All Resources
Social Contract 2021
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published on WealthManagement.com February 2021 The year 2021 started with a bang, not a whimper. The pain, confusion, conflicts and challenges that families face in the United States and around the world defy description.…
Corporate or Individual Trustee?
By Patricia M. Angus, published in NAPFA, February 2021 Selecting a trustee for family trusts is one of the most important decisions a client will make. This article offers some context and guidance on how you can help your clients make…
Permanent Rifts or Temporary Fissures?
Advising clients and bridging divides in a time of turmoil By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published on Trust and Estates on January 19, 2021 When I started writing under the theme “building bridges,” eight years ago, I had two goals in…
Family Enterprise in The Center of it All
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published on WealthManagement.com, December 2020 It’s impossible to look at 2020 and not see family enterprises in the center of the astounding confluence of events that shook the world in the past year. Family…
Carter Center Legacy Circle: Your Values and Your Legacy
Often, the guiding principles or values that ground our perspective and shape our resilience are unspoken, or, more often, unwritten. By focusing on our values, we can come to know ourselves better, and we can be intentional about sharing the…
COVID Conversations
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in WealthManagement.com April 2020 By now, unless you work in health care or an “essential business,” you’ve likely settled into “self-isolation” mode. Working at home, your family is now nearby—physically and/or on the…
What Role Should a Family Business Play in Its Community?
By Patricia M. Angus, published in Harvard Business Review, February 06, 2020 As a family business leader, you must ask: what is your understanding of the “social contract” today, in 2020? How do the family and other stakeholders view the multiple…
Founding Women of Family Wealth
Patricia Angus convened the Founding Women of Family Wealth for a series of panel discussions exploring the practitioner perspective, at Columbia Business School Global Family Enterprise Program. Below are links to: “What is wealth?” and “Competition vs. Collaboration”:
Family Enterprise in the Spotlight: Key Takeaways from the Sackler Family Enterprise Story
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published by Columbia Business School Family Business Program in 2020 Introduction: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid crisis was considered by many to be the greatest public health threat to the well-being of…
Dream it up, Pass it down: A Guide to Legacy Giving at 92Y
Patricia joins Emily Tisch Sussman, host of Your Primary Playlist podcast, for a lively and educational discussion on wealth planning for and with the next generation. Recorded December 11, 2019, at the 92nd Street Y.
How Should a Family Firm Approach an Ethical Dilemma?
Family firms comprise between 70 and 90% of economic activity depending on the country or region, so the impact of family business ethics can be dramatic. In this conversation, Columbia Business School Professor Patricia Angus and IAE Professor Pedro Vazquez,…
Practice, Practice, Practice: Musings on being a “Practitioner”
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in FFI Practitioner, July 16, 2019 In this edition of FFI Practitioner, Patricia examines what it truly means to be a “Practitioner” and the impact of ongoing practice when working with family enterprise clients.
Who’s in Charge?
A new model for understanding family business ownership By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in Trusts & Estates, March 2019 Family businesses are complex in many ways. They’re inevitably a mix of entrepreneurial spirit, family connections, business challenges and evolutionary processes…
Columbia Business School discussion on Enterprising Families: Challenges, Opportunities, and Keys to Success
Many families today co-own complex businesses, trusts, and investments, but there’s no single guidebook for these enterprising families on how to do all this together, with meaning, purpose, and impact. In this webinar, Columbia Business School’s Patricia Angus — a…
House of Redstone: Family Enterprise in Three Acts
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published on Columbia CaseWorks, Fall 2018 What family enterprise, ownership, and governance lessons can be gleaned from the multigenerational saga of the Redstone family?
A Rose by Any Other Name:
Family firm terminology as a divider or unifier?
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in FFI Practitioner, July 31, 2018 In this edition of FFI, Patricia reflects on the complexities of defining some key terminology in the field.
Weddings, Engagements and Prenups
Help clients address the “what ifs” before the “I dos.” By Marvin Blum – Originally published on Trusts and Estates in February 2018. Tying the knot. Settling down. Getting hitched. Taking the plunge. Regardless of what you call it, getting…
Governance for Business-Owning Families (Part II): It starts at the top
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in WealthManagement.com March 2018 The world is full of family businesses. Literally. Most of the world’s businesses are owned, controlled and often managed by a group of family members.1 These families face challenges…
Are You Wealthy?
Wealth of Wisdom Podcast, Episode 21, 2018 In the first chapter of the book, Wealth of Wisdom (McCullough & Whitaler), Patricia Angus tells a fascinating story about a conversation she had with a cab driver about wealth and life and…
Six Ways To Improve Family Business Governance
All business-owning families already have governance in place on multiple levels, but it’s often overlooked. By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in Trusts & Estates, March 15, 2017 Families who own businesses often overlook the challenge that is “governing” all…
Themes for Family Businesses in 2023
Uncertainty and digitalization are among the challenges. By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in Trusts & Estates, December 2022 Will 2023 be the year that…
From Textiles to Multi-generational Wealth: The Shah Family Enterprise
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published on Columbia CaseWorks, Spring 2024 What are the factors that drove a family-owned chemical company’s success, and how…
Trust Ownership of Family Businesses:
Planning for the Future
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in Trusts & Estates, February 2024 The scenario is all too common. The founders (or non-founding owners) of a…
Everything Everywhere All at Once?
Family Enterprises in 2024
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in Trusts & Estates, January 2024 The 2023 Academy Awards ceremony was quite a sweep for the film Everything…
Audiobook – The Beneficiary Primer: A Guide for Beneficiaries of Family Trusts
Have you been named as beneficiary of a family trust? Does it feel overwhelming? Are you looking for some practical information to get up to…
Wealth Transfer Between Generations, Primer for Trustees and Beneficiaries
In this episode of the podcast Talking Billions, Patricia talks with Bogumil Baranowski of Sicart Associates, LLC. Together they explore:Trusts: what they are, where they…
Complex Family Enterprise: A new way to describe a growing phenomenon
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in Trusts & Estates, March 2023 Trusts and estates practitioners (for example, lawyers, accountants and investment advisors) take their…
Review of Reviews: “How Should Inheritance Law Remediate Inequality?” 97 Wash. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2022)
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in Trusts & Estates, November 2022 Inequality—or rather, disparity—of wealth is perhaps the most complex and vexing issue of…
Your Family Business Needs a Board
By Patricia M. Angus, published in Harvard Business Review, September 08, 2022 A board should be at the helm of any family business, steering the business…
Mental Health and Estate Planning
Patricia joins Arden O’Connor of the Beyond the Balance Sheet podcast in a discussion about estate planning with mental health and addiction issues in mind….
In Tax We Trust: Implications of growing societal and client trends
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published on WealthManagement.com on February 13, 2022 Most private wealth advisors (including trusts and estates lawyers, accountants and investment…
Virtual Fireside Chat with Leading Family Enterprise and Family Office Experts
The role of family offices in structuring and advising families with regards to liquidity events and family dynamics. Strategies for families to intelligently run and manage the risks associated with private wealth and operating businesses concurrently…
The Family Governance Pyramid: Enhancing and Guiding Your Family Philanthropy
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published in NCFP’s Passages July 2021 OVERVIEW Family philanthropy is a very important expression of a family’s commitment to…
Sustainable Growth Drivers for Family Enterprises
This webinar draws from the experiences of different stakeholders, explores how family businesses in Africa have evolved, the challenges faced, and the main drivers behind…
The Purpose and Power of Family Governance
By Patricia M. Angus – Originally published as a blogpost for NCFP, June, 2021Excerpt from “Passages Issue Brief: Enhancing Your Family Philanthropy with The Family Governance…
How Should Wealthy Parents Treat Wayward Offspring?
by Emma Jacobs – Originally published in Financial Times on May 26, 2021Giving children too much money, too early, risks indulging them and making them…
Tamarind Learning Podcast: The Beneficiary Primer
In this podcast, Patricia Angus, Managing Director of the Global Family Enterprising Program and Faculty Director of the Enterprising Family Executive Program at Columbia University…
Primer on Family Trust Beneficiaries:
Things to Consider
In this episode of FFI Practitioner‘s weekly podcast, FFI Fellow Patricia Angus discusses her most recent book, The Beneficiary Primer: A Guide for Beneficiaries of Family…
Tamarind Learning Podcast: The Trustee Primer
In this podcast, Patricia Angus, Managing Director of the Global Family Enterprising Program and Faculty Director of the Enterprising Family Executive Program at Columbia University discusses her book, The Trustee Primer, with Kirby Rosplock, PhD, Founder and CEO of Tamarind Partners.
Guidance for Family Offices: How to approach ESG investing
By Patricia Angus and Camille Korschun – Originally published in Family Enterprise Insights, March 2021 Introduction: Environmental, Social, and Governance investing (ESG investing) is an…