Insights & Knowledge
We publish in two forms. Insights are short practitioner pieces — observations from inside family office mandates. The Knowledge Base holds our longer guides: deeper reading, intended to be read in full.
When the family office CEO has to leave overnight
A Saturday morning call from a lawyer. A burnt-out CEO gone by Monday. A negotiation at a critical moment. Four days later, Westwick was in the seat — and an eight-month mandate turned a crisis into a working family office.
Read the pieceWhy we serve the family, not the family office
Sixty percent of direct single family office investments are made through a mechanism most outsiders have never heard of. It runs entirely on trust — and entirely out of sight.
Most "family offices" you meet are not family offices. Here's how to tell.
The distinction between SFOs, MFOs, and impostors is often blurred — sometimes deliberately. After meeting over 100 so-called experts in one year, here is what actually separates them.
The trustee in a family office — what the role requires and how to get it right
The legal duties of a trustee are the same whether the assets are held in a pension fund or a family office. The environment they operate in is not. This guide explains what families need to understand before appointing or changing a trustee.
On transitions in a family office — a conversation with PwC
In a conversation with PwC Switzerland's Family Business Stories podcast, Gilles Erulin reflects on three decades inside the Pinault family office — and what that experience reveals about managing transitions.
A practical guide to family office governance: what to keep, what to refuse
Family offices are under pressure to adopt corporate governance frameworks. Most of this pressure is misplaced. This guide argues for a different model — built around the family's actual dynamics, not imported from institutional practice.
How to keep a family entrepreneurial across generations
A large European family keeps the entrepreneurial spirit alive across 200 cousins through an investment committee with an unusual rule: the conversation does not start with money.
What to expect behind family offices' "exclusive clubs"
A new family-office "club" is launched every few weeks. Three categories of peer network actually add value to families and family offices. The rest are almost always selling something else.
Staffing a single family office: the four traits that matter most
Skills can be learned. Character cannot. Across three decades of hiring for families and family offices, the four traits that matter have not changed.
Why ETFs alone are not enough for a family office portfolio
In the last few years, investment committees in family offices have started to recommend ETFs as the default. That is a strange answer to the wrong question. A family's target is not the index.
Westwick was built on the values of the Missi Dominici
Charlemagne's empire was too vast for him to govern directly. He created envoys — the Missi Dominici — who carried his authority across the empire. Westwick Melrose & Cromwell is built along the same lines.
In a family office, "family" comes before "office"
The industry loves to present the family office as the backbone of family unity. It is the other way around. Unity makes the office possible. The office, at its best, reflects and reinforces it.
Why family offices and family businesses should not settle
In a listed company, everyone has a reason to settle. In a family-controlled business, settling when the family knows it has done nothing wrong creates a precedent the family will regret for a generation.
Why top-tier advisers are worth their fees in a billion-dollar M&A deal
When a family is running a billion-dollar transaction, the identity of the bank and the law firm is part of the negotiation. Westwick routinely advises families to hire the best-known names — not for glamour, but for leverage.
Should you outsource your family office? A practical guide to what to keep and what to delegate
The Outsourced Single Family Office has become a dominant industry narrative. For some families it is the right tool. For others it is a strategic error. The decision has almost nothing to do with cost.
Internal liquidity in a family office: how to avoid forced joint ownership across generations
No one should be forced to be in joint ownership. An annual, fairly-priced, organised internal market for shares of the family office is one of the strongest safeguards of long-term family unity.
Twenty-six years inside the Pinault family office: what shaped Westwick's founder
Our founder spent twenty-six years at the single family office of the Pinault family, watching a two-billion portfolio become a fifty-billion empire. What shaped him most was not the growth — it was how the boss led.
Selling a billion-dollar family asset: an 85% uplift between first bid and final price
A Gen-3 family. A single dominant asset. A team that knew the business cold — but had never led a North American M&A. An 85% improvement between the first bid and the price achieved.
There is no war for talent in single family offices
The family-office hiring conversation has been captured by a "talent war" narrative that does not describe the reality inside well-run offices. What actually attracts and retains the people a family needs is a different list — and it has not changed in thirty years.
Why some families paused their private equity allocations in 2026
After a decade of every-vintage allocations, two of the families Westwick works with decided to sit out the 2026 PE vintage. The math, for long-horizon owners, has stopped working the way it used to.
Family business boards: hire competent directors, not just independent ones
Families increasingly hunt for board members who tick the boxes of listed-company governance. Inside a family-controlled business, what matters is not independence. It is competence.
How large families turn meritocracy from a slogan into a system: the induction program
"We choose on merit, not blood" is a common claim in family businesses. Very few families have the mechanism to make it true. One European family runs its next generation through an induction program that does.
Single Family Office: three archetypes for efficient transmission
When deciding what a family office is for, families can (and must) choose between three archetypes. Each serves a different purpose; each has a different risk profile; and each dictates what the rest of the structure should look like.
Why family offices should never invest in what they don't understand
Every investment fashion eventually produces a moment where a family is told they are being left behind. The simplest discipline in a family office is to say no to anything the family cannot explain.
Checkpoint for Family Members: Are you the owner of your wealth, or its custodian?
Two legitimate visions of inherited wealth coexist in most families. Until the family agrees on which one it holds, the family office will not run properly.
Family office exits: when a discount on a departing member's share is justified
If a departing member forces a fire sale of assets, a pricing adjustment is not a punishment. It is the recognition of a real economic impact borne by everyone who stays.
Use case: designing and facilitating a family transmission workshop
Two days, three generations, and four questions. Westwick Melrose & Cromwell is sometimes asked to design and facilitate the workshops that begin a family's transmission process. Here is what those sessions look like.
Art as a family asset — where to start.
After twelve years on the board of Christie's, Westwick has seen both sides of the art market. For families, art is seldom a pure investment. It is a part of the family's soul, and it needs its own discipline.
How to structure a family office — a practical framework
Most of the "ideal" SFO blueprints presented to families miss what actually matters. A structure is a tool — its quality is measured by how well it serves the family's purpose and how easily it can be unwound when the world changes.
Why families holding gold long-term should own it physically
A gold ETF is only useful for as long as the market that trades it is functioning. Physical gold is the asset that survives the moment when everything else stops.
When a family member wants to leave the family office
An exit does not have to be a failure. Done well, it strengthens the office. Done badly, it plants the seed of disunion for a generation. The first exit sets the rule for all the ones that follow.
Why families create wealth — and the investment industry only redistributes it
Most of the wealth that fuels modern markets was made by families, long before private equity, hedge funds or crypto existed. Families are not a late-arriving client segment for the investment industry.
Why family unity is the first rule of long-term wealth
A family we know burned a billion dollars by breaking the one rule that matters most in a family office. Unity is not a soft value. It is the precondition for every other decision.
How to pay family members who sit on the board: a practical guide
Board fees are often higher than a cousin's annual salary. Without a clear appointment and compensation rule, the family will fracture. Westwick has seen two options that actually hold.
How family offices can stay immune to market volatility: our advice
Volatility is a worry for investors paid on mark-to-market. Families are not. When the market falls, a family office is a buyer. When it rises, perhaps a seller. Often, simply, neither.
The chairman's role in a family business: a practical guide
Across ten chairmanships of family-controlled companies, Westwick keeps resetting the same confusion: the chair is not the boss. The CEO runs the company. The chair runs the board.
Use case: stepping into a family office when the CEO has left overnight
A Saturday morning call from a lawyer. A burnt-out CEO gone by Monday. A negotiation at a critical moment. Four days later, Westwick was in the seat — and an eight-month mandate turned a crisis into a working family office.
How to structure bonuses in a single family office
A family office CIO managing a billion should not be paid ten times a CIO managing a hundred million — for the same job. Bonuses should reflect contribution, not the size of the family's balance sheet.
Why silence is disloyalty in a family office
A family's principal is entitled to hear the thing nobody else will say. Inside a family office, silence is disloyalty. The job is to speak — politely, plainly, and on the record.
A creative exit for a regulated family asset
A regulated business in run-off. Highly qualified staff that could not simply be let go. An unexpected creative exit — one that protected the family, the people, and the knowledge.
Why families should build a forty-year relationship with their bank
When the market is calm, bankers compete on commissions, products and rates. When it drops 10% in three days, the only thing that matters is who has been in the relationship for twenty years.
Why a butler's mindset is the right posture in a family office
The word "butler" is easily misunderstood. What Westwick means by it is a specific professional posture — excellent service, the family's interest held above one's own, at all times.
Why family offices should choose conviction over diversification
"We need to diversify" has become the default mantra of every investment committee. Families are not about diversifying. They are about choosing.
Meritocracy vs. Heiritocracy: a family name is a responsibility, not a privilege.
When your last name is on the door, average is not available. Young heirs inside a family business carry a weight most outsiders cannot see.
Why we serve the family, not the family office
The family office world has two kinds of professionals: those who serve the office, and those who serve the family. Over thirty years, Westwick has watched the balance tip the wrong way.
What should our family wealth stand for? A values alignment guide for UHNW families
Aligning family wealth with shared values is one of the defining challenges of multigenerational wealth planning. A step-by-step guide to translating shared family principles into a coherent capital strategy.