to joining Willow Street Group, Laurent spent 25 year’s at his family’s firm, Pictet & Cie, Private Bankers, Geneva, Switzerland, where he served as Director and Managing Director of the family firm and a number of its international affiliates. Laurent holds a JD degree from California Western School of Law in San Diego (1980).

Holly Harben Swan | U.S. Trust

Holly leads the family office consulting team and advises clients on establishing and running family offices, including office structure, governance and platform decisions. She also provides strategic advice to wealthy individuals and families and is a national speaker on various family office topics. Previously, Holly was a Wealth Strategist at U.S. Trust. In this role she worked with high net worth individuals and their families to develop planning solutions in a variety of areas including estate and income tax matters. Prior to joining U.S. Trust, Holly was an estate planning and tax attorney working with clients to develop and implement planning strategies, including the structuring of family controlled entities focused on multi-generational wealth transfer.

Andrew Keyt | President of FBN North America

Andrew Keyt is an internationally known business strategist and succession planning expert for family owned businesses.  He is the President and Founder of Keyt Consulting, a private firm that assists family enterprises with succession and strategic planning, dealing with family conflict and communication, working with adult sibling / cousin teams, and executing emergency management transitions. Keyt is the president of Family Business Network – North America (FBN-NA), the leading network for business-owning families worldwide.  Additionally, he serves as a Clinical Professor at Loyola University Chicago Family Business Center after having served as the Executive Director of the Center for the past 18 years. He is the author of Myths and Mortals: Family Business Leadership and Succession Planning, published by Wiley, July 2015.

Carolyn A. Reers | Norton Rose Fulbright, ACTEC Fellow

Carolyn A. Reers is a New York-based partner in the global law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright, focusing on international estate and tax planning and representing ultra-high-net worth individuals, closely held corporations, family offices and executives of public and private companies. Previously, Carolyn served as a Wealth Advisor at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Before joining J.P. Morgan, she practiced for more than twenty years in five states, earning an AV Preeminent® rating from her peers through Martindale-Hubbell and serving on the board of directors of the law firm, Cummings & Lockwood, LLC. Carolyn is Vice-Chair of the FATF Task Force and immediate Past-Chair of the International Estate Planning Committee of The American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel (ACTEC). She graduated summa cum laude from Boston College and received her law degree from Georgetown University.

Mitzi Perdue | Chair of Perdue Family Education Committee

Author, speaker, and businesswoman Mitzi Perdue holds a BA with honors degree from Harvard University and an MPA from the George Washington University. She combines the experiences of two long-time family businesses. Her father Ernest Henderson co-founded the Sheraton Hotel Chain and her late husband Frank Perdue was the second generation in the poultry company that today operates in more than 100 countries. Mitzi loves to point out that the Henderson family business began in 1890 with the Henderson Estate Company. If you combine the 127 years since it began, and the 97 years that Perdue Farms has been in business, she represents 224 of family history. She likes nothing better than to share tips for what worked in the two long-running families that she’s a part of. Recently Mitzi authored How to Make Your Family Business Last: Techniques, Advice, Checklists, and Resources for Keeping the Family Business in the Family.

Scott Mitchell | Mitchell Stores

Scott Mitchell was born and raised in Westport, CT. He attended Dartmouth College where he majored in Economics and graduated in 1993. After graduation Scott worked for Abercrombie and Fitch, Eddie Bauer and Ann Taylor before joining his family business, Mitchells, in 1998. He is third generation in his family business. Scott oversees the ladies and jewelry departments at Richards in Greenwich CT and has been the family representative at that store since 2000. He has several degrees from GIA as he is passionate about jewelry. Scott is the current Chairman of SoundWaters, a non profit in Stamford, CT which educates 33,000 children a year, using Long Island Sound as its classroom. Scott is an avid skier, mountain biker and sailor. He has been married to his wife Tara for 24 years. They have three children—Ellie (20), Will (18) and Lilly (14)—and reside in Greenwich, CT.

Jamie Forbes | CAP, Forbes Legacy Advisors

Jamie Forbes grew up in a multi-generational New England family imbued with a strong sense of belonging, good fortune and a deep understanding that with privilege comes responsibility. A highly intuitive and a natural connector, Jamie helps individuals and their families navigate and plan for a future that reflects their values and builds family solidarity. His work is driven by curiosity and is underpinned by his ability to help clients understand that their success in sustaining a strong family fabric is critical to maintaining and building financial wealth over generations. Jamie’s experience in both the private and nonprofit sectors give him a deep understanding of how to assess organizations and what drives impact; he has served on and conducted training for boards and advised families and businesses on their charitable giving. Jamie has also coached and mentored his own young children in their giving, including helping them raise funds and donate books to establish a library for an elementary school on the Caribbean Island of Dominica. Jamie lives in Portsmouth, NH with his wife and two daughters.

Drew Mason | Jade Capital Management

Drew is managing partner at Jade Capital, a private investment fund focusing on venture and growth capital. Prior to Jade Capital, Drew founded the Technology Sector Group in Asia Pacific for UBS Warburg. As a social impact investor, Drew was instrumental in the founding of Sohu.com, credited with helping bring the internet to China in the 1990s, and more recently, a leader in socially inclusive finance, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Drew has served on a number of private and public boards, is on the advisory board of the U.S. Navy League, and has spoken at Harvard, Brown University, Wharton, and the National Defense University. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his honor’s degree in History from Brown University.

Donnel Baird | BlocPower

Donnel Baird is the founder of BlocPower, a startup that uses analytics, machine learning, and structured finance to help cities, utilities, and medium sized building owners to leverage smart technologies and renewable energy to reduce $50 - $100bn of annual energy waste in US buildings. Donnel spent three years as a community organizer in Brooklyn and one year as a voter contact director for Obama For America. Donnel has a BA from Duke University and an MBA from Columbia Business School, and is a Board Director of the Sierra Club Foundation. Donnel lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son, and is a perpetually disappointed fan of the New York Knicks.

Erin Harkless | Cambridge Associates

Erin is a senior investment director with over 11 years of investment experience and joined Cambridge Associates in 2012. She works with a variety of investors on asset allocation strategy, manager selection, and investment program evaluation. Erin also works with clients to develop strategies for impact and mission-driven investments and is a member of the firm’s Mission Related Investing Practice. She is a frequent speaker at impact investment industry conferences and co-authored Cambridge research reports on social equity investing and governance considerations for impact investors.  Prior to joining Cambridge, Erin held positions at the Princeton University Investment Company, Summit Rock Advisors and Goldman Sachs. She received her MBA from the Harvard Business School and her BS magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis. Erin is also a CFA Charterholder and member of the CFA Society of Washington DC.

Justin Kamine | Co-Founder KDC AG

Justin is a co-founder of KDC AG, and has been at the forefront of sustainable and environmentally progressive technologies and food movements for the past six years. He is also a managing member of Kamine Development Corporation, the Kamine family development office that has developed over $3.5 billion of national infrastructure. A winner of the Forbes 30U30, he is recognized as an innovative under 30 entrepreneur, and graduated from Lafayette College with a BA in Environmental Business and Public Policy.

Doug Box | Box Family Advisors

Texas Patriarch is the family saga of four brothers’ struggle to determine the fate of the empire built by their father, Cloyce Box. Cloyce’s sprawling family estate in Frisco, Texas, was used as the original Southfork Ranch in the television soap opera Dallas. Cloyce ran both his companies and his family with a firm hand and inextricably linked the two by raising his sons in the business. When he finally passed, he left a wake of collapsing relationships at home and in the boardroom. After quarrels and litigation, his four sons finally managed to rediscover each other and the importance of family. Texas Patriarch is narrated by Douglas D. Box, who is Cloyce’s youngest son. Doug is an author, speaker, mediator, and family business consultant. He brings personal experience to his understanding of family dynamics, helping families with succession planning, corporate governance, dispute resolution, and family communication. Doug received an MBA with honors from Baylor University, and a master of arts in dispute resolution from Southern Methodist University.

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$595 for IFG Members ($795 Regular)
$950 for Non-members ($1150 Regular)
$395 for Single Family Office ($595 Regular)

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