Different generations. Different countries. Different ambitions.
Family governance creates a framework for how decisions are made, how responsibilities pass between generations, and how a family maintains continuity when circumstances change.
The moment is recognisable. Three children in three countries. A business that still runs through one person's phone. A second marriage. A son who wants in and a daughter who does not. Nothing written down, and everybody being polite about it.
Established families addressed this a long time ago, and not with cleverness. With process: everyone in one room, on a fixed date, with an agenda, and someone taking minutes.
What we do.
Family assembly. Facilitated sessions on a fixed annual rhythm, with an agenda, a chair who is not a family member, and a written record. Most families have never had one and are surprised how much it changes.
Decision rights. Who decides what, at what threshold, and who has to be consulted first. Written down while nobody is angry.
The succession map. Refreshed every year: who would do what, who is actually ready, and what the gap is.
Continuity. What happens in the first seventy-two hours if the principal is suddenly unavailable. Who calls whom, who has authority, where the documents are.
Family constitution. Written as a separate mandate, deliberately. A charter drafted in your first year would leave your second year empty, and this is a relationship rather than a document.
What this is not. Not a trust. Not a tax structure. Not investment advice. We give none of those.
Why families raise it second. Nobody joins a club to write a family charter. Families come for their children, they stay because someone is finally holding the calendar, and they raise governance about a year in — usually a month after something happens.