Deciding whether to establish a family office is often one of the most important choices wealthy families make. A wide range of factors shape this decision. In this article, we examine three of them by comparing four wealthy families and their approaches to managing their fortunes.
María Asunción Aramburuzabala formed family office Tresalia Capital after her father Pablo – executive vice president of Grupo Modelo, the brewer of Corona beer that his own father Felix founded after the Mexican Revolution – died unexpectedly of cancer in 1995 at age 63 with no finalized succession plan. Today she is worth an estimated $8.2 billion, making her Mexico’s wealthiest woman and Latin America’s second after Chilean mining magnate Iris Fontbana. Her story holds three valuable lessons for today’s family office builders.
Today’s family offices face two challenges that seem to work against each other: keeping talented staff and controlling costs. Recent industry research shows this phenomenon to be widespread. Simply paying higher salaries is not the answer. The way forward is to invest in modern technology that transforms how family offices operate.
For ultra-wealthy families, a family bank represents both a powerful conceptual framework and, in some cases, a formally structured approach to deploying capital. More than just a financial tool, family banking creates a foundation for fostering legacy that extends far beyond numbers on balance sheets. Here we explore this model, explain how it integrates with family office operations, and highlight key considerations that modern family office builders should understand when implementing this time-tested approach.
In the realm of impact investing – making investments to simultaneously achieve financial returns and contribute to the greater good – blended finance is emerging as a popular strategy. In 2024, the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) found that 43% of surveyed impact investors said they had participated in a blended finance deal since 2021, and 24% said they planned to in the future. This article breaks down the basics UHNWIs should know about blended finance and its essential ingredient: catalytic capital.
Across Western Europe, ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) women are asserting an increasingly influential role in impact investing. They currently oversee some €4.6 trillion in assets, a sum set to swell by nearly half over the next decade (McKinsey & Company via Bloomberg, 2024). This rising financial influence is shifting private capital’s priorities. No longer content with purely financial returns, these investors seek to channel wealth toward causes that reflect their values. Digital platforms that offer transparency, control, and seamless alignment with personal convictions have become key tools in this transformation.
Impact investing – allocating capital to generate measurable social or environmental benefits alongside financial returns – has become a strategic choice for UHNWIs. Far from a passing trend, it aligns with their goals of creating lasting legacies while addressing pressing global challenges. This article explores five key reasons why.
In an era where digital breaches make headlines and banking giants can falter overnight, UHNWIs face ongoing challenges in safeguarding their wealth. This article explores how fintech firms are emerging as the new sentinels of financial security, offering enhanced protection through purpose-built technology, unprecedented transparency, and rigorous compliance.
Technology is reshaping every industry, and finance is no exception. Fintechs — financial technology companies — are at the forefront of this transformation. While mass-market fintechs like Revolut, Klarna, and Robinhood dominate headlines with their focus on streamlining finances for consumers and retail investors, UHNWIs have a fundamentally different requirement: leveraging technology to liberate themselves and their advisors to focus on the strategic decisions, relationships, and communications that humans handle better than machines.
According to EY, in 2025 private equity (PE) firms' emphasis on growth through improved operations will be a key trend shaping the sector. The consultancy identifies data and analytics capabilities as playing a crucial role in PE growth strategy, particularly for meeting stakeholders' increasing demands for greater transparency into performance, risk management, and value creation strategies. For PE firms looking to capitalize on this trend, focusing on three specific data analytics capabilities can provide a significant competitive advantage.
In February 2025, when US President Trump signed an executive order to formulate a plan for creating a federal-level sovereign wealth fund (SWF), it highlighted a growing recognition of the importance of such financial structures when it comes to preserving and growing national wealth management. With trillions under management, SWFs often demonstrate remarkable resilience during economic downturns and market volatility.
In a world where data rivals oil in value, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are prioritizing data sovereignty to ensure that only they — and the wealthy governments they serve — control their critical financial information. UHNWIs and their advisors should take note: they can adopt SWF-inspired strategies to protect sensitive wealth data from geopolitical and cyber risks.
Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are investing heavily in digital infrastructure and advanced analytics to sharpen their decision-making and optimise performance. For UHNW individuals and families, these moves to digitalise offer a compelling model for elevating management of private wealth.
Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have long shaped financial markets through meticulous governance, multi-decade foresight, and strategic asset allocation. Now, a growing number of affluent families see parallels between SWFs’ institutional rigor and the framework required to achieve meaningful, long-term philanthropy. By weaving in principles like transparency, diversification, and disciplined governance — plus leveraging platforms such as Altoo’s for centralised oversight — families can better direct their capital toward sustained global impact.
Following our exploration of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) governance frameworks in our previous article, this second piece on the SWF-UHNWI connection examines how the investment strategies of these massive state-owned vehicles offer valuable principles that UHNWIs can adapt to their own wealth management approaches.
Securing diversified wealth is a never-ending process. In this process, market and economic forces are among the most widely discussed and analysed factors when it comes to future-proofing portfolios.
Whether you’re looking for a net-new wealth management platform, or looking to make a change, customer satisfaction should always be a top priority. It’s important to make sure your wealth management platform provider can deliver both the technology and the service that you need.
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Deciding whether to establish a family office is often one of the most important choices wealthy families make. A wide range of factors shape this decision. In this article, we examine three of them by comparing four wealthy families and their approaches to managing their fortunes.
María Asunción Aramburuzabala formed family office Tresalia Capital after her father Pablo – executive vice president of Grupo Modelo, the brewer of Corona beer that his own father Felix founded after the Mexican Revolution – died unexpectedly of cancer in 1995 at age 63 with no finalized succession plan. Today she is worth an estimated $8.2 billion, making her Mexico’s wealthiest woman and Latin America’s second after Chilean mining magnate Iris Fontbana. Her story holds three valuable lessons for today’s family office builders.
Today’s family offices face two challenges that seem to work against each other: keeping talented staff and controlling costs. Recent industry research shows this phenomenon to be widespread. Simply paying higher salaries is not the answer. The way forward is to invest in modern technology that transforms how family offices operate.
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María Asunción Aramburuzabala formed family office Tresalia Capital after her father Pablo – executive vice president of Grupo Modelo, the brewer of Corona beer that his own father Felix founded after the Mexican Revolution – died unexpectedly of cancer in 1995 at age 63 with no finalized succession plan. Today she is worth an estimated $8.2 billion, making her Mexico’s wealthiest woman and Latin America’s second after Chilean mining magnate Iris Fontbana. Her story holds three valuable lessons for today’s family office builders.
