“One of the few women on the national speaking circuit who is guiding financial services firms and their clients to connect with the human side of the client relationship.” — Family Wealth Report Awards 2020
Click HERE to visit Susan’s YouTube channel to see her in action!
Wealth Legacy Advisors “offers a range of services to families of significant wealth including advising on raising family members, developing leadership succession plans and legacies of family businesses. Susan R Schoenfeld is a true thought-leader in the UHNW community.” — Family Wealth Report Awards 2024
Wealth Legacy Advisors LLC is a boutique advisory firm specializing exclusively in family governance, legacy and stewardship for ultra-high-net-worth families and family enterprises.
What Keeps You Up At Night?
Back in 2013, I had a Big Idea — that what keeps families of wealth up at night is not their investments, taxes or estate plans, but rather raising their families in an atmosphere of wealth to become competent and confident stewards of their wealth.
What is in a name? Our name Wealth Legacy Advisors was chosen carefully to convey that we advise on the legacy of wealth, not the financial or investment management of that wealth. We are thought partners to UHNW families about the human issues of wealth: their legacy, stewardship and governance. We do not provide any investment advice, legal advice or tax advice, and do not sell insurance or any other product.
The families who have invited me into their worlds are each fascinatingly unique but, upon reflection, do tend to fall into two distinct patterns. First are the families experiencing some pressing business transaction or transition causing challenges at the intersection of the family enterprise and family dynamics, perhaps in an operating family business or in the “business of the family” — the family’s ongoing investments, or even the family’s philanthropic vehicle.
These families brought me into their system because they trusted that my deep background in law and business advising UHNW families for my entire career would enable me to understand — and not inadvertently disturb — the complex and technical planning, agreements and transactions already in place.
Second are the families NOT experiencing an immediate business crisis, who want to get ahead of the curve by engaging in governance planning to set up the next generation for success, and creating structures for better communication and decision-making before the inevitable issues arise.
I’ve been engaged by multi-generational family-owned businesses, family offices and by trustees of family trusts to foster responsibility and common bonds among beneficiaries, and by parents and grandparents to facilitate family meetings and engage in mission, vision and values exercises which might result in family constitutions and the like.
With my People-First approach, I’ve helped UHNW families like yours navigate the complex issues at hand, while acknowledging that the true source of disharmony may well be at the intersection of financial matters with the family dynamics iceberg lying deeper below the surface.
I am passionate about the work that I do with enterprising families of wealth. The so-called “soft issues” of wealth are the hardest of all, and I look forward to continuing to guide families through the land mines … and having fun while doing so!
Our Services
Governance, Legacy and Stewardship:
- Family Meeting facilitation – guide families through difficult discussions, often at the intersection of complex business transactions or transitions and thorny family dynamics
- Leadership succession of family enterprise
- Governance Planning – customized for your family to develop competent and confident stewards of wealth
- Philanthropic Advice – develop the family’s mission, vision and values, use family’s philanthropy as a next generation teaching tool, serve as director on foundation boards, facilitate generational transitioning of family foundations
Coaching and Education:
- Personal Next Generation coaching
- Customized Next Generation, Women of Wealth/Mothers & Daughters education programs
- Multi-family office team member training to work with families of wealth in specialized areas of next generation education, women’s programming, stewardship, succession, and philanthropy
Fiduciary Risk Management:
- Independent member of family advisory councils and family business boards
- Independent trustee of family trusts
- Guidance to trustees of family trusts
Some Questions We Often Hear:
What is family governance? As a term, governance is really just a fancy way of saying, how do we as a family make decisions? How do we as a family establish structures and a framework for generations who come after us to make decisions after the referees — the matriarch and patriarch — are no longer with us? After the referees are gone, the opportunity for bedlam can ensue. It is critical to be proactive and discuss how your family is going to decide on investments, distributions, philanthropy, social impact, compensation, and more.
What is a family constitution? A family constitution provides a broad framework that defines expectations, responsibilities, and shared commitments. It might include a distribution policy, an investment policy, a social impact policy, and other aspects of how as a family you will move forward in a cohesive way.
When should a family begin governance planning? The process of establishing a governance framework is best done before a crisis happens. It’s best achieved when a family is thinking about how as our family grows, whether through marriage or through births, how can we as a family, establish a system and a framework for the way we’re going to govern ourselves, the way we’re going to live our lives and make decisions, whether about a common investment vehicle, or a common vacation house.
How are governance and legacy different from estate planning? Estate planning is about who gets what; governance is about who you are as a family, and how you’re going to handle it when things get hard, because they inevitably will. Your legacy isn’t your Will. It’s not your trust. It’s not your estate plan or the stack of documents your lawyer drafted. And while philanthropy is rewarding, it’s not the underlying paperwork for your philanthropic vehicle that defines your legacy either. Your legacy is made up of your stories — the stories that get passed down around dinner tables, during road trips, and at family gatherings. It’s the story of how your grandparents came to America with nothing and started a small business that eventually grew into a massive company. Or how your parents met. Or why your family lives where and how it does. These are the fabric of what shapes identity and connection across generations. Legacy is the ongoing narrative of “Who are we as a family, and what do we stand for?”
What are the keys to an effective family meeting? The real power of family meetings doesn’t come from unilaterally imposing decisions but from creating a safe space for open, transparent and multidirectional communication. Families that thrive across generations do so because their members feel emotionally engaged and invested in collective decisions. When people are part of the decision-making process, they’re more likely to support the outcome, even if it’s not exactly what they wanted. This is where an independent facilitator comes in. A neutral facilitator’s primary responsibility is to manage the meeting process itself. Their role is to ensure that everyone who wants to speak has the opportunity, that the more dominant personalities don’t overshadow others, and that the conversation remains productive, respectful and focused on the family’s collective goals.
Click HERE for Susan’s 3 Rules of Family Governance!
Since 2013, we have provided objective thought-partnership to families of wealth, family offices and their trusted advisors on the human issues of wealth that keep you up at night — legacy, next generation, stewardship, governance, leadership succession, and philanthropy.
