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A family office can employ world-class advisers, sophisticated investment strategies and carefully designed legal structures. Yet none of these determine whether wealth survives the transition from one generation to the next.
As families become more multinational and ownership passes to increasingly diverse generations, questions that were once understood become far more complex. Decision-making, leadership, ownership expectations and the responsibilities that accompany wealth all need to be defined long before they are tested.
Few people have spent as much time helping families navigate those questions as Ross Osborn. Over more than 25 years, he has advised ultra-high-net-worth families across leading private wealth centres on governance, succession and wealth preservation.
His experience as both a Family Council Member and Single Family Office Board Member means he has seen these challenges from inside the family as well as alongside its advisers.
His observation reflects a simple reality: a successful family office depends as much on how the family governs itself as on how it manages its assets.
A thoughtfully designed Family Charter creates a shared framework for values, accountability and long-term stewardship.
A family charter is often mistaken for a document that simply records family values but in practice, it performs a practical role.
While trusts, shareholder agreements and constitutions establish the legal foundations of wealth, a family charter sets out how the family intends to work together. It establishes expectations around succession, ownership, family employment, education, decision-making and dispute resolution before differing opinions become entrenched.
Research by the Williams Group found that around 70 per cent of family wealth is lost by the second generation and 90 per cent by the third, not primarily because of poor investment decisions, but because of failures in communication, governance and trust.
Williams Group
The same governance gap remains evident today. UBS’s Global Family Office Report 2024 found that only 44 per cent of family offices have an overall governance framework, while fewer than half have a formal wealth succession plan for family members.
A family charter cannot eliminate disagreement, nor should it attempt to. Families evolve, priorities change and different generations will inevitably bring different perspectives.
What a charter does provide is an agreed process for navigating those changes. Rather than leaving difficult decisions to future generations, it establishes principles for how they should be approached. Questions around ownership, leadership, philanthropy or family participation are considered before they become sources of conflict.
For younger family members, the value extends beyond governance, as a charter introduces the thinking behind the family’s wealth, helping them understand not only what they may inherit, but the responsibilities that come with it.
In that sense, it becomes less about transferring assets and more about preparing future custodians.
Ross Osborn’s experience reinforces that point. Having served as both a Family Council Member and a Single Family Office Board Member, he provides complementary perspectives. One represents the interests of the family itself; the other provides independent oversight of the family office. A thoughtfully developed family charter helps connect those perspectives, giving both the family and its advisers a common point of reference when important decisions need to be made.
The strongest charters are not drafted once and forgotten but are strongly developed within the family, revisited over time and refined as circumstances change. As new generations become involved, businesses evolve and ownership becomes more dispersed, the charter should evolve with them.
No document can guarantee family harmony, but families that take the time to agree on expectations before they are tested are often better placed to navigate change when it inevitably arrives. That is why a family charter matters.
To read Ross Osborn’s full perspective on family governance and find out practical insights on building an enduring family office, download The Private Client’s guide to Building legacy, Protecting wealth, Creating impact in 2026.
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