Family Office: Cases studies
Multigenerational family office:
A Singaporean family office, responsible for a $500 million portfolio, found itself in a delicate situation: a lack of succession planning and an unaligned investment strategy for the next generation. The objective was to ensure that family assets were passed on in an orderly fashion, while maintaining sustainable investment growth.
Older family members, who had initiated the investments, were ready to pass the baton to the next generation. However, a smooth transition required a clear succession plan and an investment strategy adapted to the new aspirations and skills of the younger generation.
Complex family dynamics and a lack of alignment
TThe biggest obstacle was the lack of consensus within the family on how to manage succession and long-term investments. Younger family members had different priorities, making it difficult to define a shared vision for the future of family assets. In addition, family dynamics were sometimes difficult to navigate, with divergent interests and concerns about inheritance, control, and investment management.
This led to a lack of clear strategy and potential tensions, threatening the sustainability of family assets.
Facilitating family discussions
and drawing up a succession plan
Framing Impacts orchestrated facilitation workshops to help family members overcome communication barriers and align on common goals. These workshops helped create a shared vision for succession and investment.
Aligning family goals: Framing Impacts facilitated open discussions to enable each generation to share its expectations, values and priorities. This led to a mutual understanding of each other's issues, while fostering a sense of unity around the family legacy.
Creation of an intergenerational wealth transfer plan: A structured plan was developed to ensure the seamless transfer of assets. The plan also included mechanisms to ensure that the next generation could maintain and grow the portfolio, incorporating responsible investments suited to their skills.
Assured succession and enhanced performance
The results were tangible and impressive:
100% agreement on the succession plan: Thanks to the facilitation workshops, the family was able to reach total consensus on succession arrangements and asset transfer strategies. This cohesion reinforced the family's stability and long-term vision.
8% increase in annual return on investment: By revising the investment strategy and involving the younger generation in financial decisions, the family office saw a significant improvement in its financial performance. Decisions aligned with family objectives have led to sustained portfolio growth.
The family patriarch expressed his gratitude to Framing Impacts for the invaluable support provided to the family: “Framing Impacts enabled us to secure our legacy for future generations. Thanks to their structured approach and their ability to bring together our different visions, we were able to establish a solid succession plan and an investment strategy adapted to contemporary challenges.”
One of the major challenges was managing complex family dynamics. Each generation had different expectations and priorities, making it difficult to reach consensus on investment strategy and succession. Framing Impacts played an essential role in actively listening to and managing these differences, fostering open and respectful dialogue between family members.
This experience revealed a key lesson: clear communication and family alignment are essential to overcoming succession hurdles and ensuring the long-term future of the estate. The facilitating workshops helped build a shared vision and ensured commitment from all members, helping to secure the future of the family office and its investments.
The personalized support provided by Framing Impacts strengthened family cohesion and ensured the continued growth of the portfolio over the long term.
Single-Family Office:
A wealthy individual from the Nordic countries decided to switch from personal wealth management to professional management via a single-family office. However, the manual approach to monitoring financial portfolios was slowing down strategic decisions and increasing the risk of errors. To optimize investment management and increase transparency, a digital transformation became essential.
Dependence on manual processes
The lack of automation in financial portfolio management was a major obstacle. Manual updates frequently generated calculation errors and delayed performance analysis.
In addition, team members showed a certain resistance to change, unconvinced by the usefulness of automation technologies. The risk of adopting a system that staff did not master accentuated this reluctance, creating a cultural barrier to digital transformation.
Digitization and financial analysis training
Framing Impacts implemented a tailor-made solution based on two complementary axes:
Implementation of an integrated portfolio management system: A technology platform was deployed to centralize and automate portfolio management. The system made it possible to monitor performance in real time, generate detailed reports and eliminate manual errors.
Investment analysis training: The team benefited from customized training sessions on the use of the new tool, focusing on performance analysis and strategic decision-making. This approach empowered staff, encouraging greater adoption of the technology.
Optimized management and enlightened decisions
The results have transformed the management of the family office:
Reduced manual errors by 90%: Thanks to automation, critical operations were streamlined, enabling the team to focus on strategic decisions rather than repetitive administrative tasks.
Increased visibility of portfolio performance: The integrated dashboard provided a consolidated, up-to-date view of the portfolio, facilitating informed financial decisions.
The family's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) expressed his satisfaction with the overall impact of the transformation: “We now have confidence in every investment decision, thanks to the accuracy and transparency offered by the new system.”
The main challenge was to convince internal teams to adopt the new platform. Fear of the technological unknown and a preference for traditional methods were strongly entrenched.
However, by integrating targeted training and practical sessions, Framing Impacts transformed this resistance into positive commitment, consolidating digital skills and stimulating collaboration within the team.
The key lesson from this project is that empowering teams accelerates the adoption of new technologies. By investing in proactive training and demonstrating concrete results, Framing Impacts has proved that digitalization can transform decision-making processes and boost confidence in investment management.
This business case illustrates how a single-family office can move from manual management to a professional, automated approach, by combining technological innovation and internal skills development.
Philanthropic Foundation:
A Swiss family foundation managing a $100 million portfolio was committed to supporting humanitarian and environmental projects worldwide. Despite having considerable resources at its disposal, it was struggling to maximize the impact of its philanthropic actions.
The absence of a structured framework for evaluating the results and social impact of its projects was holding back its growth potential and limiting its ability to adjust its strategies. In addition, donors' growing expectations of transparency and accountability made it urgent to adopt a more professional and standardized approach.
Improving philanthropic impact management
The foundation's philanthropic activities were diversified, covering areas such as education, health and environmental preservation. However, each project used distinct monitoring methodologies, making it difficult to carry out a coherent overall analysis of the results achieved.
Fragmented reporting and a lack of comparable data limited managers' ability to identify the most effective projects. This situation created a reputational risk, which could discourage potential new donors and jeopardize the sustainability of funding. In addition, the absence of standardized processes prevented the optimal allocation of resources.
Structuring and monitoring results
To meet this challenge, Framing Impacts devised a structured, comprehensive action plan based on industry best practice:
Development of an Impact Assessment Framework:A standardized measurement framework was developed, incorporating key performance indicators (KPIs) specific to each type of project. This approach has standardized performance assessment and created comparable reports across initiatives.
Introduction of a Quarterly Reporting System: Standardized quarterly reports have been introduced, providing a consolidated view of results achieved. Managers can now monitor project progress in real time, identify corrective actions to be taken and optimize the allocation of funds to maximize overall impact.
Internal capacity-building: Intensive training sessions have been organized for management teams to enable them to master the new evaluation tools and adopt the methodology developed.
Transparency and resource reallocation
The results achieved were significant, and translated into a major improvement in the foundation's overall performance:
Improved transparency: Thanks to regular, detailed reporting, donors gained full visibility over the use of funds, increasing their level of satisfaction by 20%.
Strategic reallocation of funds: Comparative results enabled 15% of financial resources to be redirected to high-impact projects, improving the effectiveness of every dollar invested.
Improved partnership management: The Foundation was able to strengthen its relationships with its partners thanks to clear reporting, facilitating collaboration on new projects.
The Foundation's Director hailed the positive impact of the transformation: “We are finally creating measurable change, enabling us to maximize our contribution to society and ensure the sustainability of our philanthropic work.”
This testimonial reflects the overall success of the project, which has transformed the foundation into a more professional organization, able to demonstrate its commitment to efficiency and social responsibility.
One of the main challenges encountered was the lack of reliable historical data, limiting comparisons at the start of the project. Framing Impacts solved this problem by creating initial databases from available information and using prospective analyses to estimate the potential impact of ongoing projects.
In addition, resistance to change from some board members necessitated intensive awareness-raising workshops and training sessions to ensure successful adoption of the new methodologies.
The main lesson learned from this project is that data-driven analysis enhances the credibility and effectiveness of philanthropic initiatives. Thanks to structured evaluation, it is possible to prove the impact of actions, adjust strategic priorities and mobilize more funding.
This business case demonstrates that even in the social field, a professional, results-oriented approach can transform philanthropic activities into measurable, impactful actions that contribute to lasting social impact.