Westwick Partners
Services

Family governance and succession.

Independent facilitation for the decisions a family takes together: how it governs its wealth, how the next generation takes its place, and how the office follows. We do not hand over a ready-made charter. The family writes its own.

When the family has decisions to take.

  • The principal wants to prepare the succession while they can still lead it.
  • Branches or generations want different things from the same wealth.
  • The family has rules nobody ever wrote down, and wants them on paper.
  • A family council needs an independent chair.

Around a table, not around a will.

A succession prepared in the principal's lifetime is a family project before it is a legal act. Parents learn what their children want from the wealth; children understand what their parents have carried.

  • Facilitation

    We prepare and lead the family meetings, so that every generation is heard and the conversation stays on the decisions to take.

  • Governance in writing

    We help the family put its decisions on paper: a family constitution, decision rights, the rules for family members who work in the office.

  • An independent chair

    A partner can chair the family council as an independent, for a period the family sets.

  • The office follows

    We turn the family's decisions into how the office works, so that governance does not stay on paper.

Gilles ErulinAymeric ErulinLed by Gilles Erulin and Aymeric Erulin

How it runs.

  • A first exchange

    With a partner, usually with the principal first.

  • A letter of engagement

    Who takes part, the number of meetings and the decisions to reach, agreed before we start.

  • Meetings, then writing

    The family meets, decides and writes; we prepare, lead, draft with the family and hand over the documents.

Questions we are asked.

  • 01 Do you write the family constitution?

    The family writes it, with our help. A charter written by an outsider is rarely followed; one the family has argued over usually is.

  • 02 Who takes part?

    Whoever the family decides: usually the principals and the next generation, sometimes in-laws. The office team joins when the decisions reach the office.

  • 03 How does this relate to the legal side of a succession?

    Wills, trusts and tax planning stay with the family's lawyers and trustees. We work on the family's side of the succession, and with those advisers.

Contact Gilles.

Write to Gilles